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Landino and Maximus of Tyre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Eugene M. Waith
Eugene M. Waith*
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

The Disputationes Camaldulenses of Cristoforo Landino constitute an important document. Composed in the manner of Ciceronian dialogues, they present us with a group of speakers famous in the history of Florentine thought: among others, Lorenzo de’ Medici, Alberti, and Ficino of the ‘Platonic Academy’ at Careggi to which Landino belonged; Alamanno Rinuccini, the Acciaiuoli, and Marco Parenti of the other ‘academy', presided over by Argyropoulos. The first dialogue deals with the relative merits of the active and contemplative life, the second with the problem of the highest good—two topics dear to the Renaissance. The third and fourth give an allegorical interpretation of the Aeneid. It would be hard to find personages or themes more central to quattrocento intellectual history. Inevitably one looks to the Disputationes for the light they throw on these Florentine scholars and on their interests.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance News , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , Winter 1960 , pp. 289 - 294
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1960

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References

1 In the preparation of this article I have been aided by Professors Paul Oskar Kristeller and James B. Wadsworth, whose prompt and helpful answers to my queries I am happy to acknowledge. The Disputationes were probably written about 1475; they were published in Florence without date but probably about 1480. Another edition (ca. 1500?) was published in Venice with the title Quaestiones Camaldulenses. See Testi Inediti e Rari di Cristoforo Landino e Francesco Filelfo, ed. E. Garin (Florence: Fussi, 1949), p. 10; Chastel, André, Marsile Ficin et l'Art (Genève: Droz, 1954), pp. 25, 107, 142Google Scholar; Marcel, Raymond, Marsile Ficin (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1958), pp. 311–324 Google Scholar.

2 Eugen Wolf mentions a number of them in the introduction to his translation of the first two dialogues: Camaldolensische Gespräche (Jena: Diederichs, 1927), p. xviii.

3 See Wolf, p. xx; Marcel, p. 317.

4 See Torre, Arnaldo della, Storia dell’ Accademia Platonica di Firenze (Florence, 1902), p. 580 Google Scholar; Wadsworth, James B., ‘Landino's Disputationes Camaldulenses, Ficino's De Felicitate, and L'Altercazione of Lorenzo de* Medici', MP, L (1952-53), 23–31 Google Scholar.

5 Ed. H. Hobein (Leipzig, 1925).

6 Maximi Tyrii Philosophi Platonki Sermones e Graeca in Latinam Linguam Versi. Cosmo Paccio Interprete (Rome, 1517), fol. XIXV.

7 Garin, , Testi Inediti, p. 31 Google Scholar; Venice edition of Landino, sig. b5r.

8 I am indebted to Professor Bernard Knox for comparing the two Latin versions with the Greek.

9 See Pazzi translation, fol. IV: ‘ipsum enim iam pridem in Italiam ad Laurentium Medicen avunculum meum … e Graecia attulit. Verum & ut Latinos nostros iuvare posset: Cosmo Paccio fratri meo ut Latinum faceret persuasit’.

10 See Knös, Börje, Un Ambassadeur de l'Hellenisme—Janus Lascaris (Uppsala, Aimqvist & Wiksells, 1945), p. 25 Google Scholar.

11 Ibid., pp. 33-34. The list is printed by Müller, K. K., ‘Neue Mittheilungen über Janos Laskaris und die Mediceische Bibliothek”, Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, 1 (1884), pp. 371 Google Scholar, ff. Maximus appears p. 375.