Ferrone, Silvano (trans.), Francesco Petrarca De Viris Illustribus bk. II (Firenze: Casa Editrice Le Lettere)
Text name(s): De Viris Illustribus; On the Lives of Famous Men
Number of pages of primary source text: 111
Author(s):
Dates: 1338 - 1364
Archival Reference:
Original Language(s):
- Latin
Translation:
- Translated into another language (see translation comments).
- Original language included.
Translation Comments: Ferrone uses the critical edition of Guido Martellotti (1964 Sansoni press) to establish the original Latin text of this translation
Geopolitical Region(s):
County/Region:
Record Types:
- Biography
Subject Headings:
- Philosophy - Ethics / Moral Theology
- Literature - Other
- Classics / Humanism
- Piety - Lay
Apparatus:
- Index
- Bibliography
- Introduction
Comments:
Among the many literary models which attracted Petrarch’s attention from early in his life, the genre of biography and its manifestation in the format of the several authors who wrote a De Viris Illustribus was of particular interest to him. The reason for this centers on the fact that in a De Viris Illustribus, the author takes particular interest in presenting the life of an individual as a vehicle for teaching moral behavior. For Plutarch, who wrote parallel biographies on famous Greeks and Romans, or Suetonius, who wrote about the lives of the first Roman emperors, moral behavior was framed in the context of moral philosophy and ethics. Jerome and authors in subsequent centuries adopted this model, but chose the lives of famous Christians and framed moral behavior in the context of Christian piety. As such, Petrarch inherited a biographical tradition with two halves which he sought to merge into one whole in his De Viris Illustribus. This effort to merge both the Classical and the Christian is the hallmark of an individual frequently described as the father of humanisim.
There are two books in Petrarch’s De Viris Illustribus, book I which focuses on the lives of Romans who most captivated his attention (reviewed in a separate entry on OMSB), and book II which focuses on prominent biblical figures intermingled with some Greek mythological figures and Mesopotamian rulers as well. In this volume Ferrone presents book II of Petrarch’s text. The individuals featured are selected for their value for teaching moral principles which include: Adam, Noah, Nembroth, Ninus, Semiramis, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Jason, Hercules.
While the lives of each of these is adduced to teach piety, such efforts are more implicit than explicit. Noah and his sons are examples of right living through their acceptance of the need to procreate and populate the world after the flood, Isaac/Jacob is an examle of marital fidelity, and Joseph stands out as an inventor of interpreting dreams to determine divine will. Pagan lives are adduced into the book as examples of good leaders who impressed pagan authors. For instance, according to Petrarch, Nembroth and his lifestyle strike Vergil as the paragon of a leader who successfully exhibited the qualities of “pastor, arator, eques” (shepherd, farmer, knight). Pagan lives also serve as a source of comparison to biblical figures such as Noah who is compared to Deucalion[here] or Joseph whose ability to understand and perceive warrants a comparison to Plato and Aristotle. Most curious are the presentation of Jason and Hercules, whose opportunism and anti-heroism is overlooked in favor of viewing them as examples of outstanding leaders and men who accomplished admirable and praiseworthy feats.
As a whole the lives in book II are far shorter than those of book I, with the longest lives in the work given to Joseph and Semiramis. Also of note is the much longer preface to book II, which evidences a later composition date and the more developed, but ultimately unfinished, ideas that Petrarch had as he continued to attempt completing his De Viris Illustribus.
It is of essential importance to note the several complications surrounding the complication of the text. Petrarch never completed the work (the life of Hercules, for instance, stops mid-sentence) and there were at least three different versions of the text as he started and stopped writing his De Viris Illustribus. One version aimed to focus on individuals from the Roman Republic, another on Christian fathers and the final version sought to combine both in an effort to present good men from all ages in a humanistic spirit. Book II appears to be a product mostly of this third plan. Finally, anglophone students and scholars should note that there is no available English translation of this work. Ferrone’s edition presents the Latin text with a facing Italian translation.
Introduction Summary:
Ferrone’s introduction in Italian (10 pp.) assumes that the reader is familiar with Italian humanism and much of the content of the De Viris Illustribus. Because of the particularly complex textual history of book II of Petrarch’s De Viris Illustribus, Ferrone focuses on the history of scholarship for the composition (with a decisive preference for the work of Italian scholars) and even more so on the manuscript tradition of the work. The latter of these two is treated with such great attention that it could very well supplant similar research in the introduction of a critical edition. For a concise introduction to the dynamics of the text, readers who are new to Petrarch’s De Viris Illustribus would be well advised to consult Kohl, Benjamin “Petrarch’s Prefaces to de Viris Illustribus” in History and Theory 13 (2): 132-144 (1974) and Witt, Ronald “The Rebirth of Romans as Models of Character” in Petrarch: A Critical Guide to the Complete Works by Victoria Kirkham and Armando Maggi (eds) Chicago UP: 2009 pp. 103-112.
Cataloger: BW
