Table Of ContentPage i
Humanism and the Church Fathers
Humanism and the Church Fathers :
Ambrogio Traversari (1386-1439) and
title:
Christian Antiquity in the Italian
Renaissance
author: Stinger, Charles L.
publisher: State University of New York Press
isbn10 | asin: 0873953045
print isbn13: 9780873953047
ebook isbn13: 9780585064246
language: English
Traversari, Ambrogio,--1386-1439, Fathers
subject
of the church, Renaissance--Italy.
publication date: 1977
lcc: BX4705.T737S85eb
ddc: 282/.092/4
Traversari, Ambrogio,--1386-1439, Fathers
subject:
of the church, Renaissance--Italy.
Page ii
Traversari translating a Greek text. A detail of ms. Vat. lat. 394, s. XV, f.1r,
which contains Traversari's translations of Chrysostom's Homilies on Titus,
I and II Timothy, and Philemon. The ms. originally belonged to Cardinal
Marco Barbo (1420-91). Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Archivio Fotografico.
Page iii
Humanism and the Church Fathers
Ambrogio Traversari (1386-1439) and Christian
Antiquity in the Italian Renaissance
Charles L. Stinger
Albany
State University of New York Press
1977
Page iv
Published by State University of New York Press
99 Washington Avenue, Albany, New York 12246
© 1977 State University of New York
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Composed by
Typography Services
Loudonville, New York 12211
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Stinger, Charles L., 1944-
Humanism and the church fathers.
Bibliography: p.
1. Traversarius, Ambrosius, Camaldulensis, 1386-1439.
2. Fathers of the church.
3. Renaissance Italy.
I. Title.
BX4705.T737S85 282'.092'4 [B] 76-21699
ISBN 0-87395-304-5
Page v
For Pat
Page vii
Contents
Preface xi
Chapter I. Spiritual and Intellectual Formation 1
Chapter II. The Studia Humanitatis 27
Chapter III. The Renaissance of Patristic Studies 83
Chapter IV. Patristics and Reform 167
Chapter V. Patristics and Union of the Greek and Latin 203
Churches
Conclusion 223
Notes 228
Bibliography 301
Index 315
Page ix
List of Illustrations
Frontispiece
Traversari translating a Greek text
Following page 172
Hermits' cells at the Eremo, Camaldoli
Mid-fifteenth-century depiction of S. Maria degli Angeli
Lorenzo Monaco, "L'Incoronazione della Vergine," Uffizi Gallery,
Florence
Lorenzo Ghiberti, Reliquary for Sts. Protus, Hyacinth, and Nemesius,
Bargello, Florence
Miniature portrait of Traversari
Rough draft, in Traversari's hand, of his translation of Athanasius' De
incarnatione Verbi
The autograph ms. of Traversari's translation of Chrysostom's
Homilies on I Timothy
Example of the humanistic script produced at S. Maria degli Angeli
Bessarion and Cesarini reading the Decree of Union at the Council of
Florence
Lorenzo Ghiberti, detail of the "Gates of Paradise" to the Baptistry,
Florence
Page xi
Chapter I
Spiritual and Intellectual Formation
In 1400, when he was fourteen, Ambrogio Traversari left his native
village of Portico di Romagna, with its remote, cloud-shrouded peaks
and plunging precipices, to enter the cloister of the Camaldulensian
monastery of S. Maria degli Angeli in Florence. There, a year later, he
made his profession as a monk.
1
Little is known of Traversari's early years. He was descended from an
ancient Romagnol noble family, related to the Traversari feudal
magnates who had competed for rule of Ravenna in the thirteenth
century. In Purgatorio, Canto XIV, lines 91-111, where Dante laments
the passing of the ancient Romagnol nobility, he mentions the
Traversari as among those families whose chivalrous courtoisie had
been supplanted by the degenerate savagery of the corrupt new
signorie.2 The Traversari of Portico, along with other feudal magnates
in the Romagna, suffered a decline in power and authority in the
fourteenth century. In 1377 Portico fell to the hegemony of the
expanding Florentine territorial state.
The young Ambrogio received his primary education at the
Camaldulensian monastery at Galeata, near Portico. Perhaps this early
experience induced him to follow the monastic life. Or perhaps the
declining fortunes of his family impelled him in that direction.
Regardless, the monastic vocation also proved attractive to
Ambrogio's younger brother, Girolamo, who joined him as a monk at
S. Maria degli Angeli in 1412.3
The Order that Ambrogio joined was founded by St. Romuald (952-
1027), who established a hermitage at Camaldoli, high up in the
Tuscan Apennines, from which the Order took its name. Characteristic
of Camaldulensian monasticism was emphasis on the austerity of the
eremitic life. Indeed Dante, in the sphere of Saturn in Paradiso, the
domain of the
Page 2
contemplatives, has St. Benedict point out the presence of St.
Romuald, the exemplar of western eremitic monasticism, as Macarius
(c.300-c.390), the Egyptian desert father, was for eastern.
4 At the beginning of the fifteenth century the Camaldulensian Order
comprised some fifty monasteries scattered through Tuscany, Umbria,
the Romagna, and the Veneto.5
S. Maria degli Angeli was founded in 1293. Although it was an urban
monastery the third circle of the Florentine walls included it within
the city the foundation stipulated that the monks lead an eremitic life.
The monks were to maintain a perpetual cloister, never leaving the
grounds of the monastery except for grave circumstances, a stipulation
which remained in effect until 1470.6 In the early fourteenth century
the monastery consisted of a Gothic cloister, composed of unadorned
individual cells, and a Gothic oratory, a rectangular building with
open-raftered roof illuminated through small slits in the upper walls.
The simplicity of the buildings corresponded to Romuald's eremitic
intentions. In the second half of the fourteenth century, with the
revival of religious piety in the wake of the terrors of the Black Death,
the monastery was enlarged with the addition of two new cloisters, a
refectory, and an infirmary. The original cloister was plundered during
the Ciompi rebellion of 1378, but in the last decades of the century
this and the other buildings were embellished with altars, tabernacles,
and fresco decoration donated by wealthy Florentine families.7
During Traversari's stay in the monastery, some thirty monks lived
there, including many from prominent Florentine patrician families.8
Traversari remained cloistered at S. Maria degli Angeli from 1401
until his election as General of the Order in 1431. Since his
correspondence dates only from 1415, there is no direct knowledge of
his early life in the monastery. Clearly, however, the life of solitude
