Bernardo Rucellai and the Orti Oricella Political Thought Study on the Origin of Modern Felix Gilbert Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 12 (1949), 101-131. Stable URL htp:/flinks jstor-orgisii sici=0075- 390% 281949%2912%3C101%3ABRATOO%3E2.0,CO%3B21 Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes is currently published by The Warburg Institue, ‘Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hup:/www,jstororglabout/terms.hml. ISTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hupulwww.jstor.org/journals'warburg.huml. 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The reader of Guicciardini’s narrative sees Bernardo Rucellai, a leading representative of the Florentine aristocracy, emerge as one of the leading figures in the struggle against Soderini; and Guicciardini follows with special attention the activities of Rucellai in these crucial years.t ‘The historian mentions at one point that Rucellai, who had absented himself from Florence and gone into voluntary exile, sent the Florentine Government a letter of justification, in order to fend offan accusation of treason. In this letter Guicciardini says Rucellai explained his political attitude in the times of Lorenzo il Magnifico, Piero de’ Medici and Savonarola and tried to show his aim had always been the maintenance of peace and freedom in Florence. This letter is still in existence in the Floren- tine archives, a striking tribute both to the historical exactitude of Guicciardini and to the efficiency of the Florentine Chancellery. The main point in the document is correctly stated by Guicciardini.4 In addition, however, to asserting his consistent adherence to the republican ideal, Ruceliai emphasizes that on various occasions during his travels in France and Italy he has tried to get in touch with the Florentine Government in order to warn it against certain hostile conspiracies being hatched abroad. Hence, the letter provides a rather comprehensive itinerary of Rucellai’s travels and is an important source for any attempt to retrace the story of his life. Rucellai’s career is worth investigating. Neither his political activities nor his efforts as a writer and humanist deserved to be so completely forgotten as they have in fact been. He was not, to be sure, one of the chief politic protagonists in the time of Florence’s greatness, on a par with the Medi “ranceaco Guicciardin, Storie lrmving dat gyal 509,04. Re Palmarocehi (Ste @huake), Bath 1931, especially p. 283, a long Gharacleiation of Rcellal. "Subsequent feferences to this work age quoted a8 "Guice Cp, lene Fortina TGuiccarcinn Sune Forentne, p. (Bernardo Rucelai) “crise una fetter alla Afoornin sun guencione, repetenda uta roces tua Lnino da Loren da Pere ¢ taP trate equals mostava quanto sempre O* fs sat cdo che la cit ie in Herth fed in quiete.” B Archivio di Stato di Firenze, —Signori Responsive. Lettere Esterne alla Signoria del 1508 dda Gennaio a Dicembre, f. 55-56. ‘The letter is mentioned in G. Pellegrini, L'umanista Bernar- do Rucelai¢ le sue opere storie, Leghorn, 1921, - 20, but he does not reproduce any part of the contents, nor does he seem to have noticed the identity of this letter with the one mene tioned by Guiceiardini, ‘Non mi achade justificarmi altrimente senon con processi del vivere mio che credo sia assai noto nel tempo che vixe Lorenzo de Medici che sempre mi sforeat che Tai usas bene Ia grandezza sua ¢ su la morte non manco per me di redurre le cose al bene intanto che incorsi in grave pericolo © mio figliulo Cosimo ne fu facto rebelle e dipoi ne casi de frate fui el primo che persuade larga~ mente la quiete € la pace. Queste cose possono essere note perche in verita sono cost t se sono bastanti a justficarmi contro alle suspitioni ¢ alle gelosie che sono al presente ‘me piacera, 4S The significant passages are quoted below, p. 111, notes 2, 3.102 FELIX GILBERT Strozzi or Soderini. He has not left an indelible imprint on political thought, like that of Machiavelli, nor fitted the events of his age into an unforgettable picture as did Guicciardini in his historical works.’ Yet he was active in politics and letters, and his contemporaries evidently placed him near the first rank. Not only Guicciardini, but all the other contemporary historians, mentioned his name frequently and reported his doings in detail. It would, in fact, appear that his contemporaries expected Rucellai to play a more decisive role in the political life of Florence than actually proved to be the case. Yet, quite aside from his political success or failure, he deserves a significant place in history for his intellectual activities and ‘his relation to humanism. Rucellai’s book on the classical antiquities of Rome is one of the first topographical studies? on this subject. His history, De Bello Italico, represents the first attempt to evaluate the significance of Charles VIII's invasion of Italy, and was praised by Erasmus as the work of a new Sallust,® as well as highly appreciated by the Florentine political writers. The book, it may be noted in passing, still receives occasional mention, if only because it introduced the term “balance of power” into political literature.’ Finally, Rucellai’s claim to fame is most solidly based on the fact that he was the owner of the Rucellai Gardens, the “Orti Oricellari,” and presided over the cele- brated meetings which took place there. ‘These gatherings had a decisive influence on the development of the Italian language and literature; though they are to-day most widely known for having provided the select audience to which Machiavelli expounded the ideas of his Discors. It should be added that a study of Rucellai’s life not only will restore to his proper place a secondary, but nevertheless significant, figure of the Renaissance but also may contribute directly to our insight into the develop- ment of Florentine political thought. Recent research has emphasized two previously neglected aspects of this field.” One is that the political thought of the Renaissance was characterized by a structure in terms of schools: Machiavelli and Guicciardini, although certainly the most profound and most brilliant representatives of Renaissance political science, were not isolated phenomena, for they proceeded from political and historical concepts which were the common property of a whole group of Florentine writers. ‘The other point of recent emphasis is the great significance for the development of 1For instance, see Luca Landucci, Diario num, cuius historias si legisses, dixisses Florentino dal 1450 af 16, ef, Todoco del Florence, 1883 (the German trans- Iaton in ero solumes by Mt. Horta fen, 1927,” has valuable annotations and an index) ; or the Storia Fiorentina di Bartolomeo Gerrdani, T have used the copy preserved in Florence in the Biblioteca Marucelliana A. CS. 20 (excerpts published by J. Schnitzer, Quellen und Forschungen cur Geschichte Savo rolas, III, Munich, 1904). See H. Jordan, Topographic der Stadt Rom in Alterthum, I, Berlin, 1878, p. 77- 3 Erasmus, Opera Omnia, Leyden, 1703-06, IV, 363E, ‘Apophtegmata: “Novi Venetiae Bernardum Ocricularium, civem Florent Alterum Salustium, aut certe Sallusi tee poribus serptas - On his influcnce on Florentine hstorio- aphy see below, p. 125, note 2. Yor instance; in E, W, Nelson's article, “The Origins of Modern Balance-of Power Politics," Medicealia et Humanistica, T, 1943, 139, p On the literature on the Orti Oricellari see below, p. 114, note 2. TT may here’ perhaps refer to. my own bibliographical ceay “Political Thought of the Renaisance and Reformation,” Planting- ton Library Quarterly, 1V, 194%, DD. 445°54-