Leonardo Bruni

Leonardo Bruni or Leonardo Aretino ( – 9 March 1444) was an Italian humanist, historian and statesman, often recognized as the most important humanist historian of the early Renaissance. He has been called the first modern historian. He was the earliest person to write using the three-period view of history: Antiquity, Middle Ages, and Modern. The dates Bruni used to define the periods are not exactly what modern historians use today, but he laid the conceptual groundwork for a tripartite division of history.

Biography Leonardo Bruni was born in Arezzo, Tuscany circa 1370. Bruni was the pupil of political and cultural leader Coluccio Salutati, whom he succeeded as Chancellor of Florence, and under whose tutelage he developed his ideation of civic humanism. He also served as apostolic secretary to four popes (1405–1414). It was Bruni who used the phrase studia humanitatis, meaning the study of human endeavours, as distinct from those of theology and metaphysics, the source of the term humanists.

As a humanist, Bruni was essential in translating into Latin many works of Greek philosophy and history, such as Aristotle and Procopius. Bruni's translations of Aristotle's Politics and Nicomachean Ethics, as well as the pseudo-Aristotelian Economics, were widely distributed in manuscript and in print. His use of Aelius Aristides' Panathenicus (Panegyric to Athens) to buttress his republican theses in the Panegyric to the City of Florence was instrumental in bringing the Greek historian to the attention of Renaissance political philosophers (see Hans Baron's The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance for details). He also wrote a short treatise in Greek on the Florentine constitution.

Bruni was one of the first Humanists to confront Plato's discussion of same-sex relationships.

Bruni died in Florence in 1444, and is buried in a wall tomb by Bernardo Rossellino in the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence.

Works Latin text and English translation

Latin texts online An vulgus et literati eodem modo per Terentii Tullique tempora Romae locuti sint Calphurnia et Gurgulia De Bello Gallico Adversus Gothos Digitized from a copy at the John Adams Library. De studijs et litteris ad illustem dominam baptistam de malatesta tractatulus. Leipzig 1496. Epistola ad Baptistam de Malatestis. De interpretatione recta on Wikisource Lewis E 54 De primo bello punico (On the first Punic War) at OPenn

German texts online De duobus amantibus Guiscardo et Sigismunda. Ulm, Johann Zainer, ca. 1476–1477. From the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress