View source for Leonardo Bruni

{{Short description|Italian humanist historian (c. 1370–1444)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2025}}
[[File:Walker Art Gallery, Leonard Bruni.jpg|thumb|Bruni]]

'''Leonardo Bruni'''{{efn|{{IPAc-en|ˈ|b|r|uː|n|i}}; {{IPA|it|ˈbruːni|lang}}}} or '''Leonardo Aretino''' ({{circa|1370}} – 9 March 1444) was an [[Italians|Italian]] [[humanism|humanist]], historian and statesman, often recognized as the most important humanist historian of the early [[Renaissance]].<ref name="Ianziti 2012 p. 432">{{cite book |last=Ianziti |first=Gary |title=Writing History in Renaissance Italy: Leonardo Bruni and the Uses of the Past |year=2012 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-06326-6 |oclc=770009459 |page=432 |doi=10.4159/harvard.9780674063266}}</ref> He has been called the first modern historian.<ref name=hankins-2001>{{harvnb|Bruni|Hankins|2001}}</ref> He was the earliest person to write using the three-period view of history: [[Ancient history|Antiquity]], [[Middle Ages]], and [[Modern history|Modern]]. The dates Bruni used to define the periods are not exactly what modern historians use today, but he laid the conceptual groundwork for a tripartite division of history.<ref>Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "[[wikisource:1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bruni, Leonardo|Bruni, Leonardo]]". ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. '''4''' (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 684.</ref>

==Biography==
Leonardo Bruni was born in [[Arezzo]], [[Tuscany]] circa 1370. Bruni was the pupil of political and cultural leader [[Coluccio Salutati]], whom he succeeded as [[Chancellor of Florence]], and under whose tutelage he developed his ideation of [[civic humanism]]. He also served as apostolic secretary to four popes (1405–1414).<ref name="hankins-2001"/> Bruni's years as chancellor, 1410 to 1411 and again from 1427 to his death in 1444, were plagued by warfare. Though he occupied one of the highest political offices, Bruni was relatively powerless compared to the [[Albizzi]] and [[Medici]] families. Historian Arthur Field has identified Bruni as an apparent plotter against [[Cosimo de' Medici]] in 1437 (see below). Bruni died in 1444 in Florence and was succeeded in office by [[Carlo Marsuppini]].

==Significance==
[[File:Bruni - De primo bello punico, circa 1471 - 2365945.jpg|thumb|''De primo bello punico'', 1471]]
Bruni's most notable work is ''Historiarum Florentini populi libri XII'' (History of the Florentine People, 12 Books), which has been called the first modern history book.<ref name=hankins-2001/> While it probably was not Bruni's intention to [[Secularism| secularise]] history, the three-period view of history is unquestionably secular, and so Bruni has been called the first modern historian.<ref name=hankins-2001/> The foundation of Bruni's conception can be found with [[Petrarch]], who distinguished the classical period from later cultural decline, or ''tenebrae'' (literally "darkness"). Bruni argued that Italy had revived in recent centuries and could therefore be described as entering a new age.

One of Bruni's most famous works is ''New Cicero'', a biography of the Roman statesman [[Cicero]]. He was also the author of biographies in Italian of [[Dante Alighieri|Dante]] and [[Petrarch]].<ref>Burke, Edmund (1908). "[[wikisource:Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Leonardo Bruni|Leonardo Bruni]]". In ''Catholic Encyclopedia''. '''3'''. New York: Robert Appleton Company.</ref> It was Bruni who used the phrase ''[[studia humanitatis]]'', meaning the study of human endeavours, as distinct from those of theology and metaphysics, the source of the term [[humanists]].

As a humanist, Bruni was essential in translating into Latin many works of Greek philosophy and history, such as [[Aristotle]] and [[Procopius]]. Bruni's translations of Aristotle's ''[[Politics (Aristotle)|Politics]]'' and ''[[Nicomachean Ethics]]'', as well as the pseudo-Aristotelean ''[[Economics (Aristotle)|Economics]]'', were widely distributed in manuscript and in print. His use of [[Aelius Aristides]]' ''[[Panathenicus (Panegyric to Athens)]]'' to buttress his republican theses in the ''[[Laudatio florentinae urbis|Panegyric to the City of Florence]]'' ({{Circa|1401}}) was instrumental in bringing the Greek historian to the attention of Renaissance political philosophers (see [[Hans Baron]]'s ''The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance'' for details). He also wrote a short treatise in Greek on the Florentine constitution.<ref>Stuart M. McManus, 'Byzantines in the Florentine polis: Ideology, Statecraft and ritual during the Council of Florence', ''The Journal of the Oxford University History Society'', 6 (Michaelmas 2008/Hilary 2009), pp. 8-10</ref>

Bruni was one of the first Humanists to confront Plato's discussion of same-sex relationships.<ref name="Reeser 2015 ch. 2">{{cite book |last=Reeser |first=Todd W. |title=Setting Plato Straight: Translating Ancient Sexuality in the Renaissance |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2015 |isbn=978-0-226-30714-5 |pages=62–86 |chapter=The Antithesis of Same-Sex Sexuality in Bruni |oclc=1058327032 |chapter-url={{GBurl|id=s0cECwAAQBAJ|pg=PA62}} |via=Google Books partial preview}}</ref>

Bruni died in Florence in 1444, and is buried in a wall tomb by [[Bernardo Rossellino]] in the [[Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence]].<ref name="Levey 1967 pp. 57–59">{{cite book |last=Levey |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Levey |title=Early Renaissance |publisher=Penguin |year=1967 |isbn=978-0-14-020914-3 |publication-place=Harmondsworth |pages=57–59 |oclc=643556184}}</ref>

==Works==
===Latin text and English translation===
* {{cite book
 |last=Bruni
 |first=Leonardo
 |author-mask=0
 |year=2001
 |title=History of the Florentine People
 |volume=1
 |editor-last=Hankins
 |editor-first=James
 |editor-link=James Hankins
 |translator-last=Hankins
 |translator-first=James
 |publisher=Harvard University Press
 |publication-place=Cambridge, MA, US
 |isbn=978-0-674-00506-8
 |oclc=885793795
 |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofflorent00brun
 |via=Internet Archive
 |ref={{SfnRef|Bruni|Hankins|2001}}
}}
* {{cite book
 |last=Bruni
 |first=Leonardo
 |author-mask=0
 |year=2004
 |title=History of the Florentine People
 |volume=2
 |editor-last=Hankins
 |editor-first=James
 |editor-link=James Hankins
 |translator-last=Hankins
 |translator-first=James
 |publisher=Harvard University Press
 |publication-place=Cambridge, MA, US
 |isbn=978-0-674-01066-6
 |oclc=886418411
 |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofflorent00brun_0
 |via=Internet Archive
 |ref=none
}}
* {{cite book
 |last=Bruni
 |first=Leonardo
 |author-mask=0
 |title=History of the Florentine People
 |volume=3
 |editor-last=Hankins
 |editor-first=James
 |editor-link=James Hankins
 |translator-last=Hankins
 |translator-first=James
 |publisher=Harvard University Press
 |publication-place=Cambridge, MA, US
 |year=2007<!--Worldcat lists it as 2001 but I have the book & it is 2007.-->
 |isbn=978-0-674-01682-8
 |oclc=316781359
 |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofflorent0003brun
 |via=Internet Archive
 |ref=none
}}

===Latin texts online===
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20061029203005/http://www.bibliotecaitaliana.it:6336/dynaweb/bibit/autori/b/bruni/an_vulgus ''An vulgus et literati eodem modo per Terentii Tullique tempora Romae locuti sint'']
* [http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/Visualiseur?Destination=Gallica&O=NUMM-70227 ''Calphurnia et Gurgulia''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210318182323/http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/Visualiseur?Destination=Gallica&O=NUMM-70227 |date=2021-03-18 }}
* [http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/Visualiseur?Destination=Gallica&O=NUMM-60187 ''De Bello Gallico Adversus Gothos''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201123210805/http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/Visualiseur?Destination=Gallica&O=NUMM-60187 |date=2020-11-23 }}
* {{cite book
 |      last1 = Bruni
 |     first1 = Leonardo
 |      title = Historiarum Florentinarum libri XII : quibus accesserunt quorundam suo tempore in Italia gestorum & de rebus Græcis commentarii
 |        url = https://archive.org/details/leonardiaretinih00brun
 | access-date = October 9, 2010
 |       year = 1610
 |   orig-year = 1442
 |  publisher = Lazarus Zetzner
 |   location = Strassburg
 |   language = la
 |        ref = none
 |       oclc = 288009927 }} Digitized from a copy at the [https://web.archive.org/web/20080727101213/http://johnadamslibrary.org/ John Adams Library].
* [https://archive.today/20130112124422/http://www.aussagenlogik.org/leonardo-bruni-de-studiis-litteris/ ''De studijs et litteris ad illustem dominam baptistam de malatesta tractatulus. Leipzig 1496.'']
* [https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/eos/eos_page.pl?DPI=100&callnum=Ms_35&object=187 Epistola ad Baptistam de Malatestis.]
* [http://la.wikisource.org/wiki/De_interpretatione_recta De interpretatione recta] on [[Wikisource]]
* [http://openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/0023/html/lewis_e_054.html Lewis E 54 De primo bello punico (On the first Punic War) at OPenn]

===German texts online===
* [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/Rosenwald.0064.1 De duobus amantibus Guiscardo et Sigismunda.] Ulm, Johann Zainer, ca. 1476–1477. From the [https://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/ Rare Book and Special Collections Division] at the [[Library of Congress]]

==Notes==
{{Notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==
* Baron, Hans. "Leonardo Bruni: 'Professional Rhetorician' or 'Civic Humanist'?." ''Past & present'' 36 (1967): 21–37.  [https://www.jstor.org/stable/649913 online]
* Field, Arthur: "Leonardi Bruni, Florentine traitor? Bruni, the Medici, and an Aretine conspiracy of 1437", ''Renaissance Quarterly''  51 (1998): 1109–50.
* Fryde, Edmund. "The beginnings of Italian humanist historiography: the ‘New Cicero’of Leonardo Bruni." ''English Historical Review'' 95#376 (1980): 533–552. 
* Hankins, James. "Humanism in the vernacular: the case of Leonardo Bruni." (2006). [https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/5479652/WittFS.pdf?sequence=1 online]
* Hankins, James. "The" Baron Thesis" after Forty Years and Some Recent Studies of Leonardo Bruni." ''Journal of the History of Ideas'' 56.2 (1995): 309-338. [http://www.academia.edu/download/43929489/HankinsJHI1995_2.pdf online]{{dead link|date=January 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}
* Hankins, James: ''Repertorium Brunianum: a critical guide to the writings of Leonardo Bruni,''  Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 1997
* [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9016783/Leonardo-Bruni "Leonardo Bruni"]. In ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'' Online.
*Demetrios K. Giannakopoulos, " Renaissance and Political Modernity. Αρετίνου Λεονάρδου ″Περί Πολιτείας Φλορεντίνων″. Ιntroduction-Text -Comments (Herodotos ed. Athens 2018)

==External links==
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{{EB1911 poster|Bruni, Leonardo}}
* {{Librivox author |id=11667}}

{{Social and political philosophy}}
{{Political philosophy}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bruni, Leonardo}}
[[Category:1370s births]]
[[Category:1444 deaths]]
[[Category:15th-century writers in Latin]]
[[Category:Greek–Latin translators]]
[[Category:Italian Renaissance humanists]]
[[Category:Italian Renaissance writers]]
[[Category:People from Arezzo]]
[[Category:Translation theorists]]