RT Conference Abstracts - Repertorium Blondianum

ABSTRACTS
Maurizio Campanelli: Roma Triumphans, book IX: a humanistic querelle des
anciens et des modernes?
The ninth book of Roma Triumphans stems from a discussion with Francesco Barbaro,
which turned into a bet between the two distant friends: Biondo wrote the book in
order to prove that the aedium supellectilis, the apparatus familiae, the lauticia, the
splendor, the mundicia, the luxuries et magnificentia of the most important men of
any of the most important cities in fifteenth-century Italy could not be compared at all
with the richness and the comforts which more than 20000 citizens enjoyed in the
ancient city of Rome. Thus the book provides a privileged point of view to study the
idea that Biondo had of the relationship between past and present and allows us to
recover the ideological context of a sort of humanistic, philogical and antiquarian
‘querelle des anciens et des modernes’. Are Biondo’s thought and work the starting
point or the most mature expression of this querelle at the zenith of Humanism? What
is the impact of the idea that Biondo had of the past on his way of reconstructing the
past? The paper aims to discuss these and other related questions in the light of this
book devoted to many aspects of Roman private life.
Peter Fane-Saunders: Pyres, Villas and Mansions: Architectural Fragments in
Flavio Biondo’s Roma triumphans
Of the many topics addressed in Flavio Biondo’s Roma triumphans, architecture
occupies an interesting position. Biondo had already discussed the city’s ancient ruins
in detail in Roma instaurata (1444-46). For his new composition, he turned his
attention to diverse classical edifices, moving outside Rome as well as into the realm
of ephemeral structures. In Book II he presents an account of the rogus, or funerary
pyre, which was assembled for the deification of emperors, while in Book IX he
discusses at length the various elements of villa design. At the same time, however, he
returns to themes he had already elaborated in Roma instaurata: most notably the
moral decline of Roman architecture, from the humble lodgings of the city founders to
the decadent mansions erected in the Late Republic.
This paper will consider Biondo’s response to ancient Roman architecture in Roma
triumphans, exploring these passages in the light of the texts, ruins, coins, and
sculpture at his disposal. It will set Biondo’s account in the context of midQuattrocento architectural discourse, identifying points of similarity and divergence in
relation to Leon Battista Alberti’s De re aedificatoria, the main treatise on the subject
from the period. In addition, it will examine Biondo’s interpretation of continuity and
break between classical and contemporary buildings.
James Hankins: Biondo and the Roman republic
Biondo Flavio was the first Western scholar since antiquity who tried to reconstruct
the workings of the Roman government and its various magistracies. This paper will
explore Biondo’s conception of the Roman republic and its relationship to republican
ideology in the Renaissance.
Giuseppe Marcellino: Un excursus umanistico sulle letterature dell'antichità:
Biondo Flavio e i classici (Rom. triumph. IV, 96-100)
Roma triumphans is the most important Biondo’s contribution to the study of Roman
antiquities. In his huge thematic encyclopaedia of ancient Rome Biondo sketches also
a history of Latin literature from the beginning to the imperial period (book IV, pp.
96-100). In this excursus the Italian humanist focuses on the power of literature and
its connexion with Roman society. The aim of this paper is to analyse both how this
passage fits into the discussion of Roman antiquities, as well as Biondo’s viewpoint
on the origin and the development of Latin culture.
Ida Gilda Mastrorosa: Roman Military Discipline in Biondo Flavio’s Roma
Triumphans: between Punishments and Rewards
Among the numerous aspects of Roman society discussed by Biondo Flavio in the
Roma Triumphans, the art of making war which is analysed in depth in books 6-7 is
worth mentioning. Within this context, in addition to which we should also remark
book 10, centred on the triumphal ceremony, special attention is given to military
discipline. In this respect, through passages taken from various classical sources,
Biondo highlights, among others, the attention accorded by ancient Romans to the
granting of privileges, honours and rewards appropriate to gratify the soldiers and
encourage others to take up the military life as well as the use of strict methods of
control and punishment. From this perspective, the paper will focus the author’s
knowledge of specific episodes attested by historiographical sources and his
competence in selecting quotations illustrating the meaning of certain words
belonging to the military sphere, in order to note his attitude in combining an
antiquarian approach and a pragmatic interpretation of Roman military institutions
and his interest in evaluating them from various points of view.
Angelo Mazzocco: The Rapport Between the Respublica Romana and the
Respublica Christiana in Biondo Flavio’s Roma Triumphans
Scholars have argued that in the conclusion of the Roma triumphans (RT, pp. 215-217,
Basel 1559) Biondo insists that the Respublica Romana parallels the Respublica
Christiana in every way. However, a close reading of this passage reveals that such is
not the case. The scope of this paper is to give a rigorous textual analysis of the
conclusion of the RT. This passage will be read in relationship to Books III-V of the
Roma triumphans and in the context of Biondo’s crusading literature (Decades,
treatises) and of the deliberations of the Congress of Mantua—the Congress of
Mantua being the primary stimulus for this statement. Such reading will reveal
Biondo’s, and obliquely his era’s (Biondo was a representative of Quattrocento
thought), strategies, anxieties, and ideology in matters dealing with the Turkish threat.
More importantly, such reading will reveal that, though Biondo believed in the
potential equation of the Respublica Romana and the Respublica Christiana, the
notion of such equation is absent in the conclusion of the Roma triumphans. Indeed,
this passage constitutes one of the most poignant statements in the rich literature of
the humanist.
Frances Muecke: Pluribus ex artibus studiisque colligitur: the genre(s) and
making of Roma triumphans
The modern communis opinio is that Biondo’s Roma triumphans is unprecedented.
How then are we to contextualise it? Descriptions such as ‘encyclopaedic’ and
‘antiquarian’ are at best unsatisfying and at worst misleading. Biondo himself
provides remarkably little explicit guidance. In contrast, however, Anne Raffarin has
shown how Biondo discusses his modification of his principles of organisation in the
course of Roma Instaurata (esp. 2.39). This statement of method has a bearing on his
conceptualization of Roma Triumphans as do several remarks scattered through R.T. I
shall review these remarks, and relate them to some of Biondo’s compositional
practices: excerpting, cataloguing and commentating.
Agata Pincelli: Librariis certatim transcribere contendendis: the manuscript
tradition and the early reception of Biondo Flavio’s Roma triumphans.
The early and widespread fame of Roma triumphans produced a great number of
manuscripts intended to satisfy the antiquarian interests of princes and learned men all
over Europe. In a letter to Ludovico Gonzaga dated December 26th 1461, Biondo
stated that he supervised the copying of the text entrusted to, as he wrote, librariis
certatim contendentibus. The paper analyses the extant manuscripts of Roma
triumphans in relation to Biondo’s own words, showing that most of them were
actually transcribed at the same time and probably from a common archetype.
Nevertheless some copies deserve particular attention in order to realize a modern
critical edition.
Anne Raffarin: Andrea Fulvio lecteur de Rome Triomphante
Entre Rome restaurée et les Antiquités de Fulvio, s’intercale Rome triomphante dans
laquelle Flavio Biondo avait réuni un matériau textuel directement exploitable sur les
institutions romaines de l’Antiquité. C’est dans ce cadre désormais cohérent et
ordonné selon un parcours concerté que prennent place les activités publiques et
privées, religieuses et civiques, militaires et civiles, sportives et culturelles de la vie
antique. Nous concentrerons plus spécifiquement notre comparaison sur le domaine
des cultes et des divinités puisque Flavio Biondo avait déjà largement contribué à
établir une connaissance de la religion antique fondée sur les sources disponibles. En
s’appuyant sur Festus, Varron, Macrobe, mais peut-être encore davantage Putarque, il
avait développé, dans les livres I & II de Rome triomphante, une présentation
exhaustive des cultes et des divinités auxquelles ils étaient consacrés, en précisant
avec une grande exactitude l’emploi des termes propres à la consécration, à la
dédicace, aux rituels en général.
La reconstitution que présente Biondo des croyances, des rites et des cultes de la
Rome antique se retrouve dans les Antiquités de la Ville de Rome d’Andrea Fulvio,
parfois à peine reformulée. Mais une différence majeure distingue les deux textes: les
sources antiques accessibles. Si l’on compare le catalogue des sources utilisées par
Biondo dans Rome Triomphante et celui des sources accessibles à Fulvio, on
remarque qu’un texte essentiel intervient dans les Antiquités : les commentaires
d’Asconius Pedianus aux discours de Cicéron, qu’ils soient authentiques ou
faussement attribués à Asconius, sont imprimés dès les dernières années du
Quattrocento et contribuent à changer la perception qu’ont les humanistes de
nombreux aspects de la vie antique.
William Stenhouse: Biondo and Late Renaissance Antiquarianism
The sixteenth-century antiquarians Onofrio Panvinio, Johannes Rosinus and Pompeo
Ugonio all viewed Biondo as a predecessor of fundamental importance. But how did
they, and their contemporaries, use his work from the 1540s. I shall do this in three
ways: by examining evidence for how Biondo was read; by considering how far his
structural organization influenced his late renaissance successors; and by looking in
detail at how sixteenth-century writers responded to particular arguments and
passages in the Roma triumphans. By doing so I hope to demonstrate what sixteenthcentury scholars found valuable in Biondo, and ask whether their success contributed
to his eclipse.