Vita Activa versus Vita Contemplativa in Petrarch and Salutati Author(s): Paul A. Lombardo Source: Italica, Vol.

59, No. 2 (Summer, 1982), pp. 83-92 Published by: American Association of Teachers of Italian Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/479134 . Accessed: 01/02/2011 08:58
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VITA ACTIVA VERSUS VITA CONTEMPLATIVA IN PETRARCH AND SALUTATI Several changing ideas have been identified, at least since the time of of Burckhardt,as characteristic that shift of social and intellectualbearingswe call the Renaissance.Debates about the alteredvaluationof Latin in relationto vernacular tongues; of rhetoric when compared to philosophy; or of a Ptolemaic chain of being in confrontationwith the Copernicanworld view are all familiarto students of the period. Another commonplacenotion describing an evolution from religious to secular values is summarizedvariously by the vita activa and otium/negotium. These phrasessugphrases vita contemplativa, gest the tension especially apparentin Italy in the fourteenthand fifteenth centuries between the value which had been attributedtraditionallyto life within the. cloister, secluded and contemplative, and the life of an active citizen, in commerce with the affairsof the world. Specific examples of essays supporting the older, "medieval" value system which accepted the life of religious seclusion as the highest calling have been explored in detail in the literatureon the subject. Equally availableare later accounts, arguing for the validity of the life of action and political involvement. Questions are posed still concerning the individual most responsible for the change and the work that representsmost clearly the signal of change. In this paper I will not attempt to answer those questions. I will, rather, briefly survey the literatureconcerningthe changing emphasison the religious versus the secularlife in the work of Petrarchand Salutati.I will pay particular attention to Petrarch'sSecretumand, among the writings of Salutati, to De Seculoet Religioneand his letter to Peregrino Zambeccari,inasmuch as those two works demonstrate several facets of the conflict between religious and secularstyles of life. Salutati'sown position, as referenceto the scholarshipwill show, is far from a settled fact. And it is this unsettled ambiguity of Coluccio which recommends him to us. He representsthe tension between two value systems that remained, at least in argument, unresolved well into the seventeenth century. There is generalagreementthat Petrarch,despite his unchallengedposition as the foremostTrecento humanist, neverthelessadheredto a medieval' system of values. A distinctionmust immediatelybe made between the values Petrarch gave expression to in writing as part of a public position, and those values we may infer from the various stages of his career.We may find large inconsistencies between idea and act, but for the moment I am most concernedwith the consistencyof his writings as a history of thought. Hence, while there are questions about Petrarch'sultimate rejection of all worldly involvement, we can agreereadilywith Hans Baronwhen he says that "Petrarchrejecteda life of action and community in the family,"2or that his disciples repeated"Petrarch's
83

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ideal of the aloofness of the sage and the contempt for marriedlife and civic "' responsibilities. like Dante before him, shared a perspectivewhich gave very exPetrarch, ideals. The Divine Comedy be takenas a can plicit attentionto "other-worldly" of this focus on life after death, or, perhaps, life simply as a wayparadigm station before death. Dante's solution to the failures of the human comedy is his eventual vision of Beatrice. His success is not in possession, but in the mystical, contemplative apprehension of his ideal, occurring simultaneously with his vision of the Godhead in the celestial rose. Petrarch shares the religious belief and the cultural traditionof Dante which presumesthat those who are most disposedto the apprehensionof divine truth and goodnesson this earth are those who forsakethe pleasuresof the here and now and fix their gaze securely on the hereafter. Such a pose is most easily struck while within the walls of a convent. Although neither Dante nor Petrarchchose the religious life, both clearly revered it as an ideal, and it is this ideal that places them within the medieval tradition. But how firmlyis Petrarchlodged in that tradition?And is the Secretum, his with Augustine, a restatement of the "medieval commonplace" as dialogue Trinkaus suggests, that "To be religious seems to mean quite simply to be a religious," that is to say, a monk?4 The problems with the Secretumare several. Baron has given extended attention to the textual corruptions introduced into the extant copies by both Petrarch and others.5His criticism of the "cross-sectional" researchof Whitfield may not conclusively demonstratehow one should regardthe Secretum, but it does establish the difficulty inherent in taking this oft-revisedwork as a strong clue to a single phase of Petrarch'sthought. Or to quote Barondirectly, in of . given his uniqueprocrastination the publication his writingsand the countless fluctuations his thought a century transition, of in of Petrarch always will set the student the Renaissance of his mosttryingtasks.6 of one Yet given this difficulty in solving the textual mysteries of the Secretum, should one link it, as Whitfield does,7 with other "devotional"works like De Vita Solitaria and De Ocio Religiosorum? finds a common denominatorin He the rhetoricalstyle of all these works. While they clearly fall into a genre of stylized writing, the objective of which was to praise the religious life of seclusion, their "contemptfor the world" thesis is clothed in reasoningsmore useful to the humanistthan the hermit. The apparentcontradictionWhitfield finds in Petrarchis the introductionof a classicalargumentfor solitude, borrowedfrom Cicero, which allows a "legitimisationof nature and the elegances of life, of human and social activity."' This contradictionis the result of finding such an argumentwithin works purportedlywritten in exhortationof retreatfrom the world. Thus, the solitude that Petrarchfavorsimplies the leisure for study and reflection, rather than a monastic ascetisicm. He is consistent, according to Whitfield, neither in his choice of vocation, nor in his praise of the religious life. Petrarch'scoherencethroughouthis writings rests on his acceptanceof the

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possible dignity of human activity, and it is solitude that providesthe ambience in which such activity might occur with the fewest encumbrances.Petrarch's works on monastic life are stylized and artificial,though well intended. It was "his own inaptitudefor a monasticsolitude"' which forcedhim to find reasotns for a seclusion that did not rely on a religious denunciationof the world. His own reasonsare to be found in the study of the classics and in reflectionon the possibility of virtue outside the religious life. It is this positive note through which Petrarch initiates the ideal of virtue ouside the monastery, and which opened the way for eventual praise of the vita activa by those who followed.10 Whitfield's assessment of Petrarch, despite Baron's critique, rings more true than the attemptsby other writerswho have tried to show the humanists' lack of concern for consistency. Siegal's argument, for example, proposesthat the humanists' emphasis on eloquence allowed them to be "careless or indifferent about the distinction between one philosophical position and another," and to defend "contrasting positions."" Trinkaus is even more cynical, describing Petrarch'svacillation as if he were a sophist or, at best, a fuzzyminded versifier: is but and and Petrarch ananti-rationalist a semi-sceptic, alsoa rhetorician a manof because faith.It is easyfor him to be full of inconsistent statements, logicalconand in has thereis consistency thesepositions sistency no valueforhim.However, as it with century he experienced and particularly the life of manin the fourteenth he it structured with appropriate images.In the finalanalysis was a poet.'2 It would seem much more likely that it was not a disregardfor consistency which motivated Petrarch'schanging moods, but the intensity with which his mind reached out for novel explanations. His greatnessdid not allow his imaginationto be containedwithin the bounds createdby others of his age. What J. H. Hexter has said of More and Machiavellimay be said of Petrarchas well, namely, that such visionariesproduce work markedmore by intensity than by Inconsistency, at least in this context, is the markof genius not of harmony."3 sophistry. Or, to look at the argumentfrom anothervantage point, we should expect the virtue of consistency more from souls secure in their beliefs and untroubled by doubt. Transitional figures like Petrarch catch our attention precisely because they suggest new avenues of thought. The tension we see beginning, though faintly, in a writer like Petrarchis out of step with the feelings of his contemporaries.The problemis common to the study of intellectual history, and is summarizedby Lovejoy: in rank moredistinctly its writers inferior The tendencies an age appear of of
than in those of commandinggenius. The latter are .
. .

for all time. But in those

idealsrecord themselves sensitive souls,of less creative responsive power,current with clearness.'4

The point I am arguing against here is that it may not be crucial to determine if an authorhad an idea once and for all at a single time. We need not look at Petrarch'sreturnto Augustine on the trip up Mt. Ventoux as an apotheosis where, like Gibbon on the steps of Ara Coeli, the motive of his life is finally

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discovered. And helpful though Baron is, we may not need the certitude of dating some works which his exercises yield. It may be enough in noting Petrarch'sbrief vacations from the medieval temper to see them, to borrow a phrase from T. S. Eliot, as hints and guesses, or rather, hints followed by guesses.
In summary of Petrarch and the vita activalvita contemplativa controversy, I

think it is fair to say that he retaineda basically medieval posture towardthe relativevalue of a life of solitude over a life of actionin the world. His contribution to the changing focus of Renaissance thought was a suggestion that a religious, other-worldlycontempt for this life was not necessaryto maintaina preferencefor life in retreatfrom mundanecares. The life of the scholar, busy though solitary, was one way to have the benefits of the monastic life. Within such a setting, one could profitablyreflecton the glory of man, as well as that of God. The history of Coluccio Salutati brings us only a few years closer to the modern period. His death thirty-two years after the passing of his mentor Petrarchoccurred only on the threshold of the Quattrocento(1406). But the hints I have alluded to above that were left by Petrarchas justificationfor a non-religious life had already begun to take root in Salutati's lifetime. His careeras Florentine chancellorplaced him, in the civic involvement he chose, in sharpcontrastto the semi-clericalPetrarch.His own contributionto the rise of the new "civic humanism"in Florence had to evolve, as Baronnotes,'5with some prodding from the likes of Cino Rinuccini. But it too eventually found motives quite dissimilarto the argumentsfor the lives of early humanistslike Petrarch. In what ways do their argumentsfor an active or contemplativelife differ? Baron has pointed out the various uses to which Cicero was put by the early and later humanists.1"And as he suggests, the difference between Petrarchand Salutatiwas not simply that they referredto differentsources. In fact they did not. Both had access to and quoted liberally from Augustine and the Church fathers,and both used argumentsthey had found in the writings of Cicero. The difference between Petrarch and Salutati is that each used his sources, patristic, classical or scriptural, for a specific purpose. Petrarchwas able to point to the enforced solitude of Cicero's old age as the time when freedom from the cares of Rome's political problems allowed his thought to flower. Petrarchfinally condemned the shade of Cicero for his return to the chaos of the Roman civil wars which were his downfall. And Petrarchwas able to find an apologiafor his own life of scholarlyleisurein Cicero'sdescriptionof Scipio Africanus. In De RepublicaCicero says of Scipio: "In solitude he meditatedupon action."'7Petrarchcould borrowwords of supportfor his own life of intellectual activism from Cicero while rejecting the example of a
politically active life.

Coluccio, on the other hand, found in Cicero's EpistolaeFamiliaresample argumentfor setting aside privateconcernsand the leisure of a scholarto takea

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public position when republican liberty was in danger. Drawing parallelsbetween Cicero's role and his own, the Florentinechancellorfound a use for those parts of Cicero's life and testament which were consonantwith the rising tide of civic awareness.The influence of Cicero on Salutati,as on Petrarch,is clear. But it was the clearly medieval temper of Petrarchand the political needs of Salutati which led them to the different conclusions they drew from Cicero's thought. The convenience of Cicero as a source was common to both men. Their use of him simply correspondedto their individual needs. As Baronhas asked: of Duringthe MiddleAges, when the bearers culturewere chieflyclericsand than whichpartof Cicero's couldbe lessappreciated allthisRoman monks, legacy Again-when in the dawn of the cravingfor activityand for a civic culture? and Renaissance citizensof the Italiancity-states the longedfor a laic literature to moralidealssuitable citizenswho led an activelife, wherecouldthey find a betterally?'" Robert Bonnell has pointed to Salutati's attention to the language of Augustine in the City of God as a key to the understandingof the value of the active life to civic humanists.19According to Bonnell, Augustine made a distinction which Salutati later followed closely. Augustine spoke first of the vita activa and the vita contemplativa two stages of the interiorlife of study. as The focus of philosophy, that is, the study of wisdom, could consist either of subjectshaving to do with the conduct of life and morals,or of more fundamental questions such as the natureof truth or the causesof nature.The formerwas characterizedamong the ancients by Socrates, and could be called active; the latter was characterizedby Pythagoras,and could be called contemplative.In the Christiancontext, the two tendencies are labelled temporal,as exemplified by the Apostle Peter, and eternal,as exemplified by St. John. The temporallife lasted only during the duration of earthly years while the eternal life of contemplation was normally deferred until after death. Attribution of the contemplative motive to the mystic who authoredRevelationwas an indicationof the rare nature of such a commitment on earth. When he spoke of possible styles of life on earth, Augustine separatedthem by a differentlanguage,speaking of the first type as a life of undisturbedcontemplation(otioso),the second as and a third as a moderatedmix of the being busily active (vitae negotiosum), other two. While Coluccio admits the ultimate value of the contemplativeside of man, he sees both otium and negotiumas operationalin most men. It is impossible for a good man to ignore his religiousduties to either God or man, and therefore the two types of life cannot be mutually exclusive. Coluccio, as Bonnell indicates, sharesthe point of view of Augustine that the contemplative life begins on earth.20 But if we put Coluccio in the camp of the modernswho had discardedthe values of the monastic life of contemplation,how can his treatise De Seculoet Religionebe explained?This essay to a friend who had taken monasticvows has been seen as confirmationof the "medieval outlook" of Coluccio since it was

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rediscovered by Alfred Von Martin in 1913.21 An edition of De Seculo was published in 1948 by B. L. Ullman which collated three originals and twenty derivative manuscripts and it remains the definitive text. Professor Ullman took the occasion of his prefaceto the new edition to criticize those who, like Von Martin, felt the need to place Coluccio among the medievals. Ullman pointed out that the eloquence of Coluccio's argument for the benefit of his friend is not enough evidence of his own commitment to the cloistered ideal. De Seculo should not be taken as "a mirror of the author's mind but as a demonstrationof his ability to argue and his knowledge of holy scripture."22 Ullman is unable to ignore Salutati'sinvolvement in the secularconsideration of Florentine politics nor his influence on students like Leonardo Bruni, Poggio, and Antonio Lusco. Nor is he willing to dismiss this "lover of ancient poets" (amator poetarum antiquorum) from the company of his fellow humanists by a simple-mindedinterpretationof the work as an exhortationto monks. R. P. Oliver explicated Ullman's argumentin an early review of the 1948 De Seculo.23 Oliver pointed out three considerationswithin the Ullman interpretation.The first involved the origin of De Seculo,which was written in 1381 in response to a request from a monk who wanted a treatise that would strengthenhim in his new way of life. Coluccio had avoided writing it for two yearsbecausehe thought it inconsistentfor one so involved in worldlyaffairsto recommendthe cloistered life to others. The second consideration was the vow which bound the monk. While Coluccio may have had no qualms about his own life work, he believed completely in the binding natureof the religiousvow. It would have been contemptible and sacrilegiousof him to try to dissuade his friend from a commitment alreadyundertaken.If he was to respondto the requestat all, he must respond in support of the religious life. The third considerationUllman stressedwas Coluccio's behaviorin similar situations.Especiallyin his letters, one of which I will turn to shortly, Coluccio found occasion to argue both for and against a religious vocation to various friends in different circumstances."If it were requested,"Ullman speculated, "he would have been able to argue against the monastic life in a similar
manner.'"24

For this comment, Ullman sustaineda few blows from critics25 in a later but he clarifiedhis intent. Coluccio's flexibility demonstratedhis perpublication sonal evolution. He could be sincere in support of the vow of a friend, even though he would not makesuch a vow himself. His own beliefs would probably not allow him to condemn the monastic life in general, but he knew that there was a place in the world both for laymen and monks. He was a transitional figure between the medieval age and the Renaissance.26 Trinkaus' assessmentof De Seculocorrespondsto Ullman's later remarks. He finds "no inconsistency" in Salutati's "purely rhetoricalendorsementof the religious life" nor any "contradiction in Salutati's mind between

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Salutati was able humanism and his inherited religious faith and practices."27 to see a gradationof religious achievement ranging from the social good to be done by those in his own active life, to a more solitary, studious and sublime commitment undertakenby those in religious orders. The question remains, however, since Trinkaus defines De Seculo as a "purely rhetorical" tract, whether the chargeof Kohl and Witt that the humanistswere the purveyorsof "eloquence without a conscience"28can be maintainedagainst Salutati. I detailed the charges of inconsistency against Petrarchearlier, and find them no more convincing in the case of Salutati. His arguments show an ability not simply to follow the shifting winds of expedience, but to use a humanetact. To one friend who has pledged a life of withdrawal, Coluccio points out the ultimate destiny of man. To others not fit by temperamentfor such a life, Salutati is able to write in support of life in the world. He wrote to a varietyof people who differedin their abilities to seek the good in life. A clear exampleof one whom Coluccio would not recommend for the cloister was Peregrino Zambeccari. Peregrino had written to Salutati before, both in his role as chancellor of Bologna, and as a friend seeking advice about a tempestuouslove life. Salutati's letter of April 23, 139829 respondsto an earliernote from Zambeccariin which he had vowed to build an oratorywhere after two years he would retreatfrom the cares of the world. The motivation for his sudden impulse to leave public life was the apparent disappointment Peregrino had sustained as the unsuccessful suitor to a young lady in Bologna. Peregrino'sresolve was to set aside the "relics of that mad Cupid" and to leave Coluccio "behind in this confused world." He would cherish now the Virgin Mary rather than his "false Giovanna." Salutati's comments take full advantage of the melodramatic irony of Zambeccari'spromises. He is to leave the world; but only aftera two year wait. He is to give his love now to the Virgin; but will she arouse his passion as Giovanna did? He is to trade his busy life for the solitude of an oratory;but how will he escape his own desires? Salutati's mockery gives way to an analysis of the two directions in which Peregrinois being pulled. Love of Giovannaand love of the Virgin are two extremes. The love of one is physical; the other spiritual. The passion for Giovanna is marveled at among transitory things; love for the Virgin is numbered among goals which are eternal. Peregrino is advised not to try to tradeone kind of love for another,but ratherto divert his passion for Giovanna to other earthly goals. Obligations to family and to the state must be satisfied before eternal goals are undertaken. Coluccio spends several paragraphsciting justificationsfrom scripturefor his stand against Peregrino's retreat from the world. Zambeccari'sduties as chancellorare recalledin the parableof the talents (Matthew25: 15-30), and he is exhorted to labor and make himself a worthy servant. God lives not just in oratories and churches, but in the temple of the soul (Psalms 7: 9), and

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Peregrino can serve God in his own heart while in the world. Like the Lord purging the Temple in Jerusalemof the money changers(Matthew 21: 12-13), Peregrinocan conduct the business of his soul in the world if he will but purify his mind. Coluccio moves his argument from the particularproblem of his friend Zambeccarito the more general problem of the religious life in contrastto the life of action. The monasticlife, he argues,is thought a refugeonly by those ignorant of its pitfalls. "We praise all those things that we have not learned to fear; the active man and the contemplative man alike have their troubles."30 Minds under control, which can shut out the disturbancesof the court and the city are themselves remote and solitary. with enticements, mind our But if remembering thingsabsentor confronted to For reaches outside itself,I do notknowhowit is anadvantage liveas a solitary. constructed whether is comprehended thesenses,represented thememory, it by by it or of of by by the sharpness intellect, created the desire thefeelings, is a property to of the mindalways thinksomething.31 While Salutatigoes on to argue that the hermit Paul was no more pleasing to God than the prophet Abraham, and that it is easier to succeed in doing charity in the world than in retreatto heavenly pursuits, he returnsto restate the traditional evaluation in conclusion of his letter. "I grant that the contemplative life is more sublime," he admits, ". . . nevertheless,it is not always to be chosen by everybody.The active life is inferior,but many times it is to be preferred.",32 He returns to the evidence of the example as well as the language of the busy life of Augustine. Like the Saint, Zambeccarimust nurture both his worldly and his solitarytendencies. we thosetwo waysof life with wordsandarguIndeed,although distinguish with ment,theyarereallymixed;no one canbe so connected material thingsthat
he does for God's sakethat he entirely lacksa contemplativeelement;nor can a contemplative if he lives as a man, be completely dead to secular matters.33

We may ask the question if the seventeen years between De Seculo(1381) and the letter to Peregrino Zambeccari (1398) had changed the mind of Coluccio Salutati. I think not. His system of values, placing the sacred above the secular, was still intact. What had changed, and what sets him apartfrom most of his predecessors,was a willingness to arguefor a moralvalue to the active life. He moved beyond the tone of contemptumundi characterizedby and stylized workssuch as Petrarch'sSecretum, also went beyond Petrarch'semphasis on the value of a solitary life of "secular letters" as analogous to the monasticstudy of Scripture.He opened the way for an even more radicalfocus on the "dignity of man" theme by Leonardo Bruni, Pier Paolo Vergerioand Lorenzo Vallawho followed him. He began a trend that may be likenedto what J. N. Figgis has attributedto Martin Lutherin the realmof politics: "to change the admirationof men from the saintly to the civic virtues, and their ideals from the monastic to the domestic."34

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While some scholars have concentratedupon the revolutionarynature of pronouncementsby writers like Pomponazzi and Valla in support of secular virtue as a worthy goal,35I think it is a mistaketo say that by the sixteenth century in Italy the value of the contemplative life as a theoreticalgood was no longer valid. The decline of respect for the clergy in generalcould have played a part in affecting such an attitude, but I think it more profitableto regardthe period of the Renaissanceas an era of ongoing change. Hardin Craig has put it well: "The Renaissanceindeed looked both ways."36 Or as E. M. W. Tillyard concluded similarly: "... it is an errorto think that with the Renaissancethe belief in the present life won a definitive victory."37 The focus of this paper has been the suggestionthat in writerslike Petrarch and Coluccio Salutati change was afoot, but moving slowly. This slowness of change may be seen in poems like Milton's "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," written as late as 1630. Even at that late date we hearthat "Towred cities please us then / And the busy humm of men." And those active settings are still set beside the "dim religious light" of "studious cloisters pale / The hairy gown and mossy cell." The value of the active life was an idea whose time had surely come for Quattrocento Florence. But like most such debates concerning timeless values, the argument did not end in the Renaissance. PAUL A. LOMBARDO Universityof Virginia
I I use the term "medieval"and will use the term "modern"without concern for the confusion they have engenderedin the work of some authors. In this context I simply mean to indicate the difference between the traditional scheme of values that found merit in the religious, contemplative life (medieval),and the focus on the merit of an active life which gained acceptancein a later period (modern). Whether the change took place partially, completely, or at all during the Renaissance is (I hope it will be clear) the main question of the paper.

2 Hans Baron, "Cicero and the Roman Civic Spirit," Bulletin of the John Rylands Library,

Vol. 22 (1938), p. 88.

3 Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance (Princeton: University Press, 1955), Vol.

1, p. 286. 4 Charles Trinkaus, In Our Image and Likeness(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), Vol. 2, p. 661. ' Baron, From Petrarchto LeonardoBruni (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), especially chapters 1 and 2.
6

Op. cit., p. 50.

(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1943), p. 54. J7 . H. Whitfield, Petrarchand the Renascence

8 Ibid., p. 54. 9 Ibid., p. 55. 10 Ibid., p. 93. " Jerrold Siegal, Rhetoric and Philosophy in Renaissance Humanism (Princeton: University

Press, 1968), p. 256. 12 Trinkaus, op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 50. 13 Hexter in "The Loom of Language and the Fabric of Imperatives,"AmericanHistorical Review, Vol. 29, No. 4, July 1964, p. 950.

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14 Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1936), p. 20. '5 In Crisis, Vol. 1, p. 88.
16
17

Cf. "Cicero and the Roman Civic Spirit", pp. 86-91. "In otio de negotio cogitabat" quoted by Baron, ibid., p. 75.

18 Ibid., p. 76. "' Cf. "An Early Humanistic View of the Active and ContemplativeLife", Italica, Vol. 43,

September 1966, pp. 225-239. 20 Ibid., p. 227. 21 Noted in the review of Ullman's edition of De Seculoby R. P. Oliver, Speculum,Vol. 32, January 1959, p. 131. 22 "Liber ergo Colucci non est speculum mentis auctoris sed demonstrat eius facultatem disputandi et scientiam divinarum scripturam," B. L. Ullman, ed., De Seculo et Religione (Florence: Olschki, 1948), p. vi. 23 Cited above, note 21. 24 "Si res postulasset, contravitam monasticamperinde disputarepotuisset," De Seculo,p. vi. 25 Notably, from Giuseppe Toffanin in "Per Coluccio Salutati," Rinascimento, Vol. 9, June 1958, pp. 3-10. 26 B. L. Ullman, The Humanismof ColuccioSalutati (Padua:Antenore, 1963), pp. 28-30. 27 Trinkaus, In Our Image and Likeness,Vol. 2., p. 673. 28 Benjamin Kohl and Ronald Witt, eds., TheEarthlyRepublic: Italian Humanistson Government and Society(Philadelphia:University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978), p. 5. 29 The text is presented in translationin Kohl and Witt, TheEarthly Republic,pp. 93-114.
30o 31

Ibid., p. 108. Ibid.

32 Ibid., p. 111. 33 Ibid., p. 112. from Gersonto Grottius(Cambridge:Cambridge 34 J. N. Figgis, Studiesof Political Thought University Press, 1931), p. 72. 35 P. O. Kristeller, for example, concludes that Pomponazzi "demolishes the ideal of contemplation," in RenaissanceThought:The Classic,Scholasticand HumanisticStrains (New York: Harper and Row, 1961), p. 136. 36 Craig, The Enchanted Glass (New York: Oxford University Press, 1950), p. 87. Picture(New York:Random House, 1961), p. 5. 37 E. M. W. Tillyard, TheElizabethanWorld