Florence the Heir of Rome | Episode LXXVI

Send us Fan MailWhat if the true heir of the Roman Empire was not Rome, but Florence? Over the course of his life and career as a scholar and politician, the great humanist Leonardo Bruni made this argument multiple times, and in a variety of ways. In doing so, he gave novel accounts of liberty and virtue, and eventually moved away from an appeal to Florence's Roman roots and appealed instead to her Etruscan roots. In doing so, he laid the groundwork for the preeminent Italian political thinker commonly associated with the birth of modernity: Niccolò Machiavelli.New Humanists episode on Leonardo Bruni's letter to Battista Malatesta: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1791279/episodes/14460440-mediocrity-versus-glory-in-the-renaissance-episode-lxiiJames Hankins's Virtue Politics: https://amzn.to/3UiQpp3Leonardo Bruni's History of the Florentine People: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674005068C.S. Lewis's The Weight of Glory: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780060653200Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781107612235Donatello's Saint George: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George_(Donatello)Roberto Valturio's De re militari: https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=315New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.comSupport the show