Toward the Genesis of the Kristeller Thesis of Renaissance Humanism. Four Bibliographical Notes.

Paul Oskar Kristeller's interpretation of Renaissance humanism as a "characteristic phase in what may be called the rhetorical tradition in Western culture" [1] has exercised an enormous influence on Renaissance studies. What I wish to do here is to call attention a group of works that affected in one way or another Kristeller's thinking about the Renaissance in general and about Renaissance humanism in particular.

Paul Oskar Kristeller first enunciated his thesis on the nature and origins of Renaissance humanism five years after he came to America from Italy -- in a lecture, to be precise, at Connecticut College on 9 March 1944. [2] Among other points, Kristeller showed that the word humanist began as. a vernacular term in Italian school culture (i. e., humanista) and that it referred to the teacher of a specific set of subjects. Kristeller's friend Augusto Campana had independently and nearly contemporaneously made the same discovery. [3] But neither Campana nor anyone else had traced the origins of Renaissance humanism back to its medieval Italian rhetorical roots and the French rhetorical commentary tradition. [4] Kristeller's knowledge of the texts of the Italian Renaissance was extraordinary; but so too was that of Jakob Burckhardt, Georg Voigt, Remigio Sabbadini, Vittorio Rossi, Giuseppe Saitta, and Eugenio Garin, to mention only some of the major commentators on Renaissance humanism predating or contemporary to Kristeller in the mid-1940s. Kristeller was different because he brought to the task a distinct preparation that separated him from other commentators. There is no accounting for originality, but knowledge of Kristeller's training helps to explain elements of his theory.

1. HANS VON ARNIM'S DIO VON PRUSA

Kristeller received his doctorate from the University of Heidelberg in 1928, qualifying as an expert in ancient philosophy with a dissertation on Plotinus. [5] He then returned to Berlin to gain professional competence in classical philology, There he enjoyed the tuition of a breathtakingly distinguished group of teachers. He participated in the seminars of Eduard Norden and Werner Jaeger, and attended the lectures of Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Mollendorff, Paul Maas, Eduard Meyer, Wilhelm Schulze, Friedrich Solmsen, and Richard Walzer. [6] Norden had a large knowledge of classical rhetoric; indeed, his famous Die Antike Kunstprosa (1898) would not have been possible without such a knowledge. Jaeger had made his reputation by his work on Aristotle, but he too had an interest in the antique rhetorical tradition. [7]

During his years in Berlin, Kristeller wrote seminar papers on Cicero's Orator and his oration Pro Murena, and passed his state board examination with a thesis on Pericles's speech at the end of book 1 of Thucydides. [8] Therefore, it is inconceivable that he did not read -- at this time, if not earlier -- Hans von Arnim's Leben und Werke des Dio von Prusa, mit einer Einleitung: Sophistik, Rhetorik, Philosophie in ihrem Kampf um die Jugendbildung (The Life and Writings of Dio of Prusa, with an Introduction: Sophistic, Rhetoric, Philosophy in Their Battle over the Education of Youth). Dio "Chrysosrom" of Prusa was a notable figure of the Second Sophistic during the Roman Empire. Arnim's Dio von Prusa is the first authority on antique rhetoric Krisreller cited in his Martin Classical Lectures of 1954, the definitive statement of his theory on Renaissance humanism. [9] Arnim would have been well known to Kristeller, in any case, from his Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, which was then as now indispensable to studen ts of ancient philosophy What made Dio von Prusa especially valuable from the perspective of someone interested in philosophy was its lengthy first part, announced in the book's subtitle, where Arnim traced the competition between rhetoric and philosophy from the fifth century B.C. to Dio's time in the second century A.D. [10] Armin made the broad sweep of antiquity his focus rather than an individual period and showed that these two educational cultures more often than not peacebly co-existed over the centuries despite celebrated moments when they broke out in open warfare against each other. Arnim thus habituated his readers to viewing rhetoric as an essential intellectual and cultural strand running through antiquity. The themes of Arnim's book (dedicated to his teacher Wilamowitz-Mollendorff) had become virtual cliches for German classicists by the first decades of the twentieth century. [11] Kristeller came to work on the Renaissance with this understanding of classical culture long installed as an integ ral part of his erudition. He therefore had the historical perspective which allowed him to speak of humanism as a "characteristic phase in what may be called the rhetorical tradition in Western culture" and to remark that "since the rhetorician offers to speak and to write about everything and the philosopher tries to think about everything, they have always been rivals in their claim to provide a universal training of the mind." [12] The essential component in this preparation, I would contend, was not so much Kristeller's training in classical philosophy in Heidelberg and Marburg as his training in the classical rhetorical tradition in Berlin.

2. HARRY BRESSLAU'S URKUNDENLEHRE

Into his old age Kristeller could recite the names and dates of all the Carolingian monarchs. As an undergraduate he had tried his hand not only at philosophy, but also at mathematics and medieval history. The results in mathematics made for a humorous section of his "A Life of Learning" lecture at the 1990 meeting of the American Council of Learned Societies. [13] The results in medieval history were more significant. His teachers in medieval history were Karl Hampe and Friedrich Bathgen in Heidelberg and Edmund Ernst Stengel in Marburg. [14] In an unpublished memoir, Kristeller remarks:

I had attended the lectures and seminars of two excellent professors of Medieval History (who emphasized the methodology and also the auxiliary disciplines), Karl Hampe and Friedrich Bathgen. The seminars had for their text Bresslau's Urkundenlehre. ... During the Spring of 1926 I had also attended successfully a similar seminar by Stengel in Marburg . . .. [15]

To anyone in the first half of the twentieth century working on medieval documents, Harry Bresslau's Handbuch der Urkundenlehre fur Deutschland und Italien was something of a bible, and it remains to this very day an invaluable guide. [16] By his own account, Kristeller used the book in two seminars and had a third seminar in which he did similar work. [17] What one must understand is that Bresslau dedicated a fifty-page section of his book to medieval notaries in chanceries and civic life, and that he also extensively discussed the ars dictaminis in Italy from the eleventh century onward. [18] Kristeller once told me that he first encountered the ars dictaminis in the pages of Bresslau. This aspect of his training came to fruition some twenty years later as a key component in Kristeller's seminal article "Humanism and Scholasticism in the Italian Renaissance." For Kristeller the humanist movement arose in the field "of grammatical and rhetorical studies. The humanist continued the medieval tradition in thes e fields, as represented, for example, by the ars dictaminis and the ars arengandi"; and "moreover, as chancellors and as teachers, the humanists, far from representing a new class, were the professional heirs and successors of the medieval rhetoricians, the so-called dictatores ...." [19] Once he started to look for medieval antecedents to Renaisance humanism, perhaps Kristeller would have made the connection between the ars dictaminis and Renaissance humanism whether he had participated in the seminars of Hampe and Bathgen or not. But the fact remains that he possessed a technical expertise in medieval documents that was certainly rare, if not unique, for historians of classical philosophy and letters, let alone of Renaissance philosophy and letters. Kristeller's early introduction to medieval rhetoric not as literary motifs or ideas, but as the technical, practical, and remunerative learning of bureaucrats, teachers, and writers of manuals enabled him to anchor his theory of humanism in the concrete social and institutional fabric of Italy.

But this is not to say that Kristeller arrived in Italy in the early 1930s with his ideas of Renaissance humanism already formed as we find them in "Humanism and Scholasticism in the Italian Renaissance." Quite the contrary; as we shall now see.

3. KONRAD BURDACHS REFORMATION, RENAISSANCE, HUMANISMUS AND HIS RIENZO UND DIE GEISTIGE WANDLUNG SEINER ZEIT

In the fall of 1966, in my second year in the graduate program at Columbia University, I attended Kristeller's class on Renaissance philosophy. [20] During the prerequisite first lecture on the historiography of the Renaissance which I had heard from other teachers too many times before and therefore found boring, Kristeller mentioned Burdach and then, in an obiter dictum that transformed the moment, said that he once thought Burdach had gotten it right. I fortunately resisted the impulse to blurt out, "How could you believe such a ridiculous thing?" Unfortunately, I never got around later to asking him in a more temperate manner about this earlier belief. But there can be no doubt that he once believed Burdach. In "Humanism and Scholasticism," the first statement of his theory of Renaissance humanism, he stated in a footnote: "Burdach's attempts to derive the concept of the Renaissance from religious or mystical traditions no longer convince me." [21]

In the original version of "Humanism and Scholaticism," Kristeller cited only Burdach's Reformation, Renaissance, Humanismus. [22] But in the revised version of "Humanism and Scholasticism" which appeared 10 years later in 1956, he also cited Burdach's Rienzo und die geistige Wandlung seiner Zeit. [23] He could have cited other works of Burdach as well. [24] Burdach (1859-1936) was a Germanist who argued that the Renaissance emerged from the "medieval apocalyptic-chiliastic tradition of rebirth and reformation of the political-religious community." [25] Cola di Rienzo's seizure of Rome as the "white-mantled knight of the Holy Spirit" and "tribune and liberator of the Roman Republic" in 1347 marked the "beginning of a new age." [26] According to Burdach:

The genuine Renaissance grew out of the innermost vital core of the Italian people. It took hold (after a rather long preparation since the eleventh century) at the time when the antique inheritance ceased to be experienced as the living European common property of everyday use, at the time when people began to treat the antique inheritance as an element, as a source of devotion and reverence, as a memorial of a purer, more human youth, as an instrument for moral and religious elevation. When the Roman Empire was sinking to its death, at that moment Rienzo, as a student of Dante, proclaimed the Reformation and the Regeneration of the City of Rome, to the jubilation of Petrarch, and thereby of the new Roman Empire. This is the Renaissance which created a new conception of humanity, of art, of literary and scientific life, which established a new world dominion, a dominion of a spiritual ideal over the formulae of ossified dogmas. It arose not in opposition to the Christian religion, but out of the full vigor o f a religious revival. [27]

The discoverer and editor of the fourteenth-century German dialogue Der Ackermann aus Bohmen (The Ploughsman from Bohemia), Burdach made sure to trace the course of the Renaissance into Germany:

This Ackermann is the grandest poetical artwork that the whole age produced in Germany. It is, moreover, also a unique example of German linguistic artistry, the most admirable fruit of the linguistic and spiritual effect of the three great pioneers of the Renaissance: Dante, Petrarch, Rienzo. All three had directly and strongly influenced Germany insofar as they gave an initial long-enduring impulse to the development of new High German as a written and literary language. [28]

How much of Burdach's mixture of truth and twaddle Kristeller believed I cannot say, nor is it necessary for us determine that here. Rather, the point to be made is that when entering Italy in the early 1930s he probably found Burdach persuasive and only changed his mind as he delved deeper into the printed and manuscript sources. I do not know exactly when Kristeller turned his back on Burdach's belletristic vapors, but his own solution proved in the end to be virtually the intellectual antithesis, or, if one wishes, the antidote to them.

4. RICHARD MCKEON'S "RHETORIC IN THE MIDDLE AGES"

I once asked Kristeller when he came to his theory of Renaissance humanism. He told me he did so after arriving in America, but he gave no precise date. I cannot help believing that McKeon's article, "Rhetoric in the Middle Ages," in the January 1942 issue of Speculum acted as something of catalyst. As McKeon himself notes, his article served as the object of a discussion session at the meeting of the Medieval Academy of America on 24 April 1942. [29] Kristeller's typed curriculum vitae records among his "Lectures given in America" an item "28. Comments on Prof. Mc Keon's [30] paper on medieval rhetoric, meeting of the Medieval Academy of America, Boston, April 24, 1942." [31] McKeon's paper was a very dense exercise in the history of ideas. He argued that to view rhetoric merely as training in verbal skill is to miss much of the influence of rhetoric in the Middle Ages. He stressed the role rhetorical concepts and categories played in medieval logic, philosophy, and theology.

Kristeller cited McKeon's article in "Humanism and Scholasticism" and in the Martin Classical Lectures of 1955 and multiple times in later articles. [32] Nonetheless, however good McKeon's piece was as intellectual history, it ignored central aspects of the history of rhetoric in the Middle Ages, aspects anchored in institutions, social and political practice, and cultural forms, which Kristeller would develop for Italy in "Humanism and Scholasticism."

In point of fact, preserved among Kristeller's papers at Columbia University is the typescript of the comments he prepared to deliver on McKeon's paper in Boston (see the appendix below). The comments clearly show that Kristeller had not yet elaborated his concept of Renaissance humanism. Missing from the comments are any references to the origins of the word humanist, the substance of the studia humanitatis, the French commentary tradition, the notion of humanism as a characteristic phase of the rhetorical tradition, and the relationship of humanism to scholasticism. Present, however, are the understanding of rhetoric in its longe duree (appendix, paragraph 2) and the insistence on seeing rhetoric in all its social manifestations, i. e., the "artes praedicandi, artes dictaminis, artes notariae, artes epistolandi etc." (paragraph 4) and the

... new types of speech and literature: Inaugural speeches given by officials or addressed to them, congratulations or exhortation speeches addressed to princes on various occasions, welcome addresses to distinguished visitors, wedding and funeral speeches, commencement and graduation addresses, praelectiones of professors, descriptions of all kinds of festivities. The extant material is enormous, and it is only part of what was actually being written and said. (paragraph 6)

Fortuitously, after having written a first draft of this article, I mentioned in a telephone conversation with Professor Emil J. Polak of Queensborough Community College my theory concening McKeon's "Rhetoric in the Middle Ages." Polak then informed me that Kristeller once told him that many years previous McKeon had cut him off when he was commenting on this article and was talking about the various medieval rhetorical artes. A senior medievalist later apologized to Kristeller for McKeon's behavior and explained that he, McKeon, was under a great deal of pressure at the time. That unpleasant moment could have only occurred on 24 April 1942. The comments of Kristeller, the young emigre, perhaps did run a bit long (the typed seven pages could come close to 20 minutes if read slowly); but it is telling that McKeon cut Kristeller off when he was detailing the various rhetorical artes and getting up a head of steam to talk about the other social aspects of rhetoric. McKeon later thanked Kristeller by letter for c ommenting on his article, but the point at which he cut Kristeller off effectively symbolized the enormous gulf between his and Kristeller's approaches to the history of rhetoric in the Middle Ages. [33]

As it is, in "Humanism and Scholasticism" Kristeller bluntly rejected McKeon's attempt in an earlier article to identify two competing trends in the Renaissance, one grammatical and one rhetorical. [34] Kristeller commented on McKeon in the spring of 1942; by early 1944 he had worked out his own ideas on the place of rhetoric in the Italian Middle Ages and Renaissance. Post factum does not mean propter factum; but if McKeon's piece and the disagreeable moment it caused in Boston did not provoke Kristeller to write in the first place, then at least it could not but have been a spur for him in the years immediately thereafter to continue to pursue his investigation on the origins of Renaissance humanism. [35]

(1.) Kristeller, 1961, 11, in his essay "The Humanist Movement," which he delivered as the first of his four Martin Classical Lectures at Oberlin College in Feburary 1954. These lectures were published as The Classics and Renaissance Thought in 1955 and have been republished numerous times: see items 80 and 110 (Italian), and 119 (Spanish) in the Mahoney bibliography; and items 180 and 184 (Hungarian), and 191 and 206 (Spanish) in the Pachella bibliography in Hankins, Monfasani, and Purnell, xvii-xxxvii.

(2.) See item 24 in the Mahoney bibliography, 548. This lecture eventually became the article "Humanism and Scholasticism in Renaissance Italy" (hereafter, "Humanism and Scholasticism"), published in Byzantion. This volume of Byzantion is dated 1944-1945, but is really 1946; see the copyright on p. iii of the volume. The article is included in Kristeller, 1956-1996, [1]: 553-83. In later printings (including 1979), Kristeller added some new bibliographical references, but he did not alter the main text. The article has also been reprinted many times; see items 38, 60, 80 and 110 (Italian), and 126 and 149 (German) in the Mahoney bibliography; and items 180, 182, 191, and 206 (Spanish), and 219 (English) in the Pachella bibliography.

(3.) The volume of the Warburg series in which campana's article appeared is dated 1946, but it was published in late 1947 or early 1948. See Campana's postscript, 73, and G. Calogero's preface to the volume, p. iv, dated October 1947. In the postscript, Campana records that he wrote his article in the first half of 1946.

(4.) Kristeller himself commented on his predecessors in "Humanism and Scholasticism": "The link betwen the humanists and the medieval rhetoricians has been recognized by only a very few scholars, such as Francesco Novati, Helene Wieruszowski, and Ernst Kantorowicz. These scholars, however, chiefly noticed that the medieval rhetoricians show some of the personal characteristics commonly attributed to the humanists. I should like to go further and assume a direct professional and literary connection of which the personal similarities are merely a symptom" (n. 2).

(5.) Kristeller's dissertation was published in 1929.

(6.) See Kristeller, 1990, 6-7 (l956-l996, 4: 567-83; the cited passage is on 573-74); Kristeller, n.d., 6-7; and Mahoney, 1976b, 2-3. Kristeller must have caught Wilamowitz-Moellendorf in his last year of teaching, and Meyer in his last or penultimate year, since the former ceased to lecture with the winter semester of 1928-1929, and the latter died in 1930; see Briggs and Calder, 264, 271, and 507.

(7.) See Jaeger, 1: 286-331 on the Sophists, and 3: 46-155 on Isocrates.

(8.) A11 three texts survive in the Paul Oskar Kristeller Collection (hereafter POK), Manuscripts, box 22; the papers on the Orator and Pericles' speech are discussed in Mahoney, 1979b, 2-3. The paper on Orator 168-173 includes sections on oratorical rhythm and on the origin of the genera dicendi. The paper on the Oratio pro Morena 19-20 has sections entitled "Bemerkungen zum Stil" and "Inhaltliche und sprachliche Erlauterungen."

(9.) Kristeller, 1961, 12.

(10.) The other two authorities Kristeller cited, Gomperz and Jaeger, restricted themselves to the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. Apropos Jaeger's vision of Greek education, Kristeller once remarked to me that Jaeger's Paidaca was, in fact, the nineteenth-century German classical Gymnasium transformed into a world-historical idea.

(11.) For instance, the works of Gomperz and Jaeger which Kristeller also cited in the first note are both subsequent to Arnim. Arnim's general perspective has become standard for classicists; see for instance Marrou who cites both Gomperz and Armin's introduction to Dio von Prusa as "le travail fondamental pour notre etude" (534).

(12.) Kristeller, 1961, 12.

(13.) Kristeller, 1990, 5-6 (1956-1996, 4: 572). He discovered that he could not understand a printed demonstration that he himself was presenting in a mathematics seminar unless he supplied theorems and proofs which the author had thought unnecessary to include. The exercise convinced Kristeller "that I was not able to become a professional mathematician."

(14.) Ibid. (1956-1996, 4: 572-73); see also Mahoney, 1976b, 1.

(15.) Kristeller, n.d., 5.

(16.) The Urkundenlehre was first published at Leipzig in 1889. Already quite large in its first edition (xxiv + 992 pages), it grew to three volumes in its second edition: vol. 1 (Leipzig, 1912); part 1 of vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1915); and part 2 of vol. 2, prepared by H.-W. Klewitz after the death of Bresslau in 1926 (Leipzig, 1931). The third edition, published in Berlin in 1958, was simply the combining of the 1912, 1915, and 1931 volumes of the second edition. The back of the tide page of the fourth edition (1968-1969) acknowledges this: "Die dritte Auflage (1958) war em unverandette Nachdruck der zweiten Auflage." An index by H. Schulze was published in Berlin, 1960; and the fourth edition consisting of a reprint of the third edition along with Schulze's index was published in Berlin in 1968-1969. The Urkundenlehre has recently been translated into a one-volume Italian edition by Anna Maria Voci-Roth (1998). Voci, 1995-1996, has also written the most recent study of Bresslau, which captures the earlier liter ature: "Harry Bresslau, l'ultimo allievo di Ranke."

(17.) This is not surprising given that Hampe, his student Bathgen, and Stengel were all important editors of medieval documents and texts, and collaborators in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. For Stengel see Killy, 9:505. Hampe gave a eulogy at Bresslau's funeral on 30 October 1926, which was printed as "Harry Bresslau +. Em Nachruf" Bathgen paid his tribute in "Harry Bresslau +." On Hampe see Karl Hampe. For Bathgen, with whom Kristeller renewed friendly relations after the war, see Werner.

(18.) Bresslau, 1960, 1:583-635; and 2: 249-72 and 382-83.

(19.) Kristeller, in "Humanism and Scholasticism in the Italian Renaissance," 1956-1996, [1]: 561 and 564.

(20.) The gist of the course can be read in Kristeller, 1964.

(21.) Kristeller, 1956-1996, [1]: 554 n. 4.

(22.) Burdach's volume, first published at Berlin in 1918 and reprinted at Berlin in 1926 (and yet again at Darmstadt in 1963), consisted of two articles: "Sinn und Ursprung der Worte Renaissance and Reformation" (originally published in 1910) and "Ober den Ursprung des Humanismus" (originally published 1913). Kristeller cited the 1926 edition in 3 of "Humanism and Scholasticism." Oddly enough, Ferguson, 306-11, does not mention this book in his discussion of Burdach, though he does cite, 308 n. 53, "Sinn und Ursprung..." from its original publication in the proceedings of the Prussian Academy.

(23.) This work appeared as issue 1 in 1913, and issue 2 in 1928, of vol. 2, part 1 of Burdach's series Vom Mittelalter zur Reformation. See Ferguson, 308. Krisreller cited Rienzo in 1: 556 n. 13 and 1: 565 n. 28 of the revised "Humanism and Scholasticism," 1956-1996. In the 1979 iteration of the article, some of the footnotes were renumbered so that n. 30 (p. 277) now contains the material of old n. 28.

(24.) See Ferguson, 306-08; Burdach's largest enterprise was the series he edited from 1912 to his death in 1936, Vom Mittelalter zur Reformation: Forschungen zur Geschichte der deutsehen Bildung im Auftrage der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, consisting of 9 vols. in 14 books. The first volume of the series had appeared in 1883, before Burdach's editorship. On his publications see the bibliography by P. Piur in Burdach-Bibliographie. See also Jungbluth.

(25.) Burdach, 1918, 53: "In die mittelalterliche apokalyptisch-chiliastische Tradition von der Wiedergeburt oder Reformation der politisch-religiosen Gemeinschaft...." All translations of Burdach are my own.

(26.) Ibid., 2-13.

(27.) Ibid., 83: "Die eigentliche Renaissance wachst aus dem innersten Lebenskern des italischen Voiks. Sie tritt in Krafr (naeh langerer Vorbereirung seit dem 11. Jahrhundert) in der Zeit, wo das antike Erbe aufhort, als europaisches lebendiges Gemeingut des alltaglichen Gebrauchs empfunden zu werden, wo man anfangt, es als ein Element und als Quelle der Andacht und Ehrfurcht, als Denkmal reinerer, menschlicherer Jugend, als ein Rustzeug fur die sittlich-religibse Erhebung zu betrachten. Als das Imperium Romanum dem Tod ver-fallen, da proklamiert Rienzo als Schuler Dantes unter dem Jubel Petracas die Reformation und Regeneration der Stadt Rom und damit ein neues Imperium Romanum. Das ist die Renaissance, die einen neuen Begriff der Menschheit, der Kunst, des literarischen und wissenschaftlichen Lebens schaift, die eine neue Weltherrschaft begrunder: die eines geistigen Ideals fiber den Formeln der erstarrten Dogmen. Nicht im Gegensatz zu der christlichen Religion, sondern aus der Vollkraft eines religiosen A ufschwungs."

(28.) Ibid., 176: "Dieser 'Ackermann' ist das grobte dichterische Kunstwerk, das die ganze Epoche in Deutschland hervorgebracht hat. Es ist aber auch ein einzigartiges Beispiel deutscher Sprachkunst: die bewundernswerte Frucht der sprachlichen und geistigen Einwirkung dreier grober Bahnbrecher der Renaissance: Dante, Petrarca, Rienzo. Alle drei haben unmittelbar und stark auf Deutschland gewirkt, indem sie der Entwicklung der neuhochdeutschen Schrift- und Literatursprache einen lange fortdauernden Anstob gaben."

(29.) See n. 1 of the article. On McKeon see Callahan.

(30.) This is how Kristeller consistently spelled McKeon's name during these years.

(31.) Photocopy in my possession; copy in POK, Manuscripts, box 23. McKeon thanked Kristeller in a letter of 27 April 1942: "I am writing to thank you again for your kindness in participating in the symposium 'Rhetoric in the Middle Ages"' (POK, Correspondence, box 33). It should be noted that Kristeller's earlier dealings with McKeon in America had led to disappointment; see King's interview with Kristeller: "And so in February 1939, Kristeller crossed from Genoa to New York on the steamship Saturnia.... Kristeller expected to go to Chicago, where Werner Jaeger was teaching and had received assurance from Dean Richard McKeon that a fellowship was awaiting Kristeller on his arrival. When Kristeller arrived in the U.S., Jaeger had moved to Harvard and McKeon failed to follow through on his promise" (924). As dean of the division of the humanities at Chicago, McKeon gave the following explanation in a letter to Kristeller of 30 June 1939: "I was delighted to learn from your recent letter that you have received an appointment as associate in philosophy at Columbia University. .. As you know, the problem was not the lack of a source of funds, but in the local situation..... it seems that members of the faculty were more ready to authorize the application for funds at Columbia than they were at Chicago" (POK, Correspondence, box 33).

(32.) See Kristeller, 1956-1996, "Humanism and Scholasticism," n. 32 (= 1976, n. 34); and n. 10 of the first of the Martin Lectures, "The Humanist Movement" (see n. 1 above). See also nn. 18 and 21 of the Wimmer Lecture, Renaissance Philosophy and the Medieval Tradition, first published by itself in 1966 and subsequently reprinted a number of times; see items 117 and 142 in the Mahoney bibliography; and item 180 in the Pachella bibliography in Hankins, Monfasani, and Purnell. Also, in nn. 1, 17, and 37 of the lecture "Philosophy and Rhetoric from Antiquity to the Renaissance: The Middle Ages," which was first published in Kristeller, 1979, 228-42, and reprinted in 1981; seen. 1 above and items 180 and 191 in the Pachella bibliography in Hankins, Monfasani, and Purnell.

(33.) See n. 3 above. The discussion was described as follows in the Medieval Academy's "Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting": "On Friday afternoon, 24 April 1942, an open session of discussion, devoted to the topic 'Rhetoric in the Middle Ages,' was held in the building of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences under the auspices of the Fellows of the Mediaeval Academy. Professor R. K. Root, President of the Fellows, opened the session and then turned the chair over to Professor R. P. McKeon, who read a brief summary of his paper published in the January 1942 issue of Speculum. Participators in the discussion were Professors Dana B. Durand of Mount Holyoke College, Clarence Faust of the University of Chicago, G. L. Hendrickson of Yale University, Paul O. Kristeller of Columbia University, P. G. E. Miller of Harvard University, E. A. Moody of Columbia University, and P. S. More of the University of Notre Dame" (441). I thank Dr. Richard Emmerson for calling this record to my attention.

(34.) See Kristeller, 1944-1945 [sic], n. 22a (= 1956-1996, n. 22b; and 1961, n. 24). The article Kristeller criticized was McKeon's "Renaissance and Method in Philosophy" of 1935. Kristeller cited without comment the same article in n. 24 of the 1944-1945 [sic] version of "Humanism and Scholasticism" (= 1956, n. 24; and 1961, n. 26).

(35.) Another link to McKeon is found in the talk Kristeller gave, according to an autograph penciled note at the start, to New York's Medieval Club in 1945: "A different point of view has been suggested by Professor Mc Keon [sic] who compared Erasmus and a few other Renaissance humanists with Abelard and a few other medieval philosophers and noted a shift of emphasis from logic to grammar and rhetoric. In another article which is probably known to most of you, Professor Mc Keon discussed the importance of the rhetorical tradition in the Middle Ages and its influence on the history of philosophy. In my opinion, these studies and ideas are capable of much further development, and they must eventually lead to a radical change in our interpretation of Renaissance thought" (POK, Manuscripts, Box 20, folder "Misc. Lectures," p. 2). That the relationship between rhetoric and humanism had attracted Kristeller's scholarly attention only in the years immediately preceding his article "Humanism and Scholasticism in the Italian Renaissance" is confirmed by the opening words of the typescript of the version of the article he delivered at Brown University on 15 December 1944: "Privilege [sic] to talk to you about a topic that has been the subject of my studies for several years" (POK, Manuscripts 21, folder "Misc. Lectures").

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Appendix: Kristeller's Comments on McKeon's "Rhetoric in the Middle Ages"

These comments consist of seven typed sheets found in the folder "Lectures, Unpublished" in box 20 of the "Manuscripts" section of the Paul Oskar Kristeller Collection of Columbia University's Rare Book and Manuscript Library (in Butler Library). A penciled note in Kristeller's hand over the title on the first page has the words "Mediaeval Academy." These pages surely contain the comments prepared and delivered by Kristeller at the Medieval Academy of America meeting in Boston on 24 April 1942 and listed as item 28 in his curriculum vitae (see note 31 above).

Resisting the urge to insert or delete a comma here and there, I have retained Kristeller's punctuation save that I have indented paragraphs, which is something he did not do. The three notes are mine. Some of the comments Kristeller placed in parentheses clearly were intended to be expanded upon in the spoken version or were bibliographical notes placed there in the event he was questioned. Passages such as "Cicero was of practical importance at his time" in paragraph 4 and "which contain specific advices for stylistic expression" in paragraph 5 show that Kristeller had not yet fully mastered English idiom, though overall the comments shine with his characteristic ludicity of thought.

/p. 1/

DISCUSSION ON RHETORIC IN THE MIDDLE AGES

I must start with the confession that I have no particular competence in the field of rhetoric, and that my chief interest has been in the latest part of the Middle Ages (I hesitate to use the term "Renaissance", since it may not be permitted to use it before this distinguished audience, or if you do permit it, it may be considered as a reason to exclude me from a discussion on the Middle Ages). On the other hand, rhetoric occupied such an important place in the period of my studies, and the "Renaissance was in so many respects linked to the previous centuries, that I hope some useful contribution to our subject might result from a consideration of that later historical period.

When I read Professor Mc Keon's admirable paper, it occurred to me that the history of rhetoric may be followed along several different lines or points of view. Along those lines I would like to restate some of his results and add a few questions and tentative statements on which I would like to hear his comments.

1. The first line of development to which he seems to have given most attention concerns the place which rhetoric occupies in the whole scheme or system of learning. In the "Battle of the Arts", rhetoric has sometimes dominated all other fields, while in other times it has been subordinated to the requirements of theology, law, logic, or other fields with which it was closely associated at different times. Prof. Mc Keon refers explicitly to the classification of the sciences as they were given in the works of the philosophers and theologians. I think, an analysis of the teaching tradition might give additional information (cf. Paetow). [1] In the earlier period rhetoric was, of course, a part of the Trivium. But when the natural philosophy and /p. 2/ metaphysics of Aristotle were introduced into the curriculum, logic became most closely associated with those higher branches of philosophy and rhetoric remained in the company of her smaller sister, grammar. This connection between rhetoric and grammar seems to prevail at the universities until 1400. In the fifteenth century occurred a change, at least at the Italian universities. The teaching of rhetoric becomes now associated with the reading of the classical authors (rhetorica et authores, retorica et poesis), and still later rhetoric becomes a part of humanitas, i.e., of the advanced study of the classics of which eloquence, if not rhetorical theory, remained one of the outstanding features. This emacipation of rhetoric from grammar, its association with the reading of the authors and its final transformation into the study of the humanities, seems to be characteristic of Renaissance humanism.

2. Another point on which Prof. Mc Keon's paper is fill of brilliant suggestions is the influence which rhetoric had on most other fields of learning and civilization. Since rhetoric was and has remained an indispensable part of elementary education (nowadays it is being called speech, writing, journalism and the like), its traces should be expected everywhere. Prof. Mc Keon who himself is a great rhetor goes a long way to convince us that, after all, rhetoric may have been the main source of the theology of the Augustinians and of the logic and natural philosophy of the Aristotelians (I have some doubts, however, whether the fourteenth century logicians who called themselves Sophists, could be derived from the rhetorical tradition, in spite of their name). I would like to stress the fact that rhetoric has not only made many contributions to other fields, but also received at least as many from other sciences, especially from philosophy. If we /P. 3/ go back to classical times we find that the competition be tween the schools of rhetoric and of philosophy forced the philosophers to teach a rhetoric of their own (Aristotle), yet, conversely, the rhetors availed themselves of all kinds of philosophical doctrines. In the Latin West, there was no school of philosophy of any importance, and hence the rhetorical schools had a kind of educational monopoly and could not fail to exercise a dominant influence which lasted through all antiquity and the earlier middle ages. Yet we must remember that many theories and methods which rhetoric gave to later philosophy (I think of the allegorical interpretation) were derived from ancient philosophy. Rhetoric did not invent them, but only transmitted them to posterity. The same might be said of Greek grammar and of Roman law.

3. Rhetoric in itself may be considered as a body of general rules concerning speech or writing. In so far as medieval rhetoric, taken in this sense, did not show much originality the question comes down to determining the teaching tradition and the texts used at various times. Besides historical reports, extant manuscript copies and editions and commentaries would be the chief evidence. In the decisive period of the middle ages (s. XII-XIV), Cicero and Boethius seem to have prevailed, especially de inv. and ad. Her. [2] Prof. Mc Keon mentions the interesting fact that Aristotle's Rhetoric appears in the company of his Ethics and Politics and that there are few medieval commentaries on the Rhetoric. The authors of these commentaries are all philosophers and belong to the late s. XIII or to s. XIV. I would like to conclude that Aristotle's Rhetoric actually was not treated in classes of rhetoric, but only occasionally in courses on moral philosophy. The predominance of Cicero continues far into the Renaissanc e. Yet in the fifteenth /p. 4/ century the newly discovered Orator, De Oratore, Brutus etc. obtain increasing importance, and in the sixteenth century these more advanced works tend to prevail over de inv. and ad Her. (There should be a complete bibliography of Cicero, I made only a sketchy examination of the most obvious bibliographical sources). The number of editions and commentaries shows that all those works were used as texts. Yet there is evidence for an increasing influence of Quintilian whose complete text was discovered in the fifteenth century (editions, commentaries, Valla's preference, Patrizi's abridgment). In the sixteenth century, Aristotle's Rhetoric, this time in the company of the Poetics and of the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, becomes increasingly important (several translations and commentaries, still rare in the fifteenth century, cf. bibliogaphy of Poetics by Cooper-Gudeman). There is reason to believe that at least in the second half of the sixteenth century, Aristotle's Rhetoric (and Poet ics) was used as a textbook, and this would lead to the surprising conclusion that at least in the field of rhetorical theory, the Aristotelian middle ages were dominated by Cicero, while the Ciceronian and anti-Aristotelian Renaissance reinstated Aristotle against Cicero. It would be interesting to analyze those Renaissance commentaries and their medieval predecessors and to see to what extent they reflect the philosophical theories or the rhetorical practice of their time. It would be even more importrant to examine the original treatises on rhetoric which followed the general trend of Cicero or Aristotle. I know very few examples from the Renaissance, and the reason is obvious: actual practice had become too different.

4. Rhetoric many also be considered as a body of practical rules for the composition of speeches or writings (cf. poetics for verses). Cicero /p. 5/was of practical importance at his time when the custom of forensic speeches prevailed. As soon as this custom disappeared, his works on rhetoric appeared as merely abstract theories. It was logical that new types of practical textbooks were written to meet the needs of the newly developed habits of speaking and writing. The slighting remarks of Bon compagni on Cicero are quite understandable, and the new types of rhetorical textbooks, the artes praedicandi, artes dictaminis, artes notariae, artes epistolandi etc. have thus their particular significance because they served the practical needs of their times, they taught how to write sermons, political and legal documents, letters etc. We might well ask to what extent these textbooks were influenced by the classical theories of Cicero etc. and to what extent by the particular practical tasks which they were servin g. The rhetorical textbooks of the humanists, the artes epistolandi, artes oratoriae, artes versificandi etc. seem to follow the line of the medieval practical handboooks, although their criteria were changed (Franc. Niger, Jacobus Publicius, Badius etc.).

5. All rhetorical training is not only based on rules, general or practical, but also on definite models. The ancient rhetors used their fictitious declamations or famous speeches as models. In the middle ages such models appear as parts of the practical textbooks and also as separate collections (formularia). They contain fictitious as well as historical models. Such collections enabled the notaries and chanceries to use identical texts for documents of the same type. Miscellaneous sermons of the Church Fathers were copied as models for the preacher, political documents as models for the secretary (and many historical documents have been preserved in this fashion). The /p. 6/ letters of Petrus de Vineis owe their extraordinary diffusion to the fact that they were admired models of stylistic imitation. When we study the influence of rhetorical tradition on medieval and Renaissance literature, we must consider not only the practical application of given theories or rules as contained in the textbooks, but als o the continual imitation of existing models of style and composition. My impression is that in the later middle ages and in the renaissance there is an increasing emphasis on the imitation of models as distinct from the application of rules. The most influential works were not the commentaries on Cicero or treatises along those lines, but rather works like Valla's Elegantiae or Agostino Dati's Elegantiolae which contain specific advices for stylistic expression. The humanists composed formular letters (Barzizza, Mario Filelfo), or their real letters were used for the same purpose (Filelfo's letters, omnibus qui pure et latine scribere cupiunt multum utiles et necessariae). [3] The emphasis shifted of course mostly to the works of the classical authors themselves, and Cicero was the model most widely imitated. We may say, that the ground lost by his works on rhetoric was retaken by his orations and letters.

6. The last aspect of rhetoric is its actual use in speech and writing. This means that the theories and rules are put into practice. But it also works the other way around. The changes and developments in the intellectual and social life of a period will effect [sic] its forms of speech and writing thus indirectly effect [sic] rhetorical theory. The medieval forms of expression were mainly the sermon, letter, political and legal document. As a matter of fact, the later middle ages and the renaissance developed increasing opportunities for secular speech and literature. /p. 7/ Political manifestos became more important, diplomatic reports and private letters more elaborate. New customs led to new types of speech and literature: Inaugural speeches given by officials or addressed to them, congratulation or exhortation speeches addressed to princes on various occasions, welcome addresses to distinguished visitors, wedding and funeral speeches, commencement and graduation addresses, praelectiones of professors, descriptions of all kinds of festivities. The extant material is enormous, and it is only part of what was actually being written and said. Modern historians usually dismiss this whole field of literature with a slighting remark about the Renaissance humanists being fond of empty rhetoric. I do not deny that most of their speeches are empty. But I think we should realize that all those speeches were composed for special occasions and were destined to fulfill definite social functions. There was no question of speeches being delivered or not. They got to be delivered and it was only the question whether they would be more or less elegant. Hence we may say that all those speeches were evidently influenced by the rhetorical theories and the models of imitation prevailing at the time, but they were also adjusted to the particular occasions for which they were composed (and this accounts for the historical element in them which often represents for us the only point of interest) and the whole system of oratorical and literary forms and habits must have influenced the rules and theories of rhetoric as well.

I would like to conclude with this statement: the history of rhetorical theory is not an autonomous development, but it is continually subjected to outside influences, that is, chiefly to the influence of prevailing philosophical conceptions and to the influence of existing political, professional and social habits which determine the types and channels in which speech and literature find their particular expression.

(1.) Kristeller's reference is to L. J. Paetow, The Arts Course at Medieval Universities, which he quoted to ironic purpose in one of the classic notes of "Humanism and Scholasticism": "L. J. Paetow comments on this document [Giovanni del Virgilio's appointment at Bologna in 1321 to teach versification and Latin poets] as follows: 'This was a good beginning... but the fair promise had no fulfillment'( The Arts Course... [my ellipsis], p. 60). Actually, the promise did find its fulfillment in the development of Italian humanism. The teaching of classical authors never ceased in Italy after that memorable date which coincides with the approximate time when Perrarch was a student at Bologna" (1944-1945. n. 49; 1979, n. 51). Kristeller also cited Paetow's edition of The Battle of the Seven Arts by... Henri d'Andeli in 1944-1945, nn. 25 and 47 (1979, nn. 27 and 49) and in the Martin Lectures.

(2.) I.e., Cicero's De Inventione and Pseudo-Cicero's Rhetorica ad Herrenium.

(3.) The Latin is certainly taken from the title page of an early printed edition of Francesco Filefo's Epistolae. I checked the two editions at Columbia University (24 Sept. 1502, Venice: Ioannes & Gregorius de Gregorius; and 3 April 1489, Venice: Bernardinus de Choris de Cremona), but they do not have this clause. I therefore suspect that Kristeller was quoting directly from the description in Rain, no. 12952 (= 29 February 1500, Deventer: Iacobus de Breda).