839 



BRACCIOLINI, POQGIO. 



BRACCIOLINI, POGQIO. 



890 



Monte Casino, when the two rival chiefs, who had both served in 

 their youth under Alberico da Barbiano, renewed their former 

 acquaintance. The war being now over, Braccio in the spring of 1422 

 returned to Perugia, after having taken on his way Citta di Castello, 

 which he added to his other territories. 



In the following year, fresh disturbances having broken out at 

 Naples, Alfonso sent again for Braccio, and Queen Joanna gave the 

 messengers a crown to be placed on his head as Prince of Aquila and 

 Capua, with full power to subdue and govern the important province 

 of Abruzzo, which had again revolted. On the 13th of February 1423, 

 the Lord of Perugia, seated on a seat of ivory in the great hall of the 

 to wnhouse, and attended by the lords of Foligno and Cameriuo, received 

 the Neapolitan envoys, from whom Corrado Trinci, lord of Foligno, 

 having received the crown, placed it on the brow of Braccio and a 

 golden chain round his neck, amidst loudjacclamations of " Long live 

 the Prince of Capua and Lord of Perugia." As the dominion of Braccio 

 extended over great part of Umbria and the Marches, and on the south 

 over the principality of Capua, the acquisition of Aquila and the 

 Abruzzo would have joined these two portions so as to form the whole 

 into a compact principality. Braccio's ambition is said to have soared 

 still higher, and to have aspired to the crown of Naples. In May 

 1423 he gathered his bands near Todi, to the number of 3200 horse- 

 men and some thousand foot, with which he entered the kingdom of 

 Naples ; he overran Campania and Apulia, defeated the partisans of 

 the Angevins, took Bari, and advanced into Calabria ; then retracing 

 hi? steps towards the Abruzzo, he laid siege to the strong town of 

 Aquila in the summer of 1423. He blockaded the town and devastated 

 the surrounding country. Joanna, who had now revoked her adoption 

 of Alfonso and made common cause with Louis of Anjou, ordered 

 Sforza to march to the relief of Aquila. Braccio, being joined by 

 other bands of the Aragonese party, was in possession of the whole 

 Abruzzo. In December 1423 Sforza began his march from Apulia 

 along the coast of the Adriatic, took Ortona, and crossed the river 

 Peacara near its mouth, his advanced guard making their horses swim 

 through the stream. As the body of Sforza's army remained on the 

 opposite bank, Sforza plunged again into the river to encourage them 

 to cross. One uf his men, being carried away by the current, was in 

 the act of drowning, when Sforza pushed his horse forwards to save 

 him, seized him by the arm, and both sank into the water and disap- 

 peared. Thus died Sforza Attendolo, the great Coudottiere, on the 

 4th of January 1424. His army, disheartened, retired from the 

 Abruzzo. Braccio, who was at Chieti, upon hearing the news, extolled 

 the fame of his rival, remarking that this unexpected catastrophe 

 boded no good to himself. He however pushed on the siege of Aquila 

 with renewed vigour. The town began to suffer through famine. The 

 archbishop encouraged the besieged by telling them that the queen 

 and the pope would soon relieve them, and he excommunicated Bracoio 

 in the name of the pontiff. At last, in the spring of 1424, the Angevin 

 army, led by Count Caldora and other chiefs, marched into the 

 Abruzzo, and encamped on the hills above Aquila. Braccio permitted 

 them to enter the plain. The battle was fought on the 2nd of June. 

 Caldora's army was greatly superior in numbers, and in the midst of 

 the fight a sortie from the people of Aquila, falling on the rear of 

 Braccio'g line, decided the victory. Braccio, while fighting desperately, 

 received a blow on the head and fell senseless. He was taken prisoner 

 to the camp of Caldora, and treated with humanity. He survived for 

 three days, refusing to take food, though urged to do so, and would 

 not utter a word. It was said that his wound was not mortal He 

 died on the 5th of June 1424, in the fifty-sixth year of his age. Borne 

 rejoiced at his fall ; Ludovico Colonna took his body to Pope Martin, 

 who ordered it to be buried in unconsecrated ground outside of the 

 walls. Eight years after, Nioold Fortebracei recovered from Pope 

 Eugenius IV. the remains of his relative, and deposited them in the 

 church of the Franciscan convent of Perugia. Oddo Fortebracei, sou 

 of Braccio, resigned the government of Perugia into the hands of the 

 pope, in July 1424, retaining the various fiefs of his father, with the 

 title of Count of Montone. The history of Braccio's life forms an 

 important part of the history of Italy during the fifteenth century, 

 which was the last age of its tumultuous independence. 



(Febretti, Biografie dei Capitani ventwleri dell Umbria ; Campanus, 

 De Vita et Gettit Brachii; Lomouaco, Vite deifamosi Capitani d' Italia; 

 Compagnoui, Storia detta Marca ; and the contemporary local chroniclers, 

 among whom must be noticed Lorenzo Spirito, who wrote a poem of 

 one hundred and one chapters in terza rima, entitled L'Altro Marte, 

 in which he narrates in chronological order the deeds of Braccio and of 

 his contemporary Piccinino. This curious poem was printed at Vicemsa 

 in 1489 : it ia now extremely rare.) 



BRACCIOLI'NI, PO'OQIO, son of Guccio Bracciolini, a notary, 

 was born in 1380, at Terranuova, in the Florentine territory. He 

 studied Latin at Florence under Giovanni da Ravenna, a disciple of 

 Petrarch ; and afterwards Greek under Chrysoloras, a learned Byzan- 

 tine emigrant. About 1402 Poggio went to Rome, where Boniface IX. 

 employed him in the pontifical chancellery, as apostolic secretary or 

 writer of the papal letters. Boniface having died in October 1404, 

 his successor, Innocent VII., continued Poggio in his office, which he 

 held for about half a century, under eight successive popes. Poggio 

 availed himself of the favour of Innocent to obtain an appointment 

 in the apostolic chancellery for his friend and schoolfellow Leonardo 



Bruni of Arezzo. The friendship between these two distinguished 

 scholars continued till death. Innocent having died iu 1406, was suc- 

 ceeded by Gregory XII., who was soon after deposed by the Council 

 of Pisa, and replaced by Alexander V. This was the period of the 

 great western schism. [BENEDICT, ANTIPOPE.] In the midst of these 

 distractions Poggio withdrew to Florence, where he pursued his lite- 

 rary studies, and found a patron in Niceol6 Nicoli, a wealthy Floren- 

 tine, noted for his love of learning and his encouragement of the 

 learned. When John XXIII. was elected pope, Poggio returned to 

 his duties of pontifical secretary, and as such he accompanied the pope 

 to the Council of Constance iu 1414. At Constance he applied himself 

 to the study of Hebrew; and in his excursions into the adjoining 

 countries he visited the abbey of St. Gall, and other monasteries, 

 where he had the good fortune to discover the manuscripts of several 

 classical works which were considered as lost, or of which only imper- 

 fect copies existed. He complains, as Boccaccio had done before him, 

 of the monks taking no care of the literary treasures which they 

 possessed, and allowing the valuable manuscripts to rot " in cellars 

 and dungeons unfit even for condemned criminals." Poggio found, 

 among other manuscripts, copies of Quiutilian's 'Institutions,' of 

 Vegetius, Silius Italians, Ammianus Marcellinus, Columella, Asconius 

 Pedianus's commentaries upon some of Cicero's orations, the 'Argo- 

 nautics* of Valerius Flaccus, several comedies of Plautus, &c. 

 Continuing his researches after his return to Italy, either by himself 

 or through his friends, he found at Monte Casino a copy of ' Froutinus 

 de Aquseductibus,' he procured from Cologne the fifteenth book of 

 ' Petronius Arbiter,' and from a monastery at Langres several of 

 Cicero's orations, which had been regarded as lost. Poggio either 

 purchased the manuscripts, or transcribed them, or pointed them out 

 to persons wealthier than himself. His friends, Bartolommeo da 

 Montepulciano and Cinzio, of Rome, assisted him by their own 

 exertions, and Nicoli by his liberality. 



While Poggio was staying at Constance, he witnessed the trial and 

 execution, by the sentence of that council, of Jerome of Prague, on 

 the charge of heresy. He gives a most vivid account of that 

 deplorable transaction in a letter to his friend Leonardo Bruni, which 

 has been often quoted by subsequent historians. Poggio was evidently 

 moved by the constancy and the eloquence of the defence of the 

 Bohemian reformer; and his own knowledge of the corruptions of 

 the Roman Church at that time made him, if not openly advocate 

 Jerome's cause, at least commiserate his fate iu terms so strong that 

 his more prudent ' friend Leonardo wrote to warn him against giving 

 way to his feelings. Poggio was still, nominally at least, papal secre- 

 tary at the time. After Martin V. was solemnly acknowledged as 

 legitimate pope, and the council was dissolved in 1417, Poggio 

 followed the pontiff on his return to Italy as far as Mantua, where he 

 suddenly left the papal retinue and repaired to England. Whether 

 he left in disgust, or through fear for having expressed his sentiments 

 too freely on church matters, is not clearly ascertained. While iu 

 Constance he had received an invitation from Cardinal Beaufort, 

 bishop of Winchester. His expectations from Beaufort's liberality 

 were disappointed; and at length, having received through some 

 friends in Italy an offer to resume his office at Rome, he left England 

 about 1421. Of his remarks during his residence in England there 

 are scattered fragments in his published letters, and still more iu the 

 unedited ones. His picture of the habits and manners of the English 

 is not flattering. He says that they were more addicted to the 

 pleasures of the table than to those of learning ; and that the few 

 who cultivated literature were more expert in sophisms and contro- 

 versial quibbles than in real science. 



Poggio continued in his office during Martin's pontificate, pursuing 

 at the same time his researches after manuscripts and antiquities, for 

 which latter object he made excavations at Ostia and other parts of 

 the Campagua. He also made Latin translations of the first six '-onka 

 of Diodorus Siculus, and of Xenophon's ' Cyropjedia.' Eugenius IV., 

 having in 1431 succeeded Martin V., was soou after obliged by a 

 popular rebellion to remove his court to Florence. Then came the 

 controversies between the Pope and the Council of Basel, which lasted 

 during the rest of Eugeiiius's pontificate, till his death in 1447. The 

 greater part of this time was spent by Poggio at Florence, or at a 

 country-house he had purchased in the Val d'Arno, some say with the 

 produce of some classical manuscripts which he sold. He gives iu 

 his letters a description of this residence, which he had adorned with 

 statues and other remains of antiquity that he had collected in various 

 places. He wrote there several works, among others his ' Discourse 

 on the Uuhappiness of Princes," which he dedicated to Thomas of 

 Sarzaua, afterwards Pope Nicholas V. ; and his virulent invectives 

 against Filelfo, who had attacked the character of Poggio's friend 

 Nicoli. When the two fierce disputants became reconciled, Poggio 

 wrote a sort of disavowal of his former accusations, which is found at 

 the end of the invectives. In 1435 Poggio married Selvaggia, of the 

 family of Buoudelmonte of Florence, a young and handsome lady, with 

 whom he lived happily. While making up his mind to his marriage, 

 he wrote a dialogue on the question, ' An seni sit uxor ducenda ? 

 From that time Poggio reformed his life, which had been before rather 

 licentious. In 1437 he published a selection of his letters, written in 

 Latin, like all -the rest of his works, according to the fashion of that 

 age. His friend Leonardo Bruni dying in 1444, Poggio composed a 



