Re: Certame coronario October 1441
Posted: 01 Mar 2023, 15:45
The ten judges of the Certame Coronario: who were they?
No contemporary record of their names exists. The first to propose a list was Girolamo Mancini, Vita di Leon Battista Alberti (1882), p. 228. Mancini named nine papal secretaries as probable judges.
Poggio Bracciolini
Antonio Loschi
Cencio Rustici
Andrea Fiocchi
Flavio Biondo
Carlo Aretino (Marsuppini)
Giovanni Aurispa
Giorgio da Trebisonda (Trapezunzio)
Bartolomeo da Montepulciano)
He gives his authorities for these names as known papal secretaries to Eugene IV.
The main ones are -
First five (including Biondo himself implicitly): Biondo Flavio, Blondus Flavius De verbis romanae locutionis, II (p. 198 section 12 in Tavoni's edition)
Six and seven: Cyriac of Ancona, Itinerarium, pp. 6 and 7
Eight: Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vite di uomini illustri del secolo XV scritte da Vespasiano da Bisticci, ed. Angelo Mai, 1859, p. 486
Nine: Domenico Giorgi, Vita Nicolai Quintus, 1742, p. 175 (Bartholomæus a Monte Politiano)
This list was followed nine years later by Francesco Flamini, La lirica toscana del Rinascimento, 1891, p. 4 note 2, who also noted that the manuscript Palat. 215 specifies the number ten (dieci) (the only explicit reference to a number)(f. 107v; this is the manuscript with the Protesta, where the title explains that the following text refers to the contest of 22 October 1441, "Dove , avendo a giudicare il dono fatto dieci Segretarij di papa eugenio , e non dando il dono a nesuno , seghui che uno mandò a ' detti quessto scritto , dove onestissimamente gli vitupera , come legiendo si vede") , and therefore suggests two possible candidates as this judge:
Poggio
Lusco
Rustici
Fiocchi
Biondo
Carlo Aretino
Aurispa
Giorgio da Trebisonda
Bartolomeo da Montepulciano
Niccolò Perotti or Maffeo Vegio
In his revised list of the 1911 edition, p. 200, Mancini dropped Loschi and Bartolomeo, and added two different names:
Poggio
Cencio Rustici
Andrea Fiocchi
Biondo
Carlo Marsuppini
Giovanni Aurispa
Cristoforo Garatone
Niccolò Sagundino
Giorgio Trapezunzio
Thanks to Mike Howard I now have Mancini's 1911 biography. Here is the passage (as I suspected, he had found out since 1882 that Loschi had died earlier in 1441) -
New research later in the 20th century clarified who exactly might have had the title of papal secretary at this time, particularly Peter Partner, The Pope's Men: The Papal Civil Service in the Renaissance, OUP, 1991, pp. 216-256. This research allowed Luca Boschetto, Società e cultura a Firenze al tempo del Concilio (2012), pp. 388-391 to exclude some and narrow down the list:
Poggio
Biondo
Fiocchi
Cencio de' Rustici
Niccolò Sagundino di Siniponto
Giovanni Aurispa
Pietro da Noceto
One of the following three:
Iacopo Langusco (Iacopo di Giovanni Languschi)
or
Bartolomeo Roverella (less likely because maybe not secretary yet)
or
Fernan Diaz (but not likely to have been in Florence at this time in Boschetto's estimation)
Carlo Marsuppini (honorary secretary since April 1441)
Leonardo Bruni
No contemporary record of their names exists. The first to propose a list was Girolamo Mancini, Vita di Leon Battista Alberti (1882), p. 228. Mancini named nine papal secretaries as probable judges.
Poggio Bracciolini
Antonio Loschi
Cencio Rustici
Andrea Fiocchi
Flavio Biondo
Carlo Aretino (Marsuppini)
Giovanni Aurispa
Giorgio da Trebisonda (Trapezunzio)
Bartolomeo da Montepulciano)
He gives his authorities for these names as known papal secretaries to Eugene IV.
The main ones are -
First five (including Biondo himself implicitly): Biondo Flavio, Blondus Flavius De verbis romanae locutionis, II (p. 198 section 12 in Tavoni's edition)
Six and seven: Cyriac of Ancona, Itinerarium, pp. 6 and 7
Eight: Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vite di uomini illustri del secolo XV scritte da Vespasiano da Bisticci, ed. Angelo Mai, 1859, p. 486
Nine: Domenico Giorgi, Vita Nicolai Quintus, 1742, p. 175 (Bartholomæus a Monte Politiano)
This list was followed nine years later by Francesco Flamini, La lirica toscana del Rinascimento, 1891, p. 4 note 2, who also noted that the manuscript Palat. 215 specifies the number ten (dieci) (the only explicit reference to a number)(f. 107v; this is the manuscript with the Protesta, where the title explains that the following text refers to the contest of 22 October 1441, "Dove , avendo a giudicare il dono fatto dieci Segretarij di papa eugenio , e non dando il dono a nesuno , seghui che uno mandò a ' detti quessto scritto , dove onestissimamente gli vitupera , come legiendo si vede") , and therefore suggests two possible candidates as this judge:
Poggio
Lusco
Rustici
Fiocchi
Biondo
Carlo Aretino
Aurispa
Giorgio da Trebisonda
Bartolomeo da Montepulciano
Niccolò Perotti or Maffeo Vegio
In his revised list of the 1911 edition, p. 200, Mancini dropped Loschi and Bartolomeo, and added two different names:
Poggio
Cencio Rustici
Andrea Fiocchi
Biondo
Carlo Marsuppini
Giovanni Aurispa
Cristoforo Garatone
Niccolò Sagundino
Giorgio Trapezunzio
Thanks to Mike Howard I now have Mancini's 1911 biography. Here is the passage (as I suspected, he had found out since 1882 that Loschi had died earlier in 1441) -
New research later in the 20th century clarified who exactly might have had the title of papal secretary at this time, particularly Peter Partner, The Pope's Men: The Papal Civil Service in the Renaissance, OUP, 1991, pp. 216-256. This research allowed Luca Boschetto, Società e cultura a Firenze al tempo del Concilio (2012), pp. 388-391 to exclude some and narrow down the list:
Poggio
Biondo
Fiocchi
Cencio de' Rustici
Niccolò Sagundino di Siniponto
Giovanni Aurispa
Pietro da Noceto
One of the following three:
Iacopo Langusco (Iacopo di Giovanni Languschi)
or
Bartolomeo Roverella (less likely because maybe not secretary yet)
or
Fernan Diaz (but not likely to have been in Florence at this time in Boschetto's estimation)
Carlo Marsuppini (honorary secretary since April 1441)
Leonardo Bruni