Overview
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, II, IV
Florence
Italy
RVF
Description
300x225 mm; XV + 125 + I fols.
paper; mercantesca; prose text.
‘Orazione facta p[er] Crjstofano daprato vecchio qua[n]do comincjo allegjere in jn studio jsonettj di messer francescho petra[r]cha’ (fol. 55r)
fols. 55r-58r: Cristoforo Landino’s oration on Petrarch (‘Orazione facta p[er] Crjstofano daprato vecchio qua[n]do comincjo allegjere in jn studio jsonettj di messer francescho petra[r]cha’; <inc> Saran[n]o p[er] auentura alchunj prestantissimj cjptadinj jqualj p[er]suadaran[n]o oggia p[er] insino daora sanno p[er]suaso questa mia jmpresa diuolere insi celeberrjmo ginnasyo et nobjljtato studio intanto numero doue moltj doctj sj rjtruouano leggiere Jlpoema di francescho petrarcha; <exp> Majnsom[m]a co[n]chiudendo nulla fra le uarje cose demortali sj truoua che onella prosperyta maggiore ornamento onella ad[uer]sjta maggiore co[n]solatione ci porgha chequesti sacrj studii);
fol. 58r: colophon: Finis. Jnaltjssjmj d[†]deo;
Other contents:
The ms. includes a series of different writings. It contains a remarkable number of letters by different authors (such as Leonardo Bruni’s letters to the Duke of Mantua, fols. 18v-25r, and to Francesco Sforza, fols. 33v-34v; Poggio Bracciolini’s letter to Bruni, fols. 46r-49r; Giovanni Rucellai’s letter to Giovanni Pigli, fols. 104v-106r; Domenico da Prato’s letter to Alessandro Rondinelli, fols. 116v-117v). It also includes vernacular translations of [Pseudo-]Theophrastus’s De nuptiis (fols. 36v-38v) and of De regimine principum wrongly attributed to Aristotle (fols. 118r-119v) and orations by Cicero and Sallust (fols. 67v-81r), Cristoforo Malvicini (fols. 49r-54v), and Enea Silvio Piccolomini (fols. 58r-67r). The ms. also contains two novelle by Bonaccorso di Lapo Giovanni (fols. 1r-16v), one novella by Bianco Alfani (fols. 84v-89v), and some concise heterogeneous writings (recipes and notes). In the initial flyleaves is a list of the works included in the ms. and a few remarks on their authors compiled by a eighteenth-century hand. For a detail list of these writings, see Mazzatinti X, 134-35.
Material Copy
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, II, IV
Florence
Italy
Landino’s oration offers a humanistic re-evaluation of the vernacular, stressing the pressing need to enrich the vernacular language by putting it into close contact with Latin. Landino identifies a tradition which stems from Dante and Petrarch and includes some of the most influential humanistic figures, such as Alberti, and Dati. As regards Petrarch, Landino primarily celebrates his rhetorical skills in the dispositio (‘giudizio nelle disposizioni’) and in the elocutio (‘ornamenti nelle elocuzioni’). According to Cardini, the oration was composed by Landino between 1467 and 1470 (Cardini 1973, 341). There are two other manuscript copies of this oration: Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Magl. VIII. 1299 and Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Ottob. Lat. 3316. A modern edition is found in Cardini 1973 (327-54).
Mazzatinti, X, 134-35
***
Cardini 1968; Cardini 1973, 327-54; Cardini 1974, I, 31-40; Tanturli 1992