The use of rhetoric in Leonardo Bruni’s “Funeral Oration for Nanni Strozzi”[1427] and his “Panegyric to the City of Florence”[1403-04] provides some measure of continuity between the quattrocento Florentine humanists and the medieval dictatores, or teachers of the Ars Dictaminis in Italian universities, and highlights important differences as well. The shift in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries from the ars [rules of rhetoric] to the auctores [authors] played a significant role in establishing interest in the classical authors themselves, as distinct from the practical rhetorical skills one could acquire from a study of their works. Thus Cicero became the most studied among the classical authors. However, the importance of rhetoric as a useful tool of political theorists remained undiminished.The ideal of liberty is upheld in a most persuasive way by Bruni, and the twin pillars of the Florentine, indeed, the early humanist defense of liberty—the importance and desirability of both a republican form of governance and political independence—are also strongly championed. This is unsurprising in a historian who was also one of the students of Coluccio Salutati, widely held to be the first of the great humanists of fifteenth century Italy. However, what is extremely interesting about Bruni’s use of rhetoric and rhetorical commonplaces is that it subtly subverts the very notions of republicanism that he so vociferously puts forth. In constantly evoking Florence as the ideal city, originating from and modeled after the Roman Republic, and as the self proclaimed defender of republican values in the whole of Tuscany, Bruni’s “Panegyric to the City of Florence”, and to a lesser extent, his ode to Strozzi, carefully sidesteps uncomfortable questions regarding the increasing power of Florence in the region, and its high handed treatment of the neighboring city states. Bruni’s use of rhetoric, thus, reveals the flipside of the zealous defense of republican values and political independence, and inadvertently ends up presenting Florence as an aggressive and militant political threat to the smaller city states which were already beset by tyrants and the rule of the signori.
One of the reasons for the immense popularity of the art of oration was its utilitarian value. The ability to use language in a way that would reconcile listeners to the speaker’s point of view was highly valued, leading to the spurt in the teaching of rhetoric in the medieval Italy. The shift of language and rhetoric can be seen also in the way history is perceived. Whereas defenders of monarchical values invoked the name of Caesar in an almost talismanic gesture, Bruni and the other quattrocento humanists, following the Scholastic writers who had evaluated the merits of the Roman Republic much to the detriment of the regime that overthrew it, shift their focus to the ancient Republic instead and carry forward the Ciceronian legacy of defending the ideals of liberty and republicanism. Caesar and Caligula are equally reviled and Cato and Cicero are upheld as the progenitors of the Florentine people. The importance of historical credibility has been long recognized by historians, whether Geoffrey of Monmouth or Leonardo Bruni, as being crucial to provide legitimacy to their deeds and works. Thus, in the “Funeral Oration”, which begins with his refusal to mourn the death of Strozzi whose life, as a successful Florentine military campaigner against the rampaging Milanese, is worth more than tears, Bruni goes to great lengths to ascribe the greatness of Florence to the formative influence of the powerful Tuscan overlords, followed by the great statesmen of the Roman Republic. There is the formation of a particular kind of historiography which privileges a certain view of history as being more conducive to contemporary ideals than others and thus a discourse of civic humanism is formulated which is, as everything else, a rhetorical construct.
The use of a form or a trope with an eye to its practical applications is also common to the “Panegyric”. The panegyric as a form eschews any criticism of the object of praise. It is also interesting that the first panegyrics were written in Italy, in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, to justify the rule of the despots or signori who had capitalized on the internal factions within the Italian city states. In a shift of perspective, the tenuous peace which resulted from the Rule of One became an effective substitution for the hitherto stridently defended values of liberty and self governance. The same mode of the panegyric is put to excellent use by Bruni in praising Florence and its aggressively republican stance. Thus the forms in which the Early Renaissance political writers expressed themselves are used with such dexterity in lobbying for wholly contradictory ideas that an element of doubt, misplaced or otherwise, regarding the author’s intentions is quite inevitable.
Bruni also ascribes the greatness of Strozzi to the city he served, thus firmly placing the individual within the city state, and ensuring that the success of the former has a direct bearing on the prestige and glory of the latter. Strozzi becomes the primary subject of the “Funeral Oration” whereas in the earlier treatise, the city itself is the main beneficiary of Bruni’s rhetoric. This is ironic since Strozzi was not a Florentine by birth, but was born in Ferrara. An important contribution made by the early quattrocento humanists to Renaissance political thought is the notion of the intrinsic link between the individual and the city. In what can only be described as a fictional construct, or maybe even creative liberty, Bruni promotes Strozzi as a Florentine as a means to serve his rhetorical ends. Whereas pre humanists like Latini castigated the growth of private wealth among citizens as one of the primary reasons for internal dissent and faction, Bruni, again drawing on the ideas of the Scholastic defenders of liberty, claims that the increase in private wealth can only be beneficial to the state, especially in times of crises, besides being a reflection of the glory and success of the city state itself. By placing the individual within the context of the city state, Bruni also glances at another rhetorical commonplace which claimed that a city’s wellbeing is dependent on its citizens. In what is essentially a glib rhetorical maneuver, Bruni, by ascribing Strozzi’s greatness to his origins as a Florentine, implies a deep bond between the state and the citizen, ensuring that the upright and law abiding citizen cannot help but be implicated in his city’s progress or failure.
Bruni’s emphasizes that one of the main reasons for the success of Florence’s form of government is the equal opportunities for participation it provided to all legitimate citizens. His passionate exhortation to the citizens of Florence to take up arms for safeguarding their city against tyranny and despots is aimed at adult, free males who could have constituted only a section, albeit a large one, of the population of Florence at the time. An entire chunk of society comprising of women, children and slaves is not taken into consideration at all. Again, the rights of the individual can only be reconciled with the welfare of the state by a formula of compromise. However to what extent can the individual’s right be subsumed within the larger framework of the state is not addressed by Bruni, or indeed by the other writers who preceded Bruni, like Marsiglio of Padua. This is part of a significant political problem which faces any government that proposes to allow its citizens power, equality and freedom. The “common benefit” or the "common good" of the state poses questions which Bruni, in what is ultimately a dazzling display of rhetoric, does not resolve. Hence the “true liberty and equality” that Bruni claims Florentines are blessed with in their popular government are called into question by a retrospective review of his “Funeral Oration”.
Every work, particularly political documents, is governed by the historical context in which it is written. Bruni’s use of rhetoric, especially in the “Panegyric to the City of Florence”, which is assumed to have been composed in 1403 and 1404, is directly affected by the fortuitous escape Florence was granted in 1402 after the death of Giangaleazzo Visconti while he was planning an attack on the city. Large swathes of Tuscany had already fallen prey to the Viscontis. Similarly, Bruni, in both the “Funeral Oration” and the “Panegyric” recalls the bravery and glory of their ancestors who died on the battlefield in a bid to protect their cherished ideals to highlight a pressing contemporary problem of mercenary soldiers whose loyalty to the city states were vested in the money they were paid. Hence, there is a definite reason for his stridency which, while being inspiring and effective, also offers a more critical valuation of how rhetoric is deployed to certain very specific ends. Florence is credited with a “rediscovery” of the Latin language. Even the language in which his works are written is made part of the Florentine greatness and resurgence by Bruni. Not only the content, but also the form, language and mode of writing combine to add to the magnificent use of rhetoric Bruni excels at.
Bruni’s “Panegyric” offers an even more transparent example of the use of rhetoric. Unlike the earlier republican writers, Bruni is less concerned with the rise of internal faction as Florence had moved into a relatively stable state of oligarchic rule in the 1380s. Thus, having put to rest the problems of factionalism among the city states [even as Skinner asserts that the remaining traces of factionalism were “glossed over”], Bruni now concentrates on Florence’s role as moral and political guardian of republican values. This masks an imperialistic and expansionist urge which is implicit in the claims made about Florence’s conquests of neighboring city states. Florence’s self determined role as the upholder of liberty and freedom is suspect at best. Bruni in the “Panegyric”, through a masterstroke of self effacement, acknowledges his rhetorical excesses which he says will lead others to accuse him of trying to gain favor of the Florentines, and he thus preempts any criticism which he may face. Despite being a republican defence of liberty, the tone and the content of Bruni’s “Panegyric” is aggressive, imperialistic and condescending towards the less powerful city states.
James Hankins, in his study of Bruni’s political treatises [Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections], challenges Hans Baron’s formulation of civic humanism in The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance when he claims that on a discursive level, there is hardly any difference between republican and non-republican panegyrics and eulogies. The same kind of rhetorical devices are used in differing contexts to express contradictory ideas. A de facto oligarchy, composed of a certain section of society which is recognized and authorized, is accommodated within the rhetoric of an ostensibly populist government. Rhetoric as a construct can be seen in both the “Funeral Oration” and the “Panegyric to the City of Florence” and also in the differences between the two. Whereas the chronologically earlier treatise, written in the immediate aftermath of Florence’s close shave against the Milanese, adopts a more passionate and appealing tone, the tone of the later one is that of self assuredness and confidence. Though Bruni self deprecatingly underestimates the power of his eloquence to do justice to the greatness of Florence, he succeeds and well. Not only does he provide an inventory of everything that is admirable in the city and its inhabitants, he also offers us a valuable understanding of the working of rhetoric and the power of language.
Amava Bhattacharya
Roll Number 23
PG I
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