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Giovanni Dominici’s Opposition to Humanism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Peter Denley
Peter Denley*
Affiliation:
Westfield College University of London
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Extract

Scholarly fashions have rightly reacted against the division of the renaissance into ‘two cultures’, the Christian and the pagan, and tend now to emphasise more the positive side of the relationship between religion and humanism. The early humanists themselves were at pains to defend their activities by stressing the contributions that poetry and classical studies could make, the divine origins of poetry and the moral value of many pagan writings. Yet these very defences were necessitated by a series of assaults, mostly by churchmen, on the activities of these early humanists. The old misgivings about the value and permissibility of the study of pagan authors inevitably came to the fore again with the revival of such studies. And the humanist stance was developed specifically in response to such criticisms. Mussato defended his profession against the pulpit denunciations of Giovannino of Mantua: Petrarch against the claims of a doctor of Avignon that medicine, not poetry, was the handmaid of philosophy: Salutati against successive strictures by Giuliano Zonarini, Pellegrino Zambeecari, Giovanni of Sanminiato and Giovanni Dominici.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 17: Religion and Humanism , 1981 , pp. 103 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1981

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References

1 Angeleri, C., Il problema religioso del Rinascimento (Florence 1952) esp p 81 Google Scholar.

2 In particular G. Boccaccio, De genealogia deorum gentilium, bk 14 caps 6, 16, bk 15 cap 7: Salutati, [C.], Epistolario, ed Novati, F. (Rome 1891) vol 1 pp 300 Google Scholar seq, 321 seq, vol 2 pp 285 seq. vol 4 pp 170 seq, 205 seq. A good summary of the whole dispute is Ronconi, G., ‘Giovanni Dominici e le dispute sulla poesia nel primo umanesimo’, in Dizionario critico della letteratura italiana (UTET, Turin 1973) vol 2 pp 11–17 Google Scholar.

3 In 1407 Dominici entered the service of Gregory XII and his elevation in 1408 to the cardinalato was seen by many Florentines as a betrayal of their agreement with the pope. Poggio dedicated a section of his Oratio advenus hypocrisim to ‘how an honest man can become ambitious: the example of Giovanni Dominici’: Bracciolini, P., Contro l’ipocrisia, ed Vallese, G. (Naples 1946) pp 104-6Google Scholar. There is also a curious ‘letter from Satan’ which appears in the Nemus Unionis, a collection of’documents’ compiled, and in this case possibly written by, Dietrich of Niem shortly after he abandoned the Gregorian obedience in 1408, in which Satan writes to Dominici to say how pleased he is with his work. Historiae Theodorici a Niem, ed Schard, S. (Basel 1566) pp 341-3Google Scholar. For other attacks on Dominici see Smith, L. ed, Epistolario di Pier Paolo Vergerlo (Rome 1934), p 316 Google Scholar n 2.

4 G. Di Agresti has re-dated, analysed and published selections of most of the unedited works of Dominici in four studies : ‘Considerazioni intorno a due scritti del B. Giovanni Dominici; Memorie Domenicane 79 (Pistoia 1962) pp 119-25: ‘Considerazioni [su alcuni scritti inediti del card. Giovanni Dominici legati alla sua permanenza a Venezia’], in La religiosità popolare nella Valle Padana: Atti del secondo convegno di studi sul folklore padano (Modena 1966), pp 199–213 Google Scholar: ‘Contributi allo studio del B. Giovanni Dominici’, Rivista di Ascetica e Mistica 12 (Florence 1967), pp 89–91 Google Scholar : Introduzione [agli scritti inediti del Dominici’], Memorie Domenicane, n.s.i (Pistoia 1970), pp 49–199 Google Scholar. The Tractatus de Possessionibus et de Proprio has been partially edited by R. Creytens, ‘L’oblig ation des constitutions domenicaines d’apres le Bx. Jean Dominici’, AFP 23 (1953). The Trattato delle Dieci Questioni was edited by Levasti, A. (Florence 1957)Google Scholar : The Tractatus de Conceptione B. Virginis by Prati, P. Da (Naples 1965)Google Scholar. Dominici’s ‘Lettere Spirituali’ have been edited by M. T. Casella and G. Pozzi, SpicFr 13 (1969): a good study of thcin is [L.] Sbriziolo, ‘Note (su Giovanni Dominici, I—La spiritualità del Dominici nelle lettere alle suore veneziane del Corpus Christi’], RSCI 24 (1970). One sermon has been edited: Casella, M. T., ‘Nuova predica del Dominici’, Miscellanea Gilles Gérard Meersseman (Padua 1970)Google Scholar.

5 The best biography of Dominici is still in Orlandi, [S.], Necrologia [di S. Maria Novella], (Florence 1945), vol 2 pp 77–126 Google Scholar, which digests and corrects Rösier, A., Kardinal Johannes Dominici O.P. (1317-1410): ein Reformatorenbild aus der Zeit des grossen schisma (Freiburg im Breisgau 1893)Google Scholar. The most recent monograph, Prati, P. Da, Giovanni Dominici e l’Umanesimo (Naples 1965)Google Scholar is uncritical and abounds with inaccuracies. A vast bibliography by Pecori, S. appears in Memorie Domenicane, n.s. vol 1 (Pistoia 1970)Google Scholar.

6 In a letter written three years before his death Dominici acknowledges that Saint Catherine was responsible for the healing of his stutter. Lettere pp 224-8.

7 Orlandi, Necrologia, supplemented by Di Agresti, ‘Introduzione’, between them give as up-to-date a list of Dominici’s writings as is at present possible. There remain a lot of unresolved questions.

8 Two laude, Maria dolce che fai and Di, Maria dolce, con quanto disio, used to be attributed to Dominici: the former has appeared in Poeti Minori del Trecento , ed Sapegno, N. (Milan-Naples 1952), pp 1082-6Google Scholar attributed to G. Sacchetti and the weakness of the case for Dominici’s authorship of the latter is shown in Varanini, G., Rime sacre di Neri Pagliaresi (Florence 1970), pp 36–40 Google Scholar as well as by its great superiority over all known poems by Dominici, which are published in Galletti, [A.], ‘Prediche [inedite di Giovanni Dominici’], in Miscellanea di studi critici pubblicati in onore di Guido Mazzoni dai suoi discepoli (Florence 1907), pp 276-8Google Scholar.

9 Di Agresti, ‘Introduzione’, pp 144-7.

10 See n 24 below.

11 Sermon no 33 in Florence, Biblioteca Riccatdiana ms Riccardianai 301 fols 97r-102rdoes contain calculations about the end of the world: it is quoted in Galletti, ‘Prediche’, pp 264,266. But Galletti is quite wrong in assuming that this is typical of Dominici. It is interesting to note that this is one of the four sermons in the ms where Dominici’s name occurs and where it is not easy to be sure where his voice trails off and that of the scribe begins: also that this sermon was preached four days after his authority as vicar-general was revoked. Elsewhere Dominici shows a healthy distrust of all religious fantasising. When the host fell in the nave at Corpus Domini he wrote to assure the panic-stricken nuns that the Lord’s displeasure had not fallen upon them (‘O paurose pecorelle . . .’, Lettere, p 72). See also Dominici], [G., Libro d’Amore [di Carità,] ed Ceruti, A. (Bologna 1889), p 42 Google Scholar.

12 Lettere, pp 77, 78: Dominici, [G.], Regola [del Governo di Cura Familiare], ed Salvi, D. (Florence 1860), pp 64 Google Scholar, 75. See also Colosio, I., ‘Il B. Giovanni Dominici come uomo, come scrittore, e come maestro di vita spirituale specialmente religiosa’, Memorie Domenicane, n.s. 1 (Pistoia 1970), esp pp 20-6Google Scholar.

13 Di Agresti, ‘Introduzione’, pp 69-87.

14 The description is printed in Di Agresti, ‘Considerazioni’, p 210. See ako the De Possessionibus, quoted in Lohr, G., ‘Die Mendikantenarmut im Dominikanerorden im vierzehnten Jahrhundert nach Johann von Dambach und Johannes Dominici’, Divus Thomas (Freiburg 1940) p 296 Google Scholar.

15 Lettere, pp 91-4: ‘Cristo santo Dio fu crucifisco con due ladroni iniqui: io, pessimo ribaldo, cacciato con due santi . . . Chi crederebbe, trovandolo scritto, che cosi famosa città, libera, savia e giusta come si tiene essere Vinegia, avesse in un di cacciati deliberatamente sanza furore tre riputati spirituali per fare onore a Dio e utilità alle coscienzie di tutti, non essendo niuna legge fatta in contrario ... : Compare the Itinerarium, quoted in Di Agresti, ‘Introduzione’, p 179.

16 ‘Ego quidem dilatavi fratres, sed non magnificavi letitiam, et conventu cortoniensi excepto et aliqualitet fabrianensi, si non ruerunt, ceteri ruunt’. Letter to Tommaso Caffarini, in Fontes S. Cathariiiae Setiensis, eds Laurent, M.-H. and Valli, F., vol 22 (Florence 1938), pp 97-8Google Scholar. See also Regola, pp 97-8. His supervision of some of these houses was soon resumed .however, albeit on a lower key.

17 Di Agresti, ‘Introduzione’, pp 88-92 and 178-81.

18 This process is. well-described by Sbriziolo, ‘Note’, esp pp 27-30.

19 There are ten fifteenth or sixteenth-century mss of the Regola, nine of the Libro d’Amore (which went through four editions in the sixteenth century), compared with only three of the Lumia Noctis. See Orlandi, Necrologia, and the prefaces of Salvi, Ceruit and Hunt (see n 34 below) to their editions.

20 Di Agresti, ‘Introduzione’, pp 165-7, suggests 1403. This is based on a description of a girl, who we know was born in 1385, as ‘essendo d’età d’anni diciotto o circa’, which seems to me to be too literal and precise an interpretation. However as an approximation it would seem about right, given that Bartolomea’s conversion must have taken place in 1401 or 1402 and that by 1405 he had completed two other treatises for her.

21 Regola, p 23. See also Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, ms Ricc. 1301 fol 121?.

22 Regola, p 48.

23 Ibid pp 134-5, and pp 206-8 for Salvi’s notes on the traditional texts Dominici advocates.

24 Again Di Agresti, ‘Introduzione’, pp 167-71, dates this by means of an over-literal reading. A description of the fraticelli ‘giudicati da tutta la santa Chiesa ed universale popolo dei cristiani, cherici e laici, da novanta anni in qua continuamente’ (Libro d’Amore, p 87) is taken to mean that Dominici is writing exactly ninety years after the condemnation of 1314, i.e. in 1404. He has however shown conclusively that the work was written in Florence, and there can be little doubt that the work was for Bartolomea, that it quotes and thus postdates the Regola (see Ceruti’s introduction, p XXVII) and finally that the image of the ‘lucciola, il quale è bello, ma non utile, trattandolo è abominevole è pieno di fastidio, usandolo è putente e lordativo (p 483) can hardly have been committed to paper after the Lucuta Noctis which was undisputedly written in 1405. So again 1404 is probably a good approximation.

25 Cf. the passage on preaching at the end of which Dominici excuses the digression on the grounds that even if it is not relevant to her it is central to his text (Libro d’Amore, p. 35). It used to be thought that this was a collection of sermons, possibly reworked into treatise form as was common practise in the fourteenth century. Negri, G., Istoria degli Scrittori fiorentini (Ferrara 1722), pp 280-1Google Scholar, from Antonino, S., ‘Librum in vulgari composuit stilo, quem “Amorem Caritatis” intitulavit . . . per modum sermonum numero XLIV’ in R. Morçay, Chroniques de St. Antonin, fragments originaux du titre XXII (Paris 1913), p 107 Google Scholar. The structure of the book suggests that this is unlikely and that ‘sermonum’ here is to be understood in its more general sense.

26 Libro d’Amore, p 10. See also pp 34-5.

27 Ibid p 483 : see also p 154.

28 Ibid p 45.

29 Ibid p 350.

30 Ibid pp 141-2.

31 Ibid p 337.

32 Ibid pp 343 seq: see also p 250, and Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, ms Rice. 1301 fol 119r on sapienzia as a gift from God.

33 Libro d’Amore, p 186.

34 [Dominici, G.], Lucula [Noctis], ed Coulon, R. (Paris 1908), p 126 Google Scholar. E. Hunt’s edition (Notre-Dame 1940), however, which I was not able to consult during the preparation of this paper, is the more accurate.

35 Galletti, ‘Prediche’, which also quotes some rather uncharacteristic passages. See n 11 above.

36 Of the four dateable sermons only one contains anti-humanist material: no 39, San Martino (11 November) and a Sunday, which must be 1403 (Di Agresti erroneously gives 1404). Di Agresti, ‘Introduzione’, pp 152-7 is again too ambitious in the groupings and datings he gives. The transcriber clearly put the sermons in an idiosyncratic order which only partly corresponds to the ecclesiastical calendar : a lot more work needs to be done on this collection before any dating is possible.

37 Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana ms. Ricc. 1301, fol 16r: see also fol 57v.

38 Ibid fol 21v.

39 Ibid fol 126v: ‘Dice Salamone ... io vo iscorrendo per sapere per questi libri de’ filosafi degli autori mondiali, Et quanto più in essi studio più dimentico e meno so di quello che desidero sapere . . .’

40 Ibid fols 138v-139r, 141r: see also fol 22v.

41 Ibid fol 94r. See also fol 83v.

42 Ibid fol 20v. See also fol 72r, where he says that ‘adorazione ... cholla lingua ... è oggi a champo più chredo che mai’ : and the Lucida, p 407 : ‘Nor reor multum bellandum contra scientiam et obscenam artem poeticam, que tamen in nostra Florentia et alibi in Italia passim sine legum timore palamque docetur . . .’

43 Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana ms. Ricc. 1301, fols 20T, 23r, 72r, 83v, 88r, 88v, 14lr.

44 Ibid fol 42r.

45 Ibid fol 72r.

46 Ibid fol 88r: dee also fols 22r, 88r.

47 The responsibility of those who have the gift of eloquence to use it to good ends is frequent theme. Ibid fols 88r, 94r-v. See also Libro d’Amore, pp 34-5, 336.

48 Lucula, caps 6, 32. He does better in showing that they read the classics before conversion or in times of backsliding in the Libro d’Amore, p 482.

49 An indication of how familiar—and complex—the ground was is the way in which by this stage both sides quoted each other’s authorities liberally. See esp caps 1-12 of the Lucula and Salutati, Epistolario, vol 4 pp 231-2, 238-40.

50 G. A. Holmes, ‘The emergence of an Urban Ideology at Florence, c. 1250-1450’, TRHS (1973) p 120.

51 See n 34 above.

52 Bonacchi, G., Nel Secolo dell’Umanesimo (Pistoia 1932), p 35 Google Scholar.

53 The extreme case is made out in J. Seigel, ‘Civic humanism or Ciceronian rhetoric?’, PP (1966). On civic humanism as a semi-official ideology as expressed in the records of informal policy discussions in the second decade of the fifteenth century Brucker, G., The Civic World of Early Renaissance Florence (Princeton 1977), PP 302–318 Google Scholar.