RUTH WEBB

DESCRIBING ROME IN GREEK :

MANUEL CHRYSOLORAS COMPARISON OF OLD AND NEW ROME

Manuel Chrysoloras, author of the Comparison of Old and New Rome, addressed to
the Emperor Manuel Palaiologos in 1411, was one of the very last Byzantine expo-
nents of the traditional art of rhetoric1. Here, I will focus on the first part of the work
in which he presents the description of the city of Rome. In undertaking the task of
describing Rome in Greek he is following in the footsteps of the great model of Second
Sophistic oratory, Aelius Aristides who devoted a speech to the city of Empire (Or. 26,
Regarding Rome). As L. Pernot has suggested in the case of Aristides, there was a
particular significance in the choice of a Greek rhetorical idiom to describe Rome in
the Second Sophistic2 for this enabled Greek orators to present the empire in terms
of Greek values. Pernot points out how the very fact of using terms such as basileus
to designate the emperor, or politeia, or even dmokrateia to designate the political
system of the empire, could function as a means of translating the political realities
of Roman rule into Greek terms and thereby of hellenising them.
I would like to suggest that Chrysoloras is attempting a similar project by using
Greek methods to describe and analyse Rome. Such an approach involves looking
beyond the explicit argument of the text (which ends with observations on the mutabi-
lity of fortune and the inevitable fact that all empires come to an end) in order to see
what arguments might be encoded or embedded in the language and presentation it-
self. I will focus on particular on the use of ekphrasis and the very particular ways
in which Chrysoloras chooses to evoke the monuments of Rome and hope to show
that the Roman section of his comparison puts into practice approaches to the

1. The text of the letter is published in PG, 156, col. 24-53. A more recent edition, based on an auto-
graph manuscript is to be found in C. BILL, Manuele Crisolora, Confronto tra lAntica et la Nuova
Roma, MEG (2000) 1-26. I follow the numbering used in Bills edition.
2. L. PERNOT, La rhtorique de lempire ou comment la rhtorique grecque a invent lempire
romain, Rhetorica, 16 (1998) 131-148, p. 140 : La rhtorique envisage lEmpire romain travers le
prisme de la culture grecque et du pass grec.

[ 123 ]
124 RUTH WEBB

viewing of the ancient monuments of old Rome which mobilise specifically Greek
knowledge and rhetorical skills. For this reason, many aspects of his evocation of the
city have a ring of familiarity for any modern reader who comes to them from the
Byzantine or ancient rhetorical tradition. However, for his contemporary Italian rea-
ders, his methods were new and, as Christine Smith argued in her study of early
humanist approaches to architecture, the text may have played an important part in the
development of ways of seeing and discussing architecture in quattrocentro Italy3.
The cultural gap between Rome as a western city and the verbal medium used by
Greek orators to describe it was, if anything, far more acute in the fifteenth century
than it had been for Aristides and his contemporaries since the Greek and western
halves of the Empire had developed very differently in respect to rhetoric. While the
Byzantines preserved and developed the rhetorical traditions of the imperial period,
these were less important in the Latin West. Much that was obvious to Byzantine
intellectuals and to the elite in general, like the tradition of praising and describing
cities, was therefore less familiar to western audiences of the early renaissance. Al-
though speeches in praise of cities were certainly not unknown in medieval Italy, in
particular, the western tradition had not preserved the ancient teaching methods in
the same way as the East. In particular, the closest that we come to the theory of
ekphrasis in the western tradition is the discussion of description in, significantly, the
Arts of Poetry where description is far closer to our modern conceptions of description
as a separable, ornamental passage, frequently of a landscape or a person, than to the
ancient and byzantine performative conception of ekphrasis as a passage designed to
have an effect on the listener4.
The extent of the contrast between Byzantine and western uses of and conceptions
of rhetoric in general emerges clearly from the reception of an early humanistic speech
in praise of Florence. The Laudatio Florentiae by Leonardo Bruni, a pupil of Chryso-
loras was composed, probably in 1403 or 1404, in imitation of Aristides Panathenai-
kos, as Bruni himself explains in his letters5. It was written moreover, when he had

3. C. SMITH, Architecture in the Culture of Early Humanism : ethics, aesthetics, and eloquence 1400-
1470, Oxford 1992, p. 151-170. For Guarinos response to the Comparison see p. 11-12. The text was
translated into Latin by Franciscus Aleardus later in the 15th c. This Latin translation has been published
with an It. transl. by F. NIUTTA, Le due Rome : Confronto tra Roma e Costantinopoli, Bologna 2001.
4. See e.g., Ars Versificatoria, in Matthew of Vendme, Opera, ed. F. MUNARI, Rome 1988, p. 59-
127 and Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Poetria nova in E. FARAL, Les arts potiques du XIIe et du XIIIe sicle :
recherches et documents sur la technique littraire du Moyen Age, Paris 1924, p. 214-217.
5. Edition in Leonardo Bruni, Laudatio Florentiae Urbis, ed. S. BALDASSARRI, Florence 2000 ; Ed.
and Fr. transl. in L. BERNARD-PRADELLE, Leonardo Bruni Aretino : Histoire, loquence et posie
Florence au dbut du Quattrocento, Paris 2008, p. 197-301. For an investigation of the full range of
DESCRIBING ROME IN GREEK 125

just left the schools of the Greeks6. Brunis speech follows the pattern of the
Panathenaikos, starting (following standard epideictic practice) from the setting of
the city, a section in which Bruni emphasises the moderate and balanced nature of
its climate and its geographical situation : neither high in the mountains nor low in a
plain7. Like Aristides, he moves on to consider the origin of the people, before setting
out their actions in war and peace and praising the advantages of their constitution.
The strictly descriptive elements of the speech recall the technique of Aristides in their
preference for impressionistic evocation (including a quotation from Homer, used to
liken the buildings covering hills and plains to snow, also used by Aristides in his
speech on Rome)8. In a further allusion to Aristides, Bruni adapts the shield compa-
rison used of Athens in the Panathenaikos (16) in order to describe the layout of
Florence9. Bruni also includes the expressions of aporia that are familiar to readers
of Second Sophistic and Byzantine epideictic10. However, Bruni also shows his affi-
nity to specifically Byzantine models by lingering over the description of the Floren-
tine cathedral, the arx arcis, in a manner that is closer to the accounts of Hagia
Sophia and has no parallel in Aristides Panathenaikos (which focuses more on reli-
gious rituals than on buildings)11.
All this seems very familiar and thoroughly traditional to readers of later Greek
and Byzantine rhetoric, the only strangeness being the effect of the Latin language.
But to Brunis contemporaries it seems that it was very new indeed and even contro-
versial. This is what we can assume from Brunis letter to a contemporary, Leonardo
Picolpasso, in which he refers to anonymous criticisms of his work and feels moved to
defend various elements that were clearly judged excessive. It is permitted to exagge-
rate in encomium (as opposed to history) he points out, citing several examples of
metaphors used by Aristides to express the qualities of Athens (such as the idea of the
city giving birth to men), that might not be strictly true but that are said elegantly

sources used by Bruni and their implications for understanding his political project see EAD., LInfluence de
la Seconde Sophistique sur la Laudatio Urbis Florentiae de Leonardi Bruni, Rhetorica 18 (2000) 355-387.
6. Let. VIII, 4 in Leonardi Bruni Arretini Epistolarum Libri VIII, ed. L. MEHUS, Florence 1741, repr.
Rome, II, p. 111 : Quanquam scripta fuit oratio illa a me valde tunc quidem adolescente, cum recens tunc
primum e scholis Graecorum exissem. See also BERNARD-PRADELLE, Linfluence... cit., p. 356.
7. Leonardo Bruni, Laudatio..., ed. BALDASSARRI cit., 5-6.
8. Iliad. 12.278-9 and 281-282 cf. Ael. Arist., Or. 26.7.
9. Leonardo Bruni, Laudatio..., ed. BALDASSARRI cit., 21.
10. Ibid., 12.
11. Ibid., 13-14 ; Ael. Arist., Panathenaikos, 341.
126 RUTH WEBB

(ornate), fittingly (probabiliter) and in a manner pleasing to the audience12. The

fact that Bruni felt it necessary to point out the most basic principles of the compo-
sition of encomia suggests how far these were from being common knowledge, or
commonly accepted, in early fifteenth century Italy. I will take this striking difference
between Greek and Italian aesthetics and generic expectations as my starting point for
an analysis of Chrysoloras treatment of Rome in which he effectively translates the
city into Greek terms.
Chrysoloras treatment of Rome
Chrysoloras begins by placing his treatment firmly within the Greek tradition. He
starts, in the second paragraph of his letter to Manuel, with a quotation from a sophist
whom he merely identifies as being particularly dear to his addressee, but who is
identifiable as Libanios thanks to the allusion to the Antiochikos. The figure of Liba-
nios is balanced in terms of religious affiliation by an allusion to John Chrysostom.
After thus anchoring his subject in the Greek tradition, Chrysoloras gives an overview
of Rome that focuses on its ruined state which nevertheless allows the viewer to
deduce the architectural and sculptural beauties that once existed (6).
From here he moves on to an enumeration of the architectural elements that
remain : he enumerates the categories of civic structures aqueducts, walls, porticoes,
palaces, council chambers, markets, baths monuments to individuals and their
achievements tombs and triumphal arches (9). With respect to this last category
he pays particular attention to the relief sculptures depicting Roman victories, in a
passage which will be analysed in more detail below (10-11). Other aspects of the
ancient city that he considers worthy of mention are the churches and the statues
including many of mythological subjects by Greek artists such as Pheidias, Lysippos
and Praxiteles (12). Finally his focus broadens to include the outer walls of the city,
its situation (thesis), including the surrounding countryside, the river, docks and har-
bours (13), noting that the emperors once staged sea battles for entertainment (14).
This section, on the architectural wonders of ancient Rome concludes with some
reflexions on the power of the emperors who built these monuments and a direct quo-
tation of Aelius Aristides play on the homonyms (Rome) and (strength)
which he attributes to another of our ancient writers13. After this, Chrysoloras
moves on to Christian Rome the city of relics and of Peter and Paul (15-16). Here,

12. Leonardi Bruni Arretini Epistolarum, ed. MEHUS cit., let. VIII, 4, p. 113. Although the passages
he feels moved to defend are not examples of ekphrasis, the use of metaphorical images to express the
qualities of the city praised is a closely related practice that is frequently used within ekphrasis.
13. See Ael. Arist., Regarding Rome, 8. The parallel is noted by SMITH, Architecture..., op. cit., p. 160.
DESCRIBING ROME IN GREEK 127

his attention moves from buildings to the actions of the faithful (rather as Aristides
does in the Panathenaikos). This is still, of course, ekphrasis, but the ekphrasis of
actions rather than of monuments, since Chrysoloras describes the manner in which
pilgrims gather from all over Europe, braving discomfort and danger on the way and
how they show reverence to Peter and Paul by prostrating themselves (17). Here, a
different aspect of the ancient monuments emerges, as Chrysoloras contrasts the
Christian crowds with the ruined monuments left behind by the persecuting empe-
rors Nero, Diocletian and Maximian (18) and tells how the faithful pelt pagan monu-
ments with stones (19). Once again, the detailed exposition of the peoples postures
and actions serve to bring this behaviour before the eyes of the reader.
Two aspects of this presentation of Rome, the discussion of the relief sculptures
with their depictions of military actions and victory, and the habit of deducing actions
and past states from the present appearance of monuments will be explored in further
detail below. I will pay particular attention to the ways in which these approaches to
monument use and reflect the Greek tradition of ekphrasis in their different ways.
Before this, however, it is important to look at the introduction to the work and to
the construction of both author and reader that we encounter there.
The Greek rhetorical tradition in the introduction to the Comparison
To begin at the beginning, Chrysoloras opens his letter with a quotation from Libanios
and an allusion to John Chrysostom. These are significant in that they serve to anchor
the speech to the late antique Greek oratorical tradition in both its pagan and its Chri-
stian manifestations. The quotation from Libanios ( ) is taken not from
a speech but from a letter, Epistle 435, addressed to a certain Jovianus who has left
for Rome and whom Libanios fears will have forgotten his old friends under the in-
fluence of the unparalleled sights he will see there. Do you still remember us now
that you have gone to Rome and can see the types of sights that you have never
seen before and persuade yourself that this is not a land but a part of heaven14.
Libanios letter must surely have been chosen for its relevance to the situation of
Chrysoloras, far from his Constantinopolitan friends, even if the situation is reversed
and the one who has left is writing. Furthermore, Chrysoloras shows by this elegant
compliment that he has not forgotten those whom he has left behind, even if
Libanios correspondent may have done so. Libanios letter also, of course, provides

14. Libanios,Letter 435.1 :

, ;
128 RUTH WEBB

an elegant introduction to the subject in its evocation of the city whose appearance
cannot be equalled, and which is like a slice of heaven on earth.
Chrysoloras then goes on to expand on Libanios statement in the letter. He
ponders on the origin of the addressee, pointing out that Libanios was writing to a
Greek, or to a Syrian compatriot, or to a resident of Asia Minor, or Alexandria or even
Libya15. For each possible origin, he points out the myriad of wonders which would
have been familiar to the addressee : Antioch herself, as described by Libanios and
Chrysostom, the colossus of Rhodes, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the temple of
Artemis in Ephesus, the Pyramids of Egypt, the city of Memphis. Whatever his origin,
Libanios addressee is likely (eikos), he surmises, to have sailed through the Greek
islands and to have visited Athens, which at that time was the eye of Greece16. It
was such a person, he explains, that Libanios imagined being awestruck by the city of
Rome, someone used to seeing and hearing about such things, in short a pepaideumenos.
This elegant introduction is itself constructed in the form of a synkrisis which
compliments the city of the Rome, the subject of the first half of the speech, the
Greek world, full of its own wonders, as well as its Greek reader or readers. There is
also an implicit analogy between the time at which Chrysoloras was writing and the
fourth century : if the sight of Rome was striking enough to make Libanios friend
forget his homeland, it was not for lack of marvels in that Hellenic homeland, for
Chrysoloras audience, these marvels are those of the city of Constantinople, the sub-
ject of the second half of the letter. Thus the honour of Greece ancient and modern
is saved and the compliment to Rome is redoubled through the use of an argument
based on relative importance : if someone used to marvels can be amazed, how much
more marvellous the sights of Rome must be.
The argument in question, very appropriately for a letter, also brings in and
compliments the various addressees. Firstly, the letter itself is proof that Chrysoloras
has not forgotten Manuel, as Libanios feared he had been forgotten by his absent
addressee. In his musings on the origin of Libanios original addressee, Chrysoloras
focuses attention on the role of the recipient, arguing at the very end of this intro-
duction, that the nature of the viewer makes a difference to the experience of seeing.
The pepaideumenos (as Jovianus is likely (eikos) to have been and as Manuel, and
other readers, are here presented) is contrasted with the masses who have neither

15. Chrysoloras, Comparatio, 3.

16. Chrysoloras, Comparatio, 4 : ...

, .The passing allusion to Athens as the eye of Greece recalls Aristides
description of Smyrna as the eye of Asia in his Monody for the city (Or. 18, 9, cf. 8).
DESCRIBING ROME IN GREEK 129

seen nor heard of such things17. A city that could amaze such a viewer and make
him forget Greece must be a marvel indeed. This introduction proves to the reader
(if any proof were needed) that the letter belongs fully to the Greek rhetorical tradition :
not only is the attention paid to the recipient characteristic of a rhetorical orientation,
the attention paid to the act of viewing is particularly reminiscent of the Second So-
phistic18. Most notably, the use of the term pepaideumenos prompts parallels with the
Second Sophistic and in particular with Lucians contrast in De Domo, 2-3 between
the educated viewer (the pepaideumenos) who knows how to act and how to respond
verbally to a wondrous sight and the uneducated, exemplified by Telemachus the
nave island boy in Menelaus palace (Odyssey 4, 71-7), who simply gaze and ges-
ture19. Chrysoloras himself and his readers, we are meant to deduce, must belong to
the former category as people capable of reading and appreciating both Libanios
prose and his own. Moreover, the discussion of the educated viewer implies strongly
that, in order to appreciate fully the qualities of Rome, a knowledge of the wonders
and traditions, both visual and verbal, of the Greek world was essential, as was the
capacity to express visual experience in words.
This introduction therefore sets out to magnify the subject, Rome, in such a way as
to position the writer and recipient carefully both with respect to Rome and with
respect to the act of writing about a city. As we have seen, Chrysoloras draws here
on the rich tradition of Greek rhetoric and a further use of this tradition can be seen
in the role played in the introduction to the letter by inference, reflected in the repeated
use of the vocabulary of probability and likelihood : the recipient must, he claims,
have been cultivated, it is probable (eikos) that he sailed past Athens to arrive in Rome
and probable (eikos), that he was an educated man, an argument, moreover, that
shows an acute awareness of the social function of rhetorical skill as a marker of
group identity.
Describing Rome in Greek
In what ways then does Chrysoloras presentation of the wonders of Rome make use
of the Greek tradition or, more precisely, the Greek rhetorical tradition ? In his

17. Ibid.: , .
18. On Chrysoloras debt to the Greek rhetorical tradition in this letter see in particular G. CORTASSA,
Imago Urbis. Larte come imagine della storia nella Comparatio tra le due Rome e nella lettera a Gio-
vanni Crisolora di Manuele Crisolora, in L. SECCHI TARUGI (a cura di), Lettere e arti nel rinascimento,
Florence 2007, 133-146.
19. See SMITH, Architecture..., op. cit., p. 155.
130 RUTH WEBB

enumeration of the ancient remains that it is still possible to see, the elevated
aqueducts the mass of walls and colonnades, palaces and council chambers, as well
as the quantity, size and beauty of the market-places, baths and theatres, Chrysoloras
recalls the technique of Aelius Aristides20. But, amid the archaeological riches of
Rome, two types of monument are given particular attention : inscriptions, some of
which are in Greek, and the triumphal arches of ancient Rome. When Chrysoloras
pauses to meditate on the sculpted representations of empire, a broader influence from
the Greek tradition of ekphrasis becomes immediately apparent, with a twist. These re-
liefs, he says, show seabattles, land-battles, cavalry battles and all types, so to speak,
of battle and of machinery and weaponry as well as the defeated peoples each in their
own costumes21. The subjects he lists are themselves close to the subject of verbal
ekphrasis in the tradition that Chrysoloras would have been familiar with, in which
battles and the equipment used in combat are cited regularly as subjects22. In the re-
marks that follow, he mixes the tradition of speaking of works of art with a historical
reading of the monuments. They are all there to see, as if they were alive (
). The topos is familiar, but Chrysoloras does not end with this declaration of
lifelikeness. Instead he carries on, claiming that these representations make it possible
to see and to understand the exact sorts of weapons, armour and military strategies
used in antiquity as well as the political and cultural practices of the various peoples
of antiquity.
The curiosity about the material and practical aspects of the ancient world that is
displayed here is striking23. It reveals, moreover, a particular approach to the ancient
monuments, one which sees them not simply as a source of wonder for their size and
for the technical skill they reveal but as a source from which the educated viewer
can derive information. In this, Chrysoloras claims, they are superior to the histories
of Herodotos and others who simply set out some of this information while the
reliefs make it visible with the result that they are a type of history that sets out

20. Chrysoloras, Comparatio, 9 :

, , ,
. Cf. Ael. Arist., Or. 17, 11.
21. Chrysoloras, Comparatio, 10.
22. See, for example, Aphthonii Progymnasmata, ed. H. RABE, Leipzig, 1926, p. 37 ; Nikolai Progy-
mnasmata, ed. J. FELTEN, Leipzig 1913, p. 68-69 ; Doxapatres, Homiliae in Aphthonii Progymnasmata
in Rhetores graeci, ed. C. WALZ, Stuttgart 1835, p. 515.
23. See the comments of H. SARADI-MENDELOVICI, The Antiquities in Constructing Byzantine
Identity : Literary Tradition versus Aesthetic Appreciation, Hortus Artium Medievalium 17 (2011) 95-
113, p. 106-107.
DESCRIBING ROME IN GREEK 131

everything precisely, or rather not history but, so to speak, a direct vision (autopsia) and
presentation (or, more precisely presence) (parousia) of everything that occurred
then24. This is high praise indeed for the realism and detail of the work of art which is
said to take the place of history, a history moreover that is read through a rhetorical
lens emphasising the visual impact of its narratives25. Indeed, it is a striking instance
of Roman reality being read and discussed through a very Hellenic lens and, more-
over, of a reading of a (Roman) image through a (Greek) tradition of the reception
of texts26. For, more than simply being the best analogy by which Chrysoloras can
express the qualities of these ancient reliefs to his reader, Manuel, the knowledge
of Herodotos and other historians enables Chrysoloras, the Greek educated viewer,
to read and appreciate the images he sees in Rome and to convey the impression they
create through words to his absent addressee.
Monuments and interpretation
The claim for presence in the passage quoted above is in striking contrast with the words
with which Chrysoloras opens his account of Rome, after his introduction. Here he
emphasises the current ruined state of the city : And yet almost nothing has remained
intact in [the city] (6) introducing one
of the central themes of the letter, the mutability of human affairs. The city is, he
adds, like Constantinople in that it has become a quarry where people mine stones for
new buildings and thus consumes itself. If the past is felt to be present, then, it is due to
a process of interpretation and deduction a process to which he refers explicitly in
the analogy of the ruined city of Rome to a human body27. Even if we can only see
a portion of the original building, he claims, it is possible to deduce the rest.
The habit of reflecting and synthesising and of applying reasoning to monuments
is among the aspects of the Byzantine intellectual tradition that Chr. Smith identified
as new to the early Renaissance and attributed to the impact of the Byzantine a-
proach. Where, she argues, the Medieval western tradition had set up strict divisions

24. Chrysoloras, Comparatio, 10 : ,

,
, ,
, , , , ,
.
25. See in particular A. ZANGARA, Voir lhistoire : theories anciennes du rcit historique, Paris
2007, p. 55-89.
26. CORTASSA, Imago Urbis... cit., p. 136 makes a similar point about the Greek origins of the
art works singled out by Chrysoloras.
27. Cf. Ael. Arist., Or. 17 (Smyrnaean Oration), 9.
132 RUTH WEBB

between arts, keeping building for specialists, what Chrysoloras and other Byzantine
migrs to Italy brought with them was a more unified and synthetic approach made
possible precisely by the tradition of eloquence. How different Chrysoloras treat-
ment of Rome was from the existing medieval Latin tradition represented by the 12th
c. Mirabilia Urbis Romae is clear from a brief comparison28. The author or authors
of the Mirabilia content themselves with lists of monuments interspersed with anec-
dotes (including such blatant anachronisms as an alleged visit to Rome by the Greek
sculptors Phidias and Praxiteles). Though the Mirabilia certainly show awareness of
and interest in the antiquities of Rome, there is no attempt to recreate the visual
impact of the monuments and works of art, to explore the iconography of visual
representations or to reflect on the power of the visual image to evoke and make
present, all features that we find regularly in the Byzantine tradition of ekphrasis and
epideictic from the sixth century onwards and which, of course, had their roots in
the earlier classical tradition29.
Where the Mirabilia are content to name, Chrysoloras offers us readings of
certain sights of Rome. In his transition from his account of the classical monuments
to that of the Christian monuments of Rome, Chrysoloras meditates on the contrast
between the past splendours of Rome, still just visible in the ancient monuments
and the oblivion into which the pagan rulers of Rome have passed. Compared to
Peter and Paul, who are celebrated as far afield as Britain (as he saw himself on his
visit there) the Caesars are forgotten (20). However, he manages to make a transition
between past and present by claiming that the glory and power of the Roman Empire
was a preparation for the spread of Christianity that followed. Up until now, this
empire has been represented in his speech entirely through the monuments (he even
mentions Hadrians Wall as proof of the Roman presence in Britain that was, he
says, entirely forgotten by its current residents). Implicit in Chrysoloras reasoning
here is an acute understanding of monuments as signs of power, such as we find in
the sixth century ekphraseis of Hagia Sophia and throughout Procopius Buildings30. I
would like to identify Chrysoloras strategy here as typical of the Greek tradition of
seeing and describing monuments and cities. It is this vision of the unity of power,
aesthetics, architecture and the urban landscape that Christine Smith identifies as

28. I Mirabilia Urbis Romae, ed. M. ACCAME E. DELLORO, Rome 2004.

29. Outside the strictly classicising rhetorical tradition, the Parastaseis show far more interest in
the appearance of works and in chronology than do the Mirabilia.
30. See J. ELSNER, The Rhetoric of buildings in the De aedificiis of Procopius, in L. JAMES (ed.
by), Art and Text in Byzantine Culture, Cambridge 2007, 33-57 and R. WEBB, Ekphrasis, Amplification
and Persuasion in Procopius Buildings, Antiquit Tardive 8 (2000) 67-71.
DESCRIBING ROME IN GREEK 133

the contribution of Byzantium, largely through Chrysoloras, to the development of

Early Renaissance Humanism.
It is, of course, impossible to consider Chrysoloras writings on the subject of
Rome and Constantinople without reference to the context in which he was writing,
and which emerges clearly in the conclusion with its meditation on the impermanence
of empire the immediate threat to Constantinople itself which lay behind Chryso-
loras own presence in the West. The existence of this context also reminds us of a
much wider and potentially even more important audience for the letter than its imme-
diate addressee31. This audience was composed of the western readers who received
copies and circulated the text among themselves. Guarino Veronese, one of Chryso-
loras Italian students in both Italy and Constantinople, wrote to him thanking him
for the copy of the letter which he had received and claiming that he felt that he was
not just hearing his teachers voice as he read but that he was being guided around
Constantinople by him32. Guarino thus reveals himself to be a perfectly Greek re-
cipient of ekphrasis, the , echoing Sardianos commentary to
Aphthonios, in which the term is explained by analogy with the guide who takes a
visitor around and shows him the sights of the city33.
These Italian readers could see, in Chrysoloras description of Rome, a Greek
interpretation of the city and a model of how a description of a city could, through
the art of eloquence, be more than a sum of its parts, and of how meaning could be
attributed to monuments through eloquence. Leonardo Brunis speech on Florence
shows the practical impact that such examples could have, just as the response to it
shows how culturally specific was the practice of praise, and the closely related prac-
tice of panegyrical ekphrasis. And in turn, just as in the case of Brunis speech in
praise of Florence, this cultural practice was inseparable from the political tensions
of its day, showing just how deeply the rhetoric of praise and the practice of ekphrasis
were still enmeshed in political life. The importance of the letter (and indeed its
lasting impact) lay not only in the explicit message underlining the twin fortunes of
Rome and Constantinople and the impermanence of earthly power but also, and
perhaps above all, in its demonstration of Greek rhetorical traditions in action.

31. See CORTASSA, Imago Urbis... cit., p. 145 on this dual audience.
32. Guarino Veronese, Epistolario, ed. R. SABBADINI, Venise 1915-1919, I, p. 20 : non modo te audire
videor sed ipsam Byzantii urbem, dulce mihi spectaculum nutricemque benignissimam te duce lustro.
33. Sardianos, Commentarium in Aphthonii Progymnasmata, ed. H. RABE, Leipzig 1928, p. 216.
For this and other texts relating to ekphrasis in the Progymnasmata see R. WEBB, Ekphrasis,
Imagination and Persuasion in Greek Rhetorical Theory and Practice, Farnham 2009, Appendix A.