Medieval Academy of America

Education in Dante's Florence

Author(s): Charles T. Davis
Source: Speculum, Vol. 40, No. 3 (Jul., 1965), pp. 415-435
Published by: Medieval Academy of America
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 EDUCATION IN DANTE'S FLORENCE*
BY CHARLEST. DAVIS
IN the years between Dante's birth in 1265 and his exile in 1302, Florence was
already a metropolis, one of the largest and most powerful cities in Europe. Its
merchants travelled the world, and its new wealth was producing military expan-
sion and social upheaval. The fierce independence of its political spirit had reper-
cusions far beyond the limits of Tuscany and even of Italy. It stood moreover at
the beginning of a period of supreme accomplishment in literature and the arts.
Much can be learned of this city from its physical remains, from its literary
records, and from the mass of documents preserved in the Archivio dello Stato.
The possibilities of reconstruction open to the diligent student are indicated most
vividly by Davidsohn's great history. Yet some important aspects of Dugento
Florence remain obscure. One of the most notable is the subject of education.
When Davidsohn, for example, discusses it, he draws his data largely from the
fourteenth century. This is tempting, in view of the greater abundance of infor-
mation for the later period. Moreover, the chronicler Giovanni Villani offers a
precious bird's-eye view of lay instruction around 1339, when literacy was ex-
traordinarily widespread. He tells us that approximately ten per cent of the popu-
lation - 8,000-10,000 boys and girls out of some 90,000 inhabitants - were
being taught to read. The boys could then choose either a commercial or a literary
education. Approximately one-fourth of them (1,000-1,200) went on to six schools
to study mathematics and the use of the abacus. Approximately one-eighth
(550-600) attended four Latin schools to study grammar and logic.' But Villani
does not tell us when these schools were established, or what teachers taught in
them. A document of 1316, however, mentions three categories of masters, those
of grammar, those of the abacus, and those elementary teachers who instructed
children in reading and writing.2 From this gild must have come the personnel
which staffed the ten schools described by Villani.
There were also at this time lay schools of rhetoric, like that of Bruno Casini,
who, dying in 1348, left behind a treatise on the art of oratory.3 Canon law may
have been taught before in the cathedral school of S Giovanni, and some civil law
in notarial schools,4 but one of the main purposes of the sadly disorganized at-
tempts of the city in 1321 and subsequent years to found a university was to make
* The research for this article was done with the aid of summer
grants from the American Council
of Learned Societies and the American Philosophical Society. I am also grateful to Mr Colin Hardie
and Professors Giuseppe Billanovich, Paul Oskar Kristeller, Charles Trinkaus, Roberto Weiss, and
Helene Wieruszowski for their kindness in offering information or suggestions.
1 G. Villani, Cronica, xi, 94.
2 S. Debenedetti, "Sui pii antichi 'doctores puerorum' a Firenze," Studi medievali, ii (1907), 338-
339.
3 R. Davidsohn, Geschichtevon Florenz (Berlin, 1908-1927), iv, iii, 119-120.
Ibid., pp. 121-122. Cf., on the teaching of law in general, p. 128.
415
416 Education in Dante's Florence
it possible for Florentines to receive good legal training without going to Bologna.5
With her large professional class of judges and notaries, doctors, and cosmopolitan
bankers and merchants, Florence in the Trecento was well prepared to assume her
later r61eas the cultural leader of Italy.
What was the situation in the late thirteenth century? This is a much more
difficult question to answer. One can speak more confidently about lay education
in Arezzo or Siena, or even in San Gimignano, than in Florence during this period.
Law was being taught in Arezzo by the beginning of the thirteenth century;
instruction was soon widened to include grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, as well
as medicine and ars notarie, in a studium which was by all odds the most impor-
tant of Tuscan educational institutions.6 In Siena, by 1240, there is also evidence
of a real university, with teachers of civil and canon law, medicine, and grammar.
In 1278 the students of Siena requested the bringing of a rhetorician, and Gui-
dotto da Bologna, translator of the pseudo-Ciceronian Rhetorica ad Herennium,
was forthwith employed.7 Siena also competed successfully with Florence in lur-
ing teachers from Bologna in 1321.8 As for San Gimignano, a series of documents,
summarized by Davidsohn and covering the period 1270-1338, attests to the
concern of the town council to employ masters of grammar to instruct the youth
of the city.9 At the same time Pistoia had a vigorous law school, to which Dino di
Mugello, a professor at Bologna, was brought in 1279.10Even the little town of
Colle was a prolific source of dictatoresand grammarians, and by the second half of
the thirteenth century these wandering pedagogues were scattered all over Tus-
cany and beyond. One of Colle's most distinguished sons was Mino, who taught in
Arezzo, San Miniato, Volterra, Pisa, Pistoia, and Bologna, and who wrote an
interesting ars dictaminis which reflects the political and social conditions of
contemporary Italian communes."
Secular education in Florence, on the other hand, lacked a conspicuous center.
Private instruction in Latin certainly had a long tradition there; for example, in
the late twelfth century the rhetorician Boncompagno da Signa, afterwards a
famous professor at Bologna, studied the rudiments of this language with a
Florentine "Doctor" for sixteen months. Master Bene of Florence was an impor-
tant rhetorician at Bologna in the thirteenth century, though where he learned his
first Latin is unknown. The early poet Arrigo da Settimello managed the language
with ease, the early chronicler Sanzanome with difficulty, but both played their

6 Ibid., pp. 142-147.

6 See the very full discussion of this subject by H. Wieruszowski, "Arezzo as a Center of Learning
and Letters in the Thirteenth Century," Traditio, ix (1953), 321-391.
7 For a
rapid sketch of this and other aspects of thirteenth century Tuscan education see F. Novati,
"Le Epistole Dantesche," Freschi e Minii del Dugento (Milan, 1908), pp. 329-361, esp. pp. 335-342.
8 Davidsohn, Geschichte,iv, iii, 137, 142-143.
9 Davidsohn, Forschungen zur Geschichtevon Florenz (Berlin, 1896-1908), ii, 312-317. Masters of
the abacus and of theology are also mentioned.
10Davidsohn, Geschichte,iv, iii, 165-166.
1 Novati, op. cit., G. Papaleoni, "Maestri di grammatica toscani del sec. XIII e XIV," Archivio
storico italiano, Ser. v, T. xiv (1894), 149-152; H. Wieruszowski, "Ars Dictaminis in the Time of
Dante," Medievalia et Humanistica, I (1943), 95-108.
 Education in Dante's Florence 417

part in the creation of a Florentine literary tradition. Registers of Florentine

notaries are also plentiful in the late thirteenth century, and notarial training,
which Masi believes already existed in Florence in the first half of the Dugento,
implied some acquaintance with ars dictaminis as well as with Latin grammar.
References to doctorespuerorum,who taught elementary Latin to children, are to
be found in notarial records as early as 1275. Some of them were apparently
drawn from other parts of Italy; for example, a document of 1277 refers to a
master named Romanus who taught in the neighborhood where Dante lived.
Some of them were women; in 1304 a doctrix puerorum named Clementia was
teaching a pupil to read Donatus, the Psalter, and notarial instruments, and also
to write. Teachers of older pupils, the doctoresgramatice,are, however, harder to
find in Florence than in smaller Tuscan centers during this period. Even with his
vast knowledge of Florentine notarial records, Davidsohn can cite only one refer-
ence to a grammarian earlier than 1300.12
That such teachers existed is indicated, however, by letters written in the
1280's from Mino da Colle to two schoolmasters in Florence.13Moreover, Debene-
detti prints an interesting contract made in 1299 between Magister Burgensis
condam magistri Gerardi populi S Marie Maioris, professor gramatice and his
repetitor,Ser Berlingherius, concerning the sharing of income and expenses from a
grammar school.l4 Probably it was in a school like this that Dante learned the
modest amount of grammar he possessed ("l'arte di gramatica ch'io avea") when
he tried to read Boethius and Cicero.15Since it had only one professor and an assis-
tant, it was very different from the four "large" schools referred to by Villani.
Perhaps these were not yet in existence.
The availability of classical literature, as distinct from textbooks of grammar or
ars dictaminis, is an even obscurer matter. That widespread interest in the classics
came late to Florence is indicated by the testimony of the Dominican Giovanni
Dominici (ca. 1356-1419), a zealous opponent of the humanistic views of Coluccio
Salutati. Dominici complained that the youth of the city were being corrupted by
the reading of Ovid and Virgil, and contrasted this sad state of affairs with the
good customs of the antichi. The latter, he said, wanted their children to learn the
Psalter and the catechism, and if they went beyond that, "moralita di Catone,

12 On
lay schools in Florence see Debenedetti, op. cit., Davidsohn, Geschichte,iv, iii, 113-121; on
Boncompagno, K. Sutter, Aus Leben und Schriften des Magister Boncompagno (Freiburg, 1894); on
Bene's Candelabrum,C. S. Baldwin, Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic (New York, 1928), pp. 216-923;
on Henry of Settimello, F. J. E. Raby, A History of Secular Latin Poetry in the Middle Ages (Oxford,
1934), ii, 163-164; on Sanzanome and early Florentine historiography, 0. Hartwig, Quellen und
Forschungen zur dltesten Geschichteder Stadt Florenz (Marburg, 1875), I and N. Rubenstein, "The
Beginnings of Political Thought in Florence," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, v
(1942), 198-227; on notaries, F. Novati, "I1 notaio nella vita e nella letteratura italiana delle origini,"
Freschi e Minii, pp. 229-328; Formularium Florentinum Artis Notariae (1220-1242), ed. with intro-
duction by G. Masi (Milan, 1943); Davidsohn, Geschichte,iv, ii, 109-125.
13 See Wieruszowski, "Brunetto Latini als Lehrer Dantes und der Florentiner," Archivio Italiano per
la Storia della Pieti, ii, 186 and note 6.
14 Debenedetti, op. cit., pp. 340-341, note 2.
5 Dante, Convivio,II, XII, 2-4.
418 Education in Dante's Florence

fizioni d'Esopo, dottrina di Boezio, buona scienza tratta di santo Agostino, e

filosofia d'Eva columba, o Tres leo naturas, con un poco di poetizzata Scrittura
santa nello Aethiopum terras."16On the other hand, Fra Jordan of Pisa, in a
sermon delivered in March 1306, warned his congregation against the dangers of
reading Ovid.l7 It should be remembered, however, that such fourteenth-century
bibliophiles as Zanobi della Strada, Boccaccio, and Tedaldo della Casa had not
yet appeared to increase the Florentine stock of ancient books.18Dante, to be
sure, was able to read Cicero's De Amicitia and Boethius' De ConsolationePhilo-
sophic after Beatrice's death. But the surprising thing is not that he could find
such widely-circulated works but that he should call the second "not known by
many."19There was probably a Virgil in the convent of S Croce,20and various
classics in that of S Maria Novella.21In addition, a number of men in the city who
were interested in Latin literature no doubt had private libraries. Among them
were Brunetto Latini, who knew works of Cicero, Boethius, Sallust, Lucan, and
probably also Ovid, and who translated several of Cicero's orations and part of his
De Inventione;22Bono Giamboni, who translated Orosius and Vegetius;23Petracco
16 Giovanni Dominici,
Regola del governodi cura familiare, ed. D. Salvi (Florence, 1860), p. 134.
Cf. Petrarch, Seniles, xv, 1: "Ab ipsa pueritia, quando ceteri omnes aut Prospero inhiant aut
Esopo, ego libris Ciceronis incubui," quoted by E. Garin, II pensiero pedagogico dello umanesimo
(Florence, 1958), pp. 91, who also (pp. 91-104) furnishes interesting notes about medieaval textbooks
and the humanistic revolt against them.
17
Davidsohn, Geschichte,iv, iii, 36.
18 See G.
Billanovich, "I primi umanisti e le tradizioni dei classici latini," Discorsi Universitari
N.S., no. 14 (Freiburg, 1953) and F. Mattesini, O.F.M., "La biblioteca di S. Croce e Fra Tedaldo
della Casa," Studi francescani, LVII (1960), 254-316. According to Billanovich, "la Toscana e
il Veneto - tolta del Veneto al limite occidentale la fortunata Verona - erano cosi sforniti di
ricchezze antiche, che i centri umanistici toscani e veneti crebbero sfruttando quasi solo materiale
importato, spesso importato da regioni molto lontane." (p. 25). For thirteenth- and early fourteenth-
century classical learning in Florence, see the valuable survey by R. Weiss, "Lineamenti per una storia
del primo umanesimo fiorentino," Rivista storica italiana, LX (1948), 349-366, and the somewhat
exaggerated account of Davidsohn, Geschichte,iv, i, 33-38.
19
Dante, op. and loc. cit.
20 Fra
Anastasius, who may have served as librarian in the convent of S Croce during the early four-
teenth century, made a Latin compendium of the Aeneid which was later turned into Italian by
Andreas Lancia. See C. T. Davis, "The Early Collection of Books of S Croce in Florence," Proceedings
of the American Philosophical Society, cvII (1963), 405 and note 48; I. del Lungo, Dino Compagni e
la sua cronica (Florence, 1879), i, 427; ArchivumFranciscanum Historicum, iv (1911), 360; vi (1913),
330.
21 See
below, p. 432.
22 F.
Maggini, La "Rettorica" italiana di Brunetto Latini (Florence, 1912) and I primi volgarizza-
menti dei classici latini (Florence, 1952), pp. 16-40. See also T. Sundby, Della vita e delle opere di Bru-
nettoLatini, trans. R. Renier with app. by I. del Lungo and A. Mussafia (Florence, 1884); A. Marigo,
"Cultura letteraria e preumanistica nelle maggiori enciclopedie del dugento: lo 'Speculum' ed il
'Tresors'," Giornale storico della letteraturaitaliana, LXVIII (1916), 1-42, 289-326, esp. 315-317; and
notes at the end of chapters in Brunetto Latini, Li Livres dou Tresor,ed. F. Carmody (Berkeley and
Los Angeles), 1948.
23One of the manuscripts of the Italian version of Brunetto's Tresor,ed. L. Gaiter
(Bologna, 1877-
83) attributes it to Bono Giamboni, His authorship has, however, recently been questioned by
C. Segre; see La Prosa del Duecento,ed. C. Segre and M. Marti (Milan and Naples, 1959), pp. 311-312.
 Education in Dante's Florence 419

di Parenzo, who admired Cicero and who probably put together the famous codex
of Virgil owned by his son Petrarch;24and Francesco da Barberino, friend of
the early humanist Geri d'Arezzo, who possessed a wide acquaintance with rare
classical works.25All these men were notaries and civic officials, members of the
same class which produced the early humanists of such centers as Arezzo and
Padua.26 But it is impossible to know how much of their learning came from
libraries in Florence and how much from their travels. Probably it was derived in
very large part from the latter.
One fact about lay education in Florence is, however, clear. The appearance of
Brunetto Latini was accompanied by a distinct advance in general culture and by
a new enthusiasm for the ancient authors. This was noted by Giovanni Villani,
who said that Brunetto was "the first to teach refinement to the Florentines and
the art of speaking well and of guiding and ruling our republic according to poli-
tica."27Brunetto may have given lectures on ars dictaminis and Ciceronian rhe-

Segre and Marti print extracts'from Bono's translations of Innocent III's De miseria humanae condi-
tionis and of Orosius and also from Bono's original work II libro de' vizi e delle virtudi in this volume
(pp. 227-254, 441-452, 739-791). A complete text of the Orosius translation was edited by F. Tassi
(Florence, 1849), and of the Vegetius translation by F. Fontani (Florence, 1815). See also C. Segre,
"Jean de Meun e Bono Giamboni traduttori di Vegezio," Atti dell'Accademiadelle Scienze di Torino,
LXXXVIII (1952-1953), ii, 119-153. For Bono's life see Debenedetti, "Bono Giamboni," Studi Medi-
evali, iv (1912-1913), 271-278.
24R. Sabbadini, Le scopertedei codici latini e greci ne' secoli XIV e XV (Florence, 1914), pp. 165-168
attributes the assembling of this manuscript to an unknown Florentine humanist named Piero Parente
in the second half of the thirteenth century. Since it contains not only Virgil's three works but also
Statius' Achilleid, two comments to Donatus' Barbarismus and four Odes of Horace, he concludes
that in Florence by this time the humanistic movement had already begun. Cf. also his "Del Virgilio
Ambrosiano di F. Petrarca," Historia. Studi storici per l'antichita classica, v (1931), 416-420. G. Mer-
cati, "Per il 'Virgilio' del Petrarca," L'Illustrazione Vaticana, no. 19 (Oct., 1931), 29-32, reprinted in
Mercati, Opereminori, iv (Vatican City, 1937), 442-429, agrees with Sabbadini as to the date of the
manuscript, but proposes an identification of Piero Parente with Petracco di Parenzo, the father of
Petrarch. G. Billanovich, "Dal Livio di Raterio al Livio del Petrarca," Italia Medioevale e Human-
istica, II (1959), 137-138, accepts Mercati's identification, but says that the codex must have been
put together in Avignon in the early fourteenth century, probably under the direction of the pre-
cocious young Petrarch. A facsimile of the manuscript has been produced under the title Francisci
Petrarcae Vergilianus codex ..., with a preface by J. Galbiati (Milan, 1930). A further indication of
Petracco's classical interests is given by Petrarch himself (Seniles, xv, 1), who says that his father
was a great lover of Cicero. For Petracco's life see N. Zingarelli, "Petrarca e suo padre," Atti del
CongressoPetrarchesco(Arezzo, 1929), pp. 60-71.
26Weiss, op. cit., p. 356, n. 7, says that a good part of the glosses to Francesco da Barberino's Docu-
menti d'Amore which reveal his classical learning (ed. F. Egidi, Rome, 1905-1927) were completed
before he returned to Florence around 1315.
26Exceptions to this rule are the poet and aristocrat Guido Cavalcanti, who seems not to have been
much interested in Latin literature but who was in touch with the Aristotelianism of Bologna (see
P. 0. Kristeller, "A Philosophical Treatise from Bologna Dedicated to Guido Cavalcanti: Magister
Jacobus de Pistorio and his "Questio de Felicitate," Medioevoe Rinascimento, Studi in onoredi Bruno
Nardi (Florence, 1955), I, 425-463), and the chronicler and merchant Giovanni Villani, who read the
ancient historians and had Zanobi della Strada translate Cicero's Dream of Scipio (see Villani,
Cronica,viII, 36; Davidsohn, Geschichte,iv, i, 33; Weiss, op. cit.).
27
Villani, vII, 10. The importance of this passage is emphasized by Weiss, op. cit., p. 349.
420 Education in Dante's Florence
toric and perhaps even on astrology to the youth of the city.28 Whether he en-
gaged in formal teaching or not, they could find rhetorical instruction in his
translation of and commentary on part of Cicero's De Inventione29and in his
Tresor,soon translated into Italian. He also seems to have been responsible, as the
leading dittatoreof the commune, for introducing the stilus altus of Frederick II's
chancery into the chancery of Florence.30But his knowledge of rhetoric was put to
wider uses than this. In him the mediaeval Italian tradition of ars dictaminis was
refreshed by a deeper understanding of Cicero's praise of the civic function of the
orator. Brunetto set forth the old Roman ideal of fame as the reward for virtue,
which is true nobility; the rhetorician or orator should persuade his fellow citi-
zens to live according to justice and reason.3'Brunetto's example-his patriotism
and his devotion to classical ideals - must have been more important to the
Florentines than either his style or his erudition. Certainly it was so with Dante.
Whether or not Brunetto gathered round him a circle of pupils, or a circle of
friends like the later chancellor Coluccio Salutati, he stood, as Walter Goetz has
said, in the forefront of the developing lay education of his city.32
Innovation and progress in Florentine education was not, however, confined to
secular teachers. Religious schools, which long held a monopoly both of elemen-
tary and higher instruction,33not only maintained but in some ways increased
their influence. Those of the Mendicants were especially important. Nothing is
known of the Augustinian school at S Spirito except that it was made a studium
generalein 1287 and therefore, according to the rules of the Order, had to main-
tain an armarium and a scriptor.34A studium generalewas also in existence by this
28 M.
Scherillo, Alcuni capitoli della biografiadi Dante (Turin, 1896), pp. 116-221, esp. pp. 157-160
and E. G. Parodi, Poesia e storia nella "Divina Commedia" (Naples, 1921), pp. 253-311, esp. p. 271,
are doubtful that Brunetto was a teacher in the literal sense of the word. Novati, "Le Epistole
Dantesche," pp. 339-342, thinks that G. Villani's eulogy of Brunetto as "sommo maestro in rettorica,
tanto in bene saper dire come in bene dittare" indicates that the latter gave lectures on arc dictaminis.
Wieruszowski, "Brunetto Latini als Lehrer Dantes," produces interesting evidence in support of the
view that Brunetto gave instruction not only in rhetoric but also in astrology.
29 La Rettoricadi
Brunetto, Latini, ed. F. Maggini (Florence, 1915).
80 See Davidsohn, Geschichte,iv, i, 24-25; Forschungen, iv, 130-131; Wieruszowski, "Arezzo,"
p. 359.
31See Brunetto, Rettorica,ed. cit., pp. 4, 16-20, 35; Tresor,ed. cit., i, 114; II, 37.
32 W.
Goetz, "Dante und Brunetto Latini," Deutsches Dante-Jahrbuch, xx (1938), 78-99; "Die
Enzyklopadien des 13. Jahrhunderts," Italien im Mittelalter (Leipzig, 1942), II, 62-107, esp. 102-103.
33 Debenedetti, op. cit., pp. 334-338, observes that Florentine elementary schools were not laicized
until comparatively late. Higher education seems to have been available mainly at the very old
cathedral school. We do not know what subjects were taught there, but probably they included
canon law and perhaps rhetoric. In 1313 Francesco da Barberino received his license to teach canon
law not only from the bishops of Bologna and Padua but also from the bishop of Florence. In 1218
the early Florentine rhetorician Bene took the customary oath at Bologna to give no lectures outside
its university with the reservation that he might also deliver them at Florence (presumably in the
cathedral school) in case he should be offered a clerical living there. For these and other facts about
early Florentine learning and instruction see Davidsohn, Geschichte,I, 802-816; iv, iii, 113-129.
34 D. Gutierrez, "La biblioteca di Santo Spirito in Firenze," Analecta
Augustiniana, xxv (1962),
5-88, esp. p. 6.
 Education in Dante's Florence 421

time at the Franciscan convent of S Croce.35The elevation of the Dominican

school of S Maria Novella to the same rank may only have occurred two decades
later, though in 1288 it probably already surpassed in size other provincial studia
like Rome and Naples.36 If Brunetto represented the most advanced aspect of
Florentine secular learning, the schools, at least of S Croce and S Maria Novella,
propagated what was most "modern" and dynamic in the religious sphere. The
former emphasized the neo-Platonist doctrines of Bonaventure, and also con-
tained representatives of the "Spiritual" wing of the Franciscan Order with its
radical views on the usus pauper and on church history. S Maria Novella trans-
mitted the Thomistic synthesis of Aristotle and scholastic thought. The most
important teachers at S Croce during this period were the Spirituals Peter Olivi
and Ubertino da Casale, who drew an uncompromising line between theological
and secular learning. The most important teacher at S Maria Novella was Remi-
gio de' Girolami, a moderate thinker and civic patriot who eulogized not only
saints and Scriptural figures, but also Cicero and other heroes of pagan Rome.
All three men had studied at the University of Paris, where both Bonaventure
and Thomas had taught. Peter Olivi was French, and southern France was a
seed-bed of Spiritual doctrines. Brunetto Latini, as well, spent six years of exile in
France and wrote his encyclopaedia, the Tresor, in French. It is remarkable how
great a debt was owed by early Florentine education to the still far more cosmo-
politan and developed civilization of France.
Its most remarkable product was the layman Dante, whose son Peter proudly
called him theologusand philosophus as well as poeta.37Dante achieved a fusion of
religious and secular learning which emphasized both the spiritual and temporal
ends of man. No doubt, later study at Bologna and elsewhere helped to widen and
to deepen Dante's interests, particularly in regard to Latin literature and Roman
law. His formative years, however, were spent in Florence, and his writings are a
useful guide to what was most significant in the culture of the thirteenth-century
city.
We have the poet's own testimony in the Inferno in regard to Brunetto's place
in his education. From various passages in the Commediawe learn the importance
to him of the Spiritual doctrines of poverty and reform preached at S Croce. His
view of ecclesiastical history and his language in referring to the corruptions of
papal Rome were very close to Peter Olivi's, and in his portrait of St Francis in
the Paradiso he quoted directly from Ubertino's ArborVitce CrucifixceJesu. Prob-
ably the Aristotelianism of Paris reached him through S Maria Novella, and
strong resemblances are to be found between his political theories and his view of
6 Ubertino de Casale, Sanctitati apostolicae, ed. F. Ehrle, Archiv fur Literatur- und Kirchen-
geschichte,II (1886), 389, says that Peter Olivi was appointed "lector Florentie in studio generali quoad
ordinem nostrum"; this occurred in 1987.
36I. Taurisano, O. P., "L'organizzazione delle scuole domenicane nel secolo xiii," Miscellanea luc-
chesi di studi storici e letterariin memoriadi SalvatoreBongi (Lucca, 1931), pp. 93-130; M. Grabmann,
O.P., "Die Wege von Thomas von Aquin zu Dante," Deutsches Dante-Jahrbuch, ix, (1995), 1-35;
S. Orlandi, O.P., Necrologiodi S. Maria Novella (Florence, 1955), I, 289-283; and below, pp. 497-430.
37 Peter Alighieri, Commentarium,ed. V. Nannucci (Florence, 1845), p. 3.
422 Education in Dante's Florence
Roman history and those of Remigio de' Girolami. Thus, the three liveliest cur-
rents of intellectual life in late Dugento Florence are also three of the main
streams which flow into the great sea of the Divine Comedy.They helped to shape
the mind both of the young commune and of the young poet. Taken together,
they go far towards explaining Dante's reference in the Convivioto the fact that
he was present "in the schools of the religious and at the disputations of the
philosophers"38at a time when he was first contemplating the beauties of the
donna gentile, the Lady Philosophy. Since Dante himself acknowledged the
debt he owed Brunetto, there is little ground for uncertainty in regard to its
importance. The relationship between the Dominican and Franciscan convents
and the young Dante's intellectual development is, however, less easy to deter-
mine. An examination of certain features of the schools and libraries of S Croce
and S Maria Novella should, therefore, be useful in understanding the sub-
stance of a significant part of early Florentine higher education and the oppor-
tunities open to its uniquely gifted student, Dante.
S Croce was not only one of the most important houses of its Order; it was also
a major center of popular devotion. Around it were gathered colonies of pious
laymen, widows, and spinsters; Conrad da Palazzo, captain of the Parte Guelfa,
thought it necessary in 1277 to issue an order prohibiting the molestation of
women living close to the church. These Tertiaries were called pinzochereon ac-
count of their grey garments.39Their bequests to the convent and to individual
friars, along with the gifts of many ordinary laymen, helped to make the convent
rich and powerful, in spite of its Franciscan profession of absolute poverty.
The power of S Croce was also increased by the fact that after 1254 it served as
the home of the tribunal and prisons of the Tuscan Inquisition. Those friars of S
Croce who occupied the office of inquisitor watched over the dioceses of Florence,
Fiesole, Pistoia, Pisa, Lucca, Arezzo, Siena, Volterra, Chiusi, Grosseto, Massa,
and Luni; and in 1285 their jurisdiction was even extended to the island of Sar-
dinia. They were concerned with rooting out the remains of the Cathari church in
those regions, and the views also of an "Epicurean" (and Ghibelline) like the
great Farinata degli Uberti did not escape their condemnation. S Croce was thus a
citadel of orthodoxy, but even in the late thirteenth century the citadel was be-
ginning to be divided between the Conventual and Spiritual parties. A little later
it would furnish from the latter faction heretics of its own to test the ingenuities of
the Inquisition.40
Already in the late thirteenth century this tension must have been growing.

38 Dante, Convivio,i, xii, 7.

39 Archivio dello Stato, Florence, Diplomatica, 65, S. Croce di Firenze. no. 89. 22 July 1277. For the
pinzocheresee Davidsohn, Forschungen,iv, 78-81, 417, 487.
40 On the Franciscan
Inquisition in Tuscany see Davidsohn, Geschichte,iv, i, 346-347; iii, 26-37;
"Un libro di entrate e spese dell'inquisitore fiorentino, 1322-29," Archivio storicoitaliano, Ser. v, vol.
xxvii (1901), 346-355; Mariano d'Alatri, O.F.M., "L'inquisizione francescana nell'Italia Centrale nel
secolo XIII," Collectaneafranciscana, xxII (1952), 295-250; "Nuove notizie sull'inquisizione toscana
del duecento," ibid., xxxi (1960), 637-644.
 Education in Dante's Florence 423

The friars of S Croce were nevertheless able to proceed with their plans for build-
ing a great new church (the cornerstone of which was laid in 1295) and with the
development of a school and a library. The emphasis of the former can be inferred
from the contents of the latter, and also, to some extent, from what is known of
the lectors who taught in the studium. Of the early books, gathered largely
through bequests of friars and through sums of money willed by outside persons
for this purpose, some forty-five manuscripts can be identified as being in the
possession of the convent before or shortly after 1300. The collection of this fairly
extensive sample is made possible by comparing the names which sometimes
appear in notes at the beginning or end of early manuscripts (indicating that they
were reserved for the use of particular friars) with the same names appearing in
documents drawn up by the notary Opizzo da Pontremoli, who helped to transact
much of the business of the convent during the years 1296-1311.41
Perhaps the first book to be acquired was Gratian's Decretum, purchased in
1246.42 Along with Huguccio's Commentary,43Gregory IX's Decretales,44and
Bernard of Parma's Casus super Decretalibus,45it provided the friars with a basis
for a knowledge of canon law. The Bible was studied with the aid of commentaries
by Basil,46Ambrose,47Gregory I,48Peter Lombard,49Peter Tarantasius,50William
of Mara,5l Hugh of St Cher,52William of Melton,53 and Walter of Chateau-
Thierry.54Patristic theology included works by Athanasius,55Ambrose,56Augus-
tine,57 Gregory I,58 Didymus of Alexandria,59Quodvultdeus,60 John of Damas-
cus,61 and Paul the Deacon.62 Later theology was represented by Anselm,63
Bernard,64Hugh of St. Victor,65Hugh Etherianus,66William of Auxerre,67Bona-
venture,68 and Thomas Aquinas.69 Philosophy could be studied in numerous
41 Archivio dello
Stato, Florence, Notarile, Protocols 0.2 (1, 2); 0.3. For a fuller treatment of this
subject, see Davis, "Early Books of S. Croce."
42 Biblioteca
Laurenziana, Florence, Plut. I sin. 1. The manuscripts referred to in this paragraph
and the next are contained in the S. Croce collections of the Laurentian Library (described by
Bandini, Catalogus codicum latinorum BibliothecaeMediceae Laurentianae, iv, Florence, 1777) and in
the Conventi soppressi collection of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence. Those from the
former are distinguished by the notations Plut. and sin. or dext. (corresponding to the old divisions of
the library into plutei and into pars sinistra and pars dextra); those from the latter are distinguished
by the notation Conv.sopp.
43 Plut. I sin. 4. 44Plut. IV sin. 3.
46Plut. IV sin. 6. 46 Plut. XIII dext. 9.
47Ibid. and Plut. XIV dext. 7. 48 Plut. XIX dext. 2, 5; XX dext. 9.
49 Plut. III dext. 5. 60Plut. XI dext. 8.
51 Plut. XXV sin. 4. 52 Plut. VII dext. 4.
63Plut. IX dext. 4. 54 Plut. VIII dext. 11.
6 Plut. XIV dext. 7. 66 Iid.
67Plut. XVII dext. 8; XXIII dext. 3. 58 Plut. XIX dext. 8: XXI dext. 12.
69Plut. XIII dext. 9. 60 Plut. XXII dext. 7.
61 Plut. XIII dext. 6. 62Plut. XIX dext. 5.
63 Plut. XIII dext. 6. 64 Plut. XXI dext. 1: XXII dext. 7.
66 Plut. XXII dext. 4, 7. 66 Plut. XXIII dext. 3.
67 Plut. IV sin. 3; X sin. 4. 68 Conv. sopp. D. 5. 220, 221.
69 Plut. XXIX dext. 3.
424 Education in Dante's Florence
works of Aristotle70and in Aquinas' commentaries on the Ethics, the De Causis,
and the De Anima.71There were grammatical treatises and dictionaries by John
Aegidius,72William of Mara,73John of Garland,74Alexander of Villedieu,75and
Huguccio.76Gilbert of Tournai's volume of educational theory77and miscellane-
ous saints' lives and sermons were also included in the collection which, judged
by this sample, had the merit of solidity but hardly of variety.78 It is evident that
theology was the main emphasis of the early library and the main business of the
early school.
Other thirteenth-century manuscripts in the S Croce collections of the Biblio-
teca Laurenziana and the Biblioteca Nazionale add more depth and range, though
the date of their entry into the convent cannot be determined. S Croce obviously
possessed some logical texts, and the number of early manuscripts of the tradi-
tional treatises of Aristotle, Porphyry, and Boethius which have survived79make
it reasonably certain that some at least were thirteenth-century acquisitions. The
same surmise can be made for other grammatical texts and dictionaries, such as
Priscian,80Isidore,81Papias,82and Eberhard.83Virgil's Aeneid was probably there,
for Fra Anastasius, who seems to have served as librarian, made a Latin com-
pendium of this work. But the general dearth of the classical auctoresamong the
early manuscripts (almost complete except for Virgil,84Servius,85Solinus, Eutro-
pius,86 Suetonius,87 and bits of Horace88 and Ovid89) indicates that study of the
trivium was only a quick and utilitarian step on the way to theology. In this
respect the early collection of S Croce seems very limited when compared with
those of more ancient centers like Bobbio or Verona. Perhaps the energy with

70 Plut. XIII sin.

6, acquired for the armarium in 1319 by Fra Monaldus the guardian, containing
the Metaphysics, Ethics, Politics, Rhetoric and other works. It is impossible to date precisely the
entry into the convent of other thirteenth century codices containing the Metaphysics and other
philosophical treatises (for example, Plut. XIII sin. 7, 8, 10, 11) but some may well have been there
before 1300.
71 Plut. XXIX dext. 10.
72 Plut. XXV sin. 4.
73 Ibid.
74 Plut. XXV sin. 5.
75 Ibid.
76 Plut. XXVII sin. 5.
77 Plut. XXXVI dext. 6.
78 Plut. XXIV sin. 1; XV dext. 6; XXI dext. 1; Conv. sopp. C. 7. 236 are among the codices con-
taining such works.
79 For
example, Plut. XI sin. 1, 2, 5, 6, 9.
80 Plut. XXII sin. 2.
81 Plut. XXVII sin. 10.
82 Plut. XXVII sin. 3.
83 Plut. XXV sin. 10.
84 See
above, note 20.
85 Plut. XXII sin. 1.
86 Plut. XX sin. 2.
87 Plut. XX sin. 3.
88 Plut. XXIII dext. 11.
89 Plut. XI sin 2.
 Education in Dante's Florence 425

which classical studies were pursued in Florence (and at S Croce) in the next
century was, in part, the result of their novelty and of a relative Florentine back-
wardness in the preceding age.
As for the studium, it stood at least by the 1280's in the second rank of the
Franciscan hierarchy of schools. At the top were the three studia principalia in
theology: Paris, Oxford, and Cambridge. Next came the studia generalia in the-
ology, which were assigned to such convents as those at Toulouse, Cologne,
Bologna, and Florence. There was also a third grade of convents approved for
theological study, including, in Italy, Asti, Pisa, Rimini, and Todi. Below these
were placed studia grammaticalia,logicalia et philosophica to which friars were sent
for preparation before they embarked on the higher subject of theology, perhaps
at S Croce.90
Of the early teachers, we may identify Gerard of Prato, author of a Breviloqui-
um on Peter Lombard's Sentences, who departed on a missionary journey to the
East in 1277;91John of Castelvecchio and Jacob of Mugello, lectors in 1282;92
Peter Olivi and Ubertino da Casale, lectors between 1287 and 1289;93and Philip
Ultrarnensis, who wrote a concordance of the Gospels and also taught in Paris,
lector in 1301.94Probably their instruction consisted chiefly of Biblical exegesis
and the interpretation of Peter Lombard's Sentences, with considerable reliance
upon Bonaventure's commentary. The date of acquisition of Aquinas' Summa
Theologiceand certain of his philosophical works is uncertain, but it must have
been either in the late thirteenth or the early fourteenth century. A wide selection
of Aristotle's philosophical treatises was purchased in 1319; whether other codices
of some of these works were acquired earlier by the convent is not known.95The
philosophical outlook of the school is likely to have remained neo-Platonist and
Bonaventuran rather than Aristotelian and Thomist, though these signs of electi-
cism are interesting.
Dante may have been influenced by S Croce during two periods of his life. In
his youth, according to Francesco da Buti, he intended to become a Franciscan,
but left the order before taking his vows.96The lateness of this testimony has
90See Ordinationesa BenedictoXII profratribus minoribuspromulgatae (28 Nov. 1336), ed. M. Bihl,
Arch. Fran. Hist., xxx (1937), 327, 346-352 and ConstitutionesProvinciae Romanae anni 1316, ed.
A. G. Little, Arch. Fran. Hist. xvIII (1925), 369.
91Edited by Marcellino da Civezza, O.F.M., Prato, 1882. On him see Davidsohn, Geschichte,Iv,
iii, 127, 151.
92See Arch. Fran. Hist. xx (1927), 55.
93 See Davidsohn, Geschichte,II, ii, 274-276; F. Sarri, O.F.M., 'Pier di Giovanni Olivi e Ubertino
da Casale Maestri di Teologia a Firenze (Sec. XIII)', Studi francescani, xxii (1925); and for discus-
sions of these dates and of Ubertino's account of his stay in Florence, Arch. Fran. Hist. iv (1911),
597; vi (1913), 207.
94 Plut. XI dext. 2; in a note at the beginning of the codex there is a eulogy of Fra Philip "qui
fuit maxime scientie, lector excellens parysiensis, legit in pluribus studiis generalibus multis annis."
Two of Opizzo da Pontremoli's documents, both dated 6 April 1301 (ASF, Notarile, Prot. O. 3) also
refer to him as "lector."
95See above, notes 69, 70, 71.
96This theory is advocated by, among others, A. Martini, O.F.M., 'Dante francescano,' Studi
francescani, xvIII (1921), 71-103.
426 Education in Dante's Florence

aroused justifiable suspicion. Dante's reference to the corda intorno cinta in In-
ferno XVI, 106 has also been interpreted to mean that he joined the Tertiaries.
Perhaps before he was twenty he had read the Actus b. Francisci et Sociorum eius
and Bonaventure's Legendamaior at S Croce,97although this is only supposition.
As for the second period, Dante could hardly have avoided S Croce when he was
attending "the schools of the religious." He himself says that this was after
Beatrice's death (8 June 1290). Barbi notes that before 1290 both Olivi and
Ubertino had left Florence and that Dante could not, therefore, have been taught
by them.98 It may be unwise to take a poet's date so literally.99 But even if
Dante's formal studies in theology did not begin until this time, it is likely that in
previous years he heard some of Olivi's and Ubertino's sermons and felt the force
of the strong Spiritual movement in Florence before 1290.
This inference is made probable by the poet's verbal quotations from the Arbor
Vitas CrucifixeaJesu100and by the close correspondence between Dante's and
Ubertino's attacks on contemporary popes and between Dante's and Olivi's
descriptions of the corruption of Christian Rome, using the figure of the Great
Whore of Babylon sitting on her seven hills and drinking the blood of the saints.
This passage had originally described pagan Rome, persecutor of the Christians.
It was later interpreted as indicating the reprobate wherever he might be found.
Dante and the Spiritual Franciscans applied it to contemporary church history.
The expectation of the latter that a reformer would come to cleanse the cloaca of
Christian Rome and prepare the way for a general reform was apparently also
shared by Dante. Perhaps he began to be influenced by their theories during the
period between 1287 and 1289 when Olivi and Ubertino were teaching at the
convent of S Croce.101
Not only did Dante probably derive his fascination with the figure of St Francis
from S Croce, but it was perhaps in its library that he first came to know the
writings of Bonaventure, no less important for his theology than those of Aquinas.
He might also have found there various works of Hugh of St Victor and in particu-
lar Hugh's commentary on Dionysius, the pseudo-Areopagite's De Angelica Hier-
archia.102But it was probably not here that he could learn to respect the achieve-
ments and morality of pre-Christian Rome. Olivi's judgement on the pagan

97 Plut. XIX dext. 10 is a thirteenth-century codex of the latter work.

98 M.
Barbi, 'I1 gioachimismo francescano e il Veltro', Studi danteschi, xviii (1934), 209-211.
99 See on this H. Grundmann, 'Dante und Joachim von Fiore zu Paradiso X-XII', DeutschesDante.
Jahrbuch,xiv (1932), 210-256, esp. p. 236 (in note).
100Ubertino himself says that this work was written in 1305, but it shows unmistakable signs of
being in large part a compilation of earlier treatises and sermons, some of which Dante may have
seen or heard. See on this A. Martini, O.F.M., "Ubertino da Casale alla Verna e la Verna nell'Arbor
vitae," La Verna. Contributi alla storia del santuario. Ricordo del Settimo Centenario (Arezzo, 1913),
pp. 193-264.
101For a discussion and bibliography of this subject, see C. T. Davis, Dante and the Idea of Rome,
Oxford, 1957, pp. 195-235, 239-243.
102 Plut. XX dext. 4. For the influence of neo-Platonism on Dante see J. A. Mazzeo, Structureand

Thought in the Paradiso (Ithaca, N. Y., 1958) and Medieval Cultural Tradition in Dante's Comedy
(Ithaca, N. Y., 1960).
 Education in Dante's Florence 427

philosophers seems to express the spirit of S Croce: "What they [the ancients]
learned of morals and of the whole political regimen of men is evident, since they
handed down to us a false beatitude and a false morality."103
The great Dominican house of S Maria Novella was comparable in size and
importance to its Franciscan counterpart, and a necrology begun in 1280 gives
much information concerning its members.104From surviving statutes of the
Roman province we can learn a good deal about its early school, but not its early
library. The historian of the latter, Father Orlandi, can point to only a very few
books as being in the convent before or shortly after 1300.105At least a partial
reason for this dearth may be found in a sermon delivered by Fra Remigio
de' Girolami in 1318, appealing to the priors of the city for help in completing a
new school building. Remigio said that the work had been begun with money
from the sale of the convent's manuscripts.106These must have included only
volumes not urgently needed for liturgical and scholastic purposes. The fact that
a fairly ambitious building venture could be at least partly financed in such
fashion indicates that the early book collection of S Maria Novella was both large
and valuable, and one could wish that it had been, like that of S Croce, in more
tenacious hands.
As for the school, it existed at least as early as 1231.107Fifty years later it was
assigned a studium theologiaeby the Roman Provincial chapter.108This gave it an
103 Peter Olivi, De perlegendisphilosophorumlibris, ed. F. M. Delorme, Antonianum, xiv (1941), 44.
104Ed. Orlandi, op. cit.
105 Orlandi, La bibliotecadi S. Maria Novella in Firenze dal sec. xiv al sec. xix (Florence,
1952), says
that the real founder of the library was Fra Jacopo Passavanti, ordained in 1317. He notes that al-
though every Dominican convent had a small armarium (a chest or press for the safekeeping of books)
almost as soon as it was founded, it is only in 1338 that we find the term used at S. Maria Novella to
mean a room or place with columns to which books could be chained. Sardi's inventory (1489) is the
earliest surviving list of the convent's books. Among the MSS from the first period of the collection's
existence are the works of Remigio and Riccoldo of Montecroce. Various writings of Thomas Aquinas,
of Aristotle, and of several classical authors were also almost certainly to be found there.
106 Bibl. Naz., Florence, Conv. sopp. G. 4. 936 f. 355v-356r. Since this sermon has been referred
to as furnishing evidence that the School of S. Maria Novella was open to laymen at least after 1318,
the crucial passage from it is worth quoting in full:
Undeego (Remigio) consideransnostrum et etiam communis bonum et necessitatem incoavi quan-
dam domum in porta et huc usque perduxi cum venditione librorum nostrorum super qua adhuc
sum. Unde necessarium est quod ad complendum eam commune apponat manum.... Domus
enim illa erit quasi quidam burguccius, quia in illa inferius erit domus pro sacerdote et domus pro
familia et superius erit scola pro fratribus. Inferius autem et superius simul erit domus pro communi
et civibus, qui etiam cum hiis simul poterunt habere domum scole magno tempore anni, quando
scilicet non legetur, et etiam quando legeretur, si esset necessitas.
Though Remigio's words indicate close relations between convent and commune, and also a consider-
able casualness about opening the premises of the school to laymen, there is no specific proof here
that the scola pro fratribus included outsiders. Another piece of evidence, however, is much more
persuasive in this regard; see below, p. 430.
107 Davidsohn, Forschungen, iv, 466. In 1285 a contract was made "in the schools of the friars

preachers" by two rectors of the Societas S. Marie virginis S. Marie Novelle, a group which taught
and encouraged the singing of lauds by laymen, authorizing Duccio di Buoninsegna to paint a picture
of the Virgin, Christ, and saints, for a price of 150 lire. See ibid., pp. 429, 480.
108
Along with Lucca, Siena, and Naples. See Acta capitulorum provincialium provinciae romanae,
428 Education in Dante's Florence

intermediate rank in the Dominican educational hierarchy between simple con-

ventual schools and studia generalia. Schools of this middle provincial class in-
cluded also studia artium (sometimes subdivided into studia logicea veteris et
tractatuum and studia novcelogicce or artis novae),studia naturalium, and studia
philosophiee,all of which taught Aristotle.109They were often moved from place to
place, probably for economic reasons, though this seems not to have been neces-
sary in the case of the wealthy Florentine convent, where the teaching of theology
appears to have been continuous, and where a second school, a provincial studium
in logica with its own lector and students, was established in 1318.110
The early importance of the Florentine studium is shown by the fact that in
1288 thirteen new students were assigned to it, while the other two studia theolo-
gicaof the Roman province, Rome and Naples, received only eight and five respec-
tively. In 1291, however, perhaps to redress the balance, Florence was assigned
only five students, as against Siena's six and Rome's eight. Again in 1293, five
students went to Florence, while six went to Perugia and five to Naples. In 1295,
S Maria Novella received no new students, but bachelors of preceding years were
still there attempting to complete their courses. Other references to Florence as a
studium of theology are contained in provincial statutes of 1299, 1305, 1307, 1310,
and 1311. In the last year Florence was referred to as a studium generale,the only
school in the province so described. In 1313 the convent secured eight new stu-
dents, in 1331, ten, and in 1332, twenty-one, plus nine students of logic, all from
the Roman province; we do not know how many came from outside. It had obvi-
ously become one of the leading schools of its order.ll
A provincial studium theologiacgenerally had one lectorsacrcepagince,who gave
courses on books of the Bible and perhaps also on Peter Lombard's Sentences,and
who was expected to hold a disputation at least once a week. It also usually had
an assistant lector who was called lector Sententiarum or cursor Sententiarum or
baccellarius. Of this second class, Conrad of Pistoia was assigned to Florence in
1287; Michael of Florence in 1288; John of Spoleto in 1291; Francus of Perugia in
1292; John Auricola in 1293; Philip of Monte Obiano in 1295; Felicianus of
Spoleto in 1299; Angelus of Spoleto in 1307; John of Poppi in 1310; Peter Niger of
Cortona in 1311; Ubertus Guidi before 1315; and Taddeo Dini of Florence in
1318, as the provincial statutes testify.112But references to lectors of theology at

ed. T. Kaeppeli and A. Dondaine, O. P., Monumenta Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum Historica, xx
(Rome, 1944), 50.
109 See
Acta, ed. cit., passim; C. Douais, Organisation des etudes dans l'ordre des freres precheurs
au xiiie et au xive siecles (Paris and Toulouse, 1884); A. G. Little, "Educational Organization of the
Mendicant Ordersin England," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, N.S., vIII (1894), 49-70;
P. Mandonnet, O.P., "La th6ologie," Dictionnaire de theologie catholique,vi (Paris, 1913), 866-869;
H. Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, 2nd ed., F. M. Powicke and A. B. Emden
(Oxford, 1936), I, 371.
110 Acta, ed. cit., p. 209. In 1332 nine new students were assigned to the Florentine studium in
logica; ibid., p. 274.
1" Ibid., pp. 85, 100, 112, 121, 132, 155, 166, 178, 181, 182, 189, 260, 272, 274.
112 Ibid.,
pp. 78, 84,100,107,112,121,132,166,178,181,197, 207. Only one of these lectors, Ubertus
Guidi, comes to life in the pages of the provincial acts: dum disputaretur de Quolibet in conspectu
 Education in Dante's Florence 429

S Maria Novella are far less numerous. Riccoldus of Montecroce was sent to
Florence in 1288 but was not required to lecture. Nicholas Brunacci of Perugia
was assigned to the convent in 1299. Jordan of Pisa is referred to as Florentine
lector in 1303. In 1305 the provincial chapter at Rieti made somewhat involved
arrangements for S Maria Novella, assigning Remigio de' Girolami as lector there,
but providing for a substitute in case he was unable to go. In 1311 Philip of
Pistoia was made lector in Florence "in studio generali." In 1317 a certain Angelo
was referred to as "Florentine lector.""3 But who directed the school in other
years?
The answer to this question is supplied by the Florentine necrology, which
informs us that Remigio de' Girolami served as lector of S Maria Novella for over
forty-two years.l4 Towards the end of his life he was compelled by ill health to
give up some of his duties;15 this would explain the presence of Angelo in 1317. In
1311, when Philip of Pistoia was made lector, he was finishing a term of office as
prior of the Roman province.16 In 1304, when Jordan of Pisa was lector, he was
holding disputations at the papal court in Perugia.l7 In 1299, when Nicholas
Brunacci was assigned to the Florentine convent, he may have been out of the
city, as we know that he attended the general chapter at Metz as diffinitor in
1298.118Perhaps he was completing his studies in theology in Paris at this time; at

multitudinisfratrum,secularium,clericorumet aliorumreligiosorum,temerarie,non solum in ipsa

disputationesed etiam in cathedra,dum legeret,multa assertivedixit contrasanamet sacramdoc-
trinamvenerabilisdoctorisfr. Thome de Aquino.... He was silencedfor two years, transferredto
Pistoia, and made to fast for ten days on breadand water.His careerwas not ruined,however,for
threeyearslater (in 1318)he was madelectorsacraepaginaein Viterbo.(Ibid.,p. 206.)
(Paris,1935) pp. 129-
113Ibid., pp. 88, 135, 148, 154, 181, 201. P. Mandonnet,Dantele theologien
130, says incorrectlythat NicholasBrunacciwas assignedto S MariaNovella in 1294,and in conse-
quencemight have been Dante's teacher.In 1294 Brunacciwas almost certainlyat Perugia,as he
had been assignedas lector there by the provincialchapterof the precedingyear (Acta,ed. cit., p.
112).
114Orlandi, Necrologio, I, 35-36.
115 Idem.
116Peter Ferrandi,ChronicaRomana,ed. H. C. Scheeben,ArchivumFratrumPraedicatorum, iv
(1934), 119.
117BibliotecaNazionaleCentrale,Florence,Conventi soppressi,C.4.940,f. 90v (the explicitof this
quodlibetsays that it was delivered"apudPerusium,in curia");G.4.936,f. 406v (Remigiosays in
this poem,publishedby G. Salvadorand V. Federici,"I sermonid'occasionele sequenzee i ritmi di
Remigio Girolamifiorentino,"Scrittivari di filologiaa ErnestoMonaci (Rome, 1901), pp. 501 ff.,
that he was given the magisteriumby the "presulpredicator"(BenedictXI). Since he served as
diffinitorof the chaptergeneralof the orderat Besanconin 1303 (ChronicaRomana,ed. cit., 117)
and since Benedict'spontificatelasted only from Oct. 22, 1303to July 7, 1304,Remigiomust have
been absentfromFlorenceduringat least part of both 1303and 1304. On the studiumof the papal
curia, see R. Creytens,O.P., "Le 'StudiumRomanaeCuriae'et le Maitre du SacrePalais,"Arch.
Frat. Praed., xII (1942), 5-83. He denies (pp. 37-38, n. 75) the claim of Taurisano,Hierarchia
OrdinisPraedicatorum (Rome, 1916), p. 34, n. 1, that Remigiohad the title magistersacripalatii,
whichhe says was not yet in use. We do not know whetherRemigiowas lectorof the schoolof the
sacredpalaceor not. Perhapshe wassimplyinvitedto holddisputationsat the curiauponbeingsum-
monedto Perugiaby BenedictXI to receivethe magisterium.
118 Ferrandi,Chronica Romana,ed. cit., p. 115.
430 Education in Dante's Florence

any rate he hoped to receive the magisterium from Boniface VIII in 1302.119
There was evidently no need to send lectores sacroepagince to Florence at other
times because Remigio was already performing this function.
The necrology of S Maria Novella tells us that Remigio was licensed in arts at
Paris "in the first flower of his youth," and was later sent back to that university
in order to perfect himself in theology. His reputation as a Florentine professor
revealed by a letter to the Sienese magistrates in 1313, when he was sent on a
diplomatic mission to that city. The Florentine government referred to him as
"prothorethore" and as "foremost father of our university."120This last title is the
best evidence that the studium of S Maria Novella was open to laymen; otherwise
it is difficult to see why it should have been called "our university" in preference
to the studia generalia of S Croce and S Spirito. Perhaps its "father," Remigio,
was responsible for opening it to citizens like Dante. Certainly many of Remigio's
sermons show his strong local patriotism, his pride in Florentine greatness, and
his sense of the indebtedness of the convent to the city.
Remigio's works survive in early fourteenth-century manuscripts, several of
which have marginal notes, almost certainly in his own hand.121Among his numer-
ous unpublished treatises, questiones, lectures, and sermons, which treat an as-
tonishing variety of subjects, are some which shed direct light on his activity as a
teacher.122He lectured on the Bible, apparently at the rate of one book a year, on
Peter Lombard's Sentences, and on Aristotle's Ethics. His prologues to these
courses and his disputations reveal a wide acquaintance with the Aristotelian
learning so eagerly studied in thirteenth-century Dominican schools.
They also reiterate Aristotle's glorification of man as a rational animal. In his
prologue to the Ethics123Remigio says that philosophy is delectable in the highest
degree, since "homo est homo et habet naturam humanam per intellectum" and
therefore study is his natural operation. Its delights are also wonderful because
they are unusual, pure because they are innocent and unmixed, and firm because
they deal with things that are eternal and incorruptible. In a prologue on the

119Conv. sopp., G.4.936, f. 406v. Remigio says that he was called to Rome by the Pope, but the
latter's illness and death kept him from obtaining it.
120 Orlandi,
Necrologio, I, 35-36; II, 421-422.
121Bibl. Naz., Florence, Conv.
sopp., C.4.940, G.4.936, D.1.937, G.3.465, E.7.938. See G. Salvadori
and V. Federici, op. cit., pp. 471-475; C. T. Davis, "An Early Florentine Political Theorist: Fra
Remigio de' Girolami," Proc. of the Am. Philos. Soc., civ (1960), 665, n. 32; 0. Capitani, "L'in-
compiuto 'tractatus de iustitia' di fra' Remigio de' Girolami (+1319)," Bullettino dell'Istituto Storico
Italiano per il Medio Evo e Archivio Muratoriano, LXxII (1961), 95-108; see also the description of
Remigio's writing and the bibliography given by Orlandi, Necrologio, ii, 276-307. Some of the at-
tributions to Remigio made by Father Orlandi (Bibl. Naz. Conv. sopp. G.1.695, G.1.1019, 1.5.2)
are very doubtful.
122 G.4.936 contains, besides sermons, prologues to the books of the Bible, the Sentences, and Aris-

totle's Ethics (ff. 276v-345r); C.4.940 contains theological, philosophical, and political treatises, one
of which (ff. lr-7r) deals with the divisions of scientia, and also three quodlibets (ff. 71r-95r);
G.3.465 is composed of lengthy extracts from Remigio's quaestiones,arranged alphabetically by sub-
jects; Bibl. Laurenziana Conv. sopp. 516, ff. 221r-266v, and 362, ff. 88r-123v, contain a postill by
Remigio on the Song of Songs.
123G.4.936, ff. 344v-345r.
 Education in Dante's Florence 431

subject of science in general,'24Remigio says that man is joined to God by knowl-

edge, and with it can have both the Uncreated and all created goods. Teachers
and students, however, should not be concerned about the latter, and particularly
should not sink to selling their learning, but should pursue it for the glory of God,
who did not want His Church to have an ignorant ministry.
Remigio's educational theory, borrowed in large part from Aristotle, Augustine,
Isidore, and Hugh of St Victor, took the traditional mediaevalview that all human
learning should prepare the way for the study of theology. In one lecture he com-
pared grammar to a semita or viculus or kiasso, logic to a via, mathematics to a
publica strata, natural science to an aula palatii, moral science to a plathea or locus
communis, and theology to a campus where one could play delightfully with the
words of Holy Scripture. Citing Aristotle in the sixth book of the Ethics, he said
that this scheme conformed to the development of the young, who at first lacked
the experience required by natural and moral science and the strong intellect
necessary for metaphysics and theology. The last subject, he said could be di-
vided into branches (hystorialia, moralia, textualia, originalia) according to the
aptitude of the student.125
Remigio included politics under the heading of moral science, and this subject
was apparently one of his main interests. He approached it both as a philosopher
applying Aristotelian principles to the problems of the Florentine city-state126and
as a rhetorician attempting to persuade his contemporaries to put the common
good before the interests of individual persons and factions. The subject of rhe-
toric occupied only a small place in his educational scheme (he regarded it as the
art of verbal adornment),127but a very considerable place in his practice. Appar-
ently influenced by the old Roman ideal of the virtuous rhetorician, he addressed
eulogies and exhortations to kings, princes, and fellow citizens.128The fact that
the government of Florence called him its prothorethore,and that he was often

124
Ibid., ff. 341v-344v.
125
Ibid., f. 290v. Remigio believed also that aptitudes varied according to climate and that those
"habitantes in regionibus temperatis habunt melius capud et ingenium quam habitantes in regionibus
frigidis," though he said that exceptions had to be made in the cases of men like Bede the Englishman,
Michael the Scot, and Albert the German. (Bibl. Naz. Conv. sopp. D.1.957, f. 159r).
126 See C. T. Davis, "Remigio de' Girolami and Dante: a Comparison of their Conceptions of

Peace," Studi danteschi, xxxvi (1959), 105-136.

127 G.4.936, f. 277v. But in the treatise Contrafalsos ecclesie professores,Remigio spoke of rhetoric

at more length (C.4.940, ff. 155v-156v). Here he agreed with Augustine in the fourth book of De
Doctrina Christiana that nothing was more eloquent than Holy Writ and said that different kinds of
eloquence were suited to different ages and different persons. Those who arranged everything ad
ostentationem verborumwere not for this reason eloquent. As Cicero observed in his "Rhetorica"
(Partitiones Oratoriae, 23, 79, 81): "Nichil est aliud eloquentia nisi copiose loquens sapientia," and
"Vitium imitatur virtutem quando vim oratoriam imitatur inanis quedam profluentia loquendi."
128 Excerpts from these addresses are printed by Salvadori and Federici, op. cit. The dignitaries

before whom Remigio preached included Dante's friend Charles Martel, Charles of Valois on the
occasion of his entrance into Florence in 1302, and three members of the Angevin house which ruled
in Naples, Charles I, Charles II, and Robert. Although sprinkled with classical allusions, Remigio's
oratory, as might be expected, was more in the tradition of the medieval artes praedicandi than of
Cicero. On this subject see Th. M. Charland, O.P., Les Artes praedicandi. Contributiona l'histoire de la
432 Education in Dante's Florence
chosen to preach the funeral orations of important people and to welcome visiting
dignitaries, indicates that his skill in this art was considerable, although one must
confess that it is only very sporadically evident in the sermons, or rather sermon
outlines, which have been preserved. Perhaps it was the combination of patrio-
tism with piety which made his words appealing. For example, he eulogized the
florin as a coin which circulated even among the Saracens while at the same time
warning against putting one's trust in wealth.129And in an address to the priors of
the city in celebration of the building of the new S Maria Novella he spoke of the
church as great in its size, in its priest (Christ), in its Lady (the Virgin), and in its
people ("populus autem Florentinus ... innumerus est"). In order to rule such a
multitude, the priors should have the weight of grain rather than, like the preced-
ing signory, the lightness of chaff.130
Remigio ornamented his orations and sermons, as well as his treatises, with
quotations from and references to Roman authors. Among them were Cicero
(De Re Publica, De Amicitia, De Offciis, De Natura Deorum, De Senectute,Parti-
tiones Oratoric, Tusculan Disputations, and various speeches), Seneca (De Clemen-
tia, De Beneficia, Naturales Qucestiones,Epistolc Morales ad Lucilium), Ovid
(Fasti, Remedia Amoris, Tristia), Virgil, Horace, Lucan, Martial, Livy, Valerius
Maximus, Aesop, Proclus, Macrobius, and Boethius (Consolatio Philosophice,
translation of Aristotle's Topics, Comm.on Porphyry). One suspects that Remigio
relied heavily onflorilegia and perhaps on notebooks assembled during his years of
study in Paris. The number and length of his quotations from some of these au-
thors indicate, however, that at least a few of their works were to be found at
S Maria Novella, Cicero's De Amicitia, for example, and Valerius Maximus's
Facta et Dicta Memorabilia.'3 An interesting passage at the end of the long treatise
Contra Falsos Ecclesice Professores, in which there are quotations from many
pagan works as well as many Christian ones, contains the following apology:
"... quia nos cursim quodammodo scripsimus, non semper auctoritates inductas
in originali relegimus, sed aliquas ita posuimus sicut ab aliis invenimus allega-
tas."132The fact that Remigio says he only took some of his authorities from
secondary sources indicates that there were others to which he had direct access.
His writings justify the supposition that there was more emphasis on the auctores
in the library and school of S Maria Novella than we are able to find at S Croce.
Probably there was also more interest in ancient history. The main sources for
Remigio's knowledge of this subject seem to have been St Augustine's De Civitate
Dei, Valerius Maximus, and a compendium (perhaps Vincent of Beauvais' Specu-

rhtorique au Moyen Age (Paris and Ottawa, 1936). Most of Remigio's sermon outlines give little im-
pression of eloquence. The sermon he preached at Paris, probably before a university audience there
(Paris, Bibl. Nat. Lat. 3557, ff. 203r-209v, also contained in G.4.936, ff. 148v-152r), is, however,
unusually complete and elaborate.
129G.4.936, ff. 89v-90r.
130Ibid., f. 355r.
131For some of Remigio's quotations from these authors, see G.4.986, ff. 217v-221v, 387v, 889v;
C.4.940, ff. 272v, 345r.
132C.4.940, f. 196r.
 Education in Dante's Florence 433
lum Historiale) containing extracts from Suetonius. In his treatise De Bono Com-
muni he mentioned noble pagans (Lucius Valerius, Cincinnatus, Fabritius, Mar-
cus Curtius, Zaleucus, Regulus, Codrus, and Cato) who, like the Old Testament
figures Moses, David, and Judas Machabee, and the Christians Paul, Leo I,
Thomas a Becket, Lupus of Troyes, and King Louis IX were moved by rational
love to serve the common good, "secundum virtutem politicam."'33Elsewhere he
praised Julius Csesar and David for their mercy,134Octavian and Alexander for
admitting that they were not gods,135and Cicero, the plebeian consul, for putting
devotion to the commonwealth above the personal claims of friendship.136
Remigio's positive view of the pagan heroes is in direct contrast to Olivi's attitude
and points towards the deeper reverence which would be expressed by Dante.137
Dr Lorenzo Minio-Paluello has observed;
It is not safe to speakof Dante as a pupil of Remigio,as Salvadoriand othersdo; but it is
difficultto believethat Dante shouldnot have been in touch with the best centreof philo-
sophical studies which Florence could provide, at the time of his philosophical"con-
version."138

Moreover, one of the most popular preachers in Florence could hardly have
escaped his notice. When he was attending "the schools of the religious and the
disputations of the philosophers," it was almost certainly to S Maria Novella that
he went in order to study Aristotle. During this period Remigio was apparently
the only lectorsacrcepagincein the Dominican studium, and his sermons, lectures,
and treatises show that he took delight in quoting from the Philosopher on every
possible occasion. From him Dante may have learned those two Aristotelian
propositions which were fundamental to his philosophical and political thought:
first, that man as a rational creature naturally desires the knowledge which is his
perfection, and second, that man is naturally a citizen, a civil and political animal.
Dante placed the former axiom at the beginning of the Convivio,and much of
this vernacular encyclopaediawas devoted to asserting the nobility of philosophy
and the delights which its study offers to man, delights which satisfy natural
desires, since, according to Aristotle, the proper operation of man insofar as he is
man is to know. But how can one account for the fact, asked Dante, that some-
times such desires cannot be fulfilled? (For example, our intellect cannot "guar-
133
Ibid., ff. 97r-106r. Many of Remigio's examples are drawn from Augustine, De civitateDei, I, 23.
The treatise has been discussed and extracts from it published by R. Egenter, "Gemeinnutz vor
Eigennutz. Die soziale Leitidee im Tractatus de bono communi des Fr. Remigius von Florenz,"
Scholastik, ix (1934), 79-92, and L. Minio-Paluello, "Remigio Girolami's De bono communi,"
Italian Studies, xi (1956), 56-71.
13 G.4.936, ff. 48v, 229v, 233r.
135
C.4.940, f. 216r.
136 G.4.936, f. 256r; C.4.940, f. 154r. Cicero, he
says, was "ut gentilis optimus ... apud latinos." Cf.
Dante, Convivio,IV, v, 19.
137 Remigio's interest in classical antiquity was shared by many other contemporaries in the mendi-

cant orders. For an excellent analysis, broader than its title indicates, of this subject, see B. Smalley,
English Friars and Antiquity in the Early FourteenthCentury (Oxford, 1960). She, however, minimizes
surprisingly Remigio's use of classical authors (pp. 272-283).
138
Minio-Paluello, op. cit., p. 57 (in note).
434 Education in Dante's Florence
dar" God, eternity, and the first matter.) In this case we are faced with the diffi-
culty of explaining the existence of a desire which is at once natural and vain.
Dante solved the dilemma by denying that there is-a natural desire to pene-
trate the mystery of God's essence. "In everything," he declared, "natural desire
is proportioned to the capacity of the thing that desires; ... it only extends be-
yond that point in consequence of an error which is foreign to Nature's intention."
There is thus no natural desire to penetrate the mystery of God's essence.
Gilson says of this conclusion: "Dante dismisses the problem, so much debated
today, of the 'natural desire for God' in a manner as radical as it is unexpected."'39
Dante, however, may have heard Remigio advance this very argument. It is
contained in a qucestioentitled "Whether the anima intellectiva without super-
natural light can know all truth."'40After answering this question in the negative,
the Dominican lector attempted to deal with the same problem faced by Dante: a
natural desire cannot be directed towards impossibilities, for, as the Philosopher
said in De Anima iii, nature makes nothing in vain. Therefore, since the rational
soul naturally desires every truth as its perfection, it should be able to attain it in
a natural way.
One of Remigio's solutions was very similar to Dante's. Remigio said that the
truth concerning such incomprehensible things as the divine essence cannot be
understood by the rational soul. Therefore, one can hardly suppose that it is a
natural appetite which impells man towards knowing them. Remigio went on
to conclude that perhaps ex natura integra we desire nothing that we cannot
attain, but ex corruptionenaturcewe want things like immortality, which are
humanly impossible. Apparently Dante's "radical" answer was simply an argu-
ment familiar to the school of S Maria Novella, or at least to one of its lectors.141
Some of the historical and political arguments and examples used by Remigio
and Dante were also very similar. For example, both condemned the Donation of
Constantine as bringing about the corruption of the Church.142 Both eulogized the
fullness of time and of peace under the Emperor Augustus,143and also those
139 Conv.III, xv, 9-10; E. Gilson, Dante the
Philosopher, trans. D. Moore (London, 1948), p. 141.
140G.3.465, ff. 100v-104r.
141 I have been unable to find
any passage in Aquinas which refers in this connection to "an error
which is foreign to Nature's intention" or to the "corruption of nature" and which could therefore
serve as a common source. For Aquinas' teaching that man's beatitude in this world is incomplete and
that he has a natural desire to know the divine essence, see Summa contragentiles, III, 38, 48, 52, 147;
Summa theologiae,I-II, 3, 8; 5, 5; 62, 1; cf. Purgatorio XXI, 1-3. It is also interesting to note that
Dante was keenly aware of another problem which Remigio discussed in a quodlibet (C.4.940, f.
71r ff.): "utrum Deus possit facere quod materia existat actu sine forma." See Convivio IV, i, 8;
P. Renucci, Dante disciple et juge du monde greco-latin (Paris, 1954), p. 48; Minio-Paluello, op. cit., p.
57; and G. Busnelli, "Un famoso dubbio di Dante intorno alla materia prima," Studi danteschi, xIII
(1946), 47-60.
142 C.4.940, ff. 161r-162v: "Unde
legimus quod quando a Costantino fuit datum ecclesie imperium
occidentale facta est vox de celo: 'hodie infusum est venenum ecclesie Dei.' " Cf. ibid., f. 202r, and
Purgatorio, XXXII, 124-147.
143 G.4.936, f. 12v: "hoc (the perfect fullness and completeness of time under Augustus) fuit du-

pliciter: uno modo quantum ad secularem potestatem, quia tune Octavianus toti mundo imperabat;
secundo modo quantum ad temporalem pacem, quia tune pax plena erat in toto mundo"; Monarchia,
I, xvi.
 Education in Dante's Florence 435

Roman heroes whom Augustine had viewed with detachment, if not censure.
Both regarded Cicero as a defender of the res publica and as a representative of
true nobility derived from virtue.144Both applied Aristotelian principles to con-
temporary political problems, Remigio to Florence and Dante to the Empire.
Both distinguished between the theological virtues which should guide ecclesias-
tics and the philosophical virtues which should direct secular rulers.l45Both were
convinced( that life lived according to reason in the peace afforded by a well-
ordered state was the supreme human good. Perhaps it was Remigio, or at least
the influence of the school of S Maria Novella, which led Dante to a more opti-
mistic view of pagan Rome, of the possibilities of human society, and of the na-
tural capacities of the human reason than he could have obtained from S Croce.
But the influence of the two convents was complementary, and when Dante in the
Commediamakes St Bonaventure eulogize St Dominic, and St Thomas eulogize
St Francis, he seems to pay tribute to both.146
TULANE UNIVERSITY
144See above, notes 133 and 136; Convivio,IV, v.
145
C.4.940, 160r; Monarchia, II, xvi, 8.
146 Paradiso, XI, XII.