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The First Political Commentary on Tacitus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Extract

Only the learning, the wisdom, and the wit of Professor N. H. Baynes could do full justice to the influence of Tacitus on modern political and historical thought. As no ancient historian of our time is so interested in the legacy of Classical Antiquity as Professor Baynes, it has seemed not inappropriate to bring to him from my native Piedmont the following contribution to the history of Tacitus' influence. An earlier chapter of the same history was written in this Journal (VI, 196 ff.), by Professor F. J. Haverfield.

Pontano, at the end of the fifteenth century writes: ‘Curtium ac Taciturn quasi mutilatas videmus statuas; licetque suspicari potius ac coniicere quam omnino de iis iudicium aliquod absolutum ac certum tradere.’ After the editio princeps of the first books of the Annals (1515), it became evident that Tacitus had a message for contemporaries. As Guicciardini said: ‘Insegna molto bene Cornelio Tacito a chi vive sotto a' tiranni il modo di vivere e governarsi prudentemente, cosi come insegna a' tiranni e' modi di fondare la tirannide.’

Type
Papers Presented to N. H. Baynes
Copyright
Copyright © Arnaldo Momigliano 1947. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 The research was made possible by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Jowett Copyright Fund. Miss B. Smalley revised the text and Mrs. M. I. Henderson has discussed the conclusions with me.

2 Actius quoted from I dialoghi, ed. Previtera (Florence, 1943), 231; also in Artis Historicae Penus (Bâle, 1579), 587.

3 On Tacitus in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, cf. especially Vannucci, A., Della vita e delle opere di Tacito (Prato, 1848), 68 ff.Google Scholar (reprinted also in his Studi storici e morali intorno alia letteratura latina, 2 ed., Florence, 1862); G. Ferrari, Corso sugli scrittori politici italiani, Lezione XVIII: Seconda Scuoladei Solitari—I Tacitisti (1862: in the reprint, Milan, Monanni, 1929, 324); Tommasini, O., La vita e gli scritti di N. Machiavelli nella loro relazione col Machiavellismo I, 1883, 27Google Scholar; Ramorino, F., Cornelio Tacito nella storia delta cultura (Milan, 1898), 36Google Scholar; Toffanin, G., Machiavelli e il Tacitismo (Padua, 1921)Google Scholar; Croll, M. V., ‘Attic Prose in the Seventeenth Century,’ in Studies in Philology XVII, 1921, 79128Google Scholar; Id. ‘Lipsius, Montaigne, Bacon’ in Schelling Anniversary Papers (New York, 1923); Id. ‘The Baroque Style in Prose’, in Studies in English Philology in honor of F. Klaeber (Minneapolis, 1929); B. Croce, Storia dell' età barocca in Italia, 1929, 82; A. Cherel, La pensée de Machiavel en France, 1935, 99; A. Momigliano, Tacitus' political ideas, ch. III (forthcoming). Toffanin is of the greatest importance, and I am very much indebted to him. But he did not study the ‘Tacitist’ literature in chronological order and underestimated the non-Italian ‘Tacitists’. Croll is altogether admirable on questions of style—and sees the whole European background.

4 Scritti politici e ricordi, ed. Palmarocchi, R. (Bari, 1933)Google Scholar: Ricordi, 2a serie, n. 18. Cf. serie I, n. 78, 79, 101.

5 From the preface to his edition of Tacitus (available also in Gronovius, Taciti Opera, 1721). Compare A. Alciato's introduction to his edition of Tacitus (1 ed., 1517; 2 ed., 1519,—I quote from the ed. Bâle, 1544, by Beatus Rhenanus, Alciato, etc.): ‘sed et nobis prae Tacito sordescet Livius, cum ille clarorum virorum exemplo plurimis nos praeceptis instructos dimittit, quemadmodum in caput auctorum scelera vertantur, etc.: nisi magis mortalibus prodesse longas prodigiorum narrationes aliquis credat, procurataque a pontificibus portenta, tum fusius explicatos annuos magistratus, quorum nomenclatura vel diem dicendo eximere quis posset.’

6 ‘Hominem nefarium Taciturn’ … ‘vaecordium omnium scriptorum perditissimus’ (De asse et partibus eius, Bâle, 1557, liber IV, pp. 192 f.).

7 ‘Sed quemadmodum Marcellus J. C. meretricem turpiter facere respondit quod sit meretrix, non tamen turpiter accipere, cum sit meretrix; ita quoque impie fecit Tacitus, quod non fuerit Christianus, sed non impie adversus nos scripsit, cum gentili superstitione obligaretur’ (Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem, 1566, ch. IV, in Artis Historicae Penus, 1579, 62).

8 Against Bodin, De La Popelinière, L'histoire des histoires, 1599, 338. Cf. D. Saavedra Fajardo quoted in the next note; N. Stowikowski, Vindiciae pro Cornelio Tacito (Cracow, 1638); P. Gaudentius, De candore politico in Taciturn diatribae xix (Pisa, 1646); O. Ferrarius, Pro Cornelio Tacito apologetica (Padua, 1654).

9 Chr. Colerus, Epistula de studio politico ordinando (1601: in the Giessen ed., 1621, 29). Boccalini's Ragguagli di Parnaso are the most obvious reference. Cf. for instance, L. D'Orléans, Novae Cogitationes in libros Annalium C. C. Taciti (Paris, 1622), preface: ‘ibat ergo Tacitus aeternum tacendus … cum Lipsius vitae reddidit et ornamentis’; D. Saavedra Fajardo, Republica Literaria, obra posthuma (in the Madrid ed., 1735, 39). ‘Los demàs estuviesen sepultados por muchos años, sin que hiciesen ruido en el Mundo, hasta que un Flamenco [= Lipsius] le diò a conocer a las Naciones; que tambien ha menester valedores la virtud. Pero no sè si fuè en esto mas danoso al sosiego publico, que el otro inventor de la polvora. Tales son las dotrinas tiranas, i el veneno que se ha sacado desta fuente: por quien dijo Budeo, que era el mas facinoroso de los Escritores.’ This passage imitates Boccalini, Ragguagli di Parnaso 1, 86 (ed. Rua I, 314). More on Saavedra and Tacitus in my forthcoming book.

10 Preface to the 1 ed. of his Commentary (1581). Details in Bibliographie Lipsienne (Ghent, 1886)Google Scholar.

11 Orationes octo Jenae potissimum habitae e tenebris erutae (Darmstadt, 1607), oratio II, 28 ff.

12 Preface to his last edition (Antwerp, 1607).

13 The date is to be found in the 1607 ed.

14 In 1605 he was contemptuous of the many contemporary students of Tacitus: ‘ … et multos deinde, quasi muscas, ad odorem bonae famae convolasse et in eodem mustaceo, quod dicitur, lauream quaesivisse.’

15 It is enough to refer to Boccalini's, Ragguagli I, 86Google Scholar.

16 For instance, Paschalius reads with Lipsius in II, 55, ‘occultus rumor incedebat’; in III, 12, ‘non principis ulciscar’; in III, 51, ‘ante diem <decimum>.’ His text, however, is not identical with that of Lipsius. I hope to say more about it elsewhere.

17 Few letters by or to Lipsius of 1580–1 are preserved. Scaliger (on Lipsius and Scaliger, J. Bernays, Scaliger, 1855, 169), and P. Pithou were already his correspondents. J. Corbellini was acquainted both with C. Paschalius and Scaliger. The direct correspondence between Corbellini and Lipsius began, however, only in 1586 (Lipsius, Ep. Cent. 11, Misc., n. 5). More important the fact that Paschalius was corresponding with Christopher Plantinus, Lipsius' publisher, in 1581 in order to persuade him to settle in Piedmont (M. Rooses, Christophe Plantin, Anvers 1882, 318; cf. also R. P. Ignace Joseph de Jésus Maria, Histoire Ecclésiastique de la Ville d'Abbeville, Paris, 1646, 511).

18 See the epigram in the preface:

Dum vigilat Scotus longas ex ordine noctes

ut librum in lucem proferat ipse suum,

mortuus obdormit, qui plus vigilaverat aequo

dumque diem quaerit concidit ante diem, etc.

19 Mr. D. J. Allan of Balliol College, whose advice on this point I gratefully acknowledge, suggested that Scoto might have in mind Plato, Rep. IV, 425 B (cf. Arist., Eth. Nic. IX, 1165Google Scholar a 28). Another remote possibility is that he was thinking of Arist. Pol. VII, 1331 a 40. The interpretation given in the text is perhaps the simplest.

20 The Aphorismos sacados de la Historia de Publio Cornelio Tacito par el D. Benedicto Aries [sic] Montano (Barcelona, 1614), are not by Montano: they are nothing more than an anthology of the Tacito español by Alamos de Barrientos. This will be shown in a forthcoming paper of mine.

21 Sententiae ex Cornelio Tacito selectae (Venice, 1621), but his earlier work, L'Idea di Varie Lettere (Venice, 1612), contains also ‘Concetti scelti da Cornelio Tacito da servirsene nelle lettere di ragion di stato’.

22 See Luciani, V., F. Guicciardini and his European reputation (New York, 1936), 339Google Scholar.

23 See my Tacitus' political ideas, Appendix 11.

24 Salviati, L., Discorso sopra le prime parole di Cornelio Tacito Urbem Romam a principio reges habuere in Opere V, 1810, 331–46Google Scholar (first printed in Dati's translation of Tacitus, Venice, 1582).

25 I have not been able to see the 1600 edition, but the conformity of the 1608 ed. (C. C. Taciti and C. Velleii Paterculi scripta quae extant, Paris, Chevalier) with the commentary published in 1581, leaves no doubt on the nature of the Axiomata of 1600.

26 Cf. Niceron, R. P., Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire des hommes illustres dans la république des lettres XVII, 1732Google Scholar, s.v. Ch. Paschal; Nouvelle Biographie Générate, s.v.

27 Machiavelli e il Tacitismo quoted: bibliography. On p. 146 Toffanin speaks of ‘uno dei primi tacitisti italiani, Carlo Paschalis, che non per nulla scriveva a Parigi, dove il suo classicismo si trovava necessariamente a contatto col cristianesimo stoicizzante di Pierre Charron e risentiva gli influssi del mal debellato Calvinismo’. We shall see that there is more than a little truth in these incidental words. But Toffanin, by quoting Charron (Sagesse appeared in 1601), confirms that he did not see the chronological significance of Paschalius' pioneer work in 1581. Toffanin underrates also the leading part played by Lipsius.

28 In H. Grotii et aliorum dissertationes de studiis instituendis (Amsterdam, 1645).

29 A. Possevinus, Bibl. selecta quae agitur de ratione studiorum, 1593, pars. II, liber XVI, p. 235, quotes both Paschalius and Scoto. Colerus' Epistula quotes only Scoto: ‘in Taciturn eleganter et ingeniose Hetrusco sermone Scip. Ammiratus; et quem non aeque admirere Annibal Scotus.’

30 Fr. Balduinus, De institutione historiae universae et eius cum iurisprudentia coniunctione in Artis Historicae Penus, 1579, 676.

31 Methodus in Artis Historicae Penus, 62.

32 On Muretus, Ch. Dejob, Marc-Antoine Muret, 1881; Croll, M. V., ‘“Attic Prose” in the Seventeenth Century,’ in Studies in Philology XVIII, 1921, 79Google Scholar. His notes on Tacitus' Annals I–V were post-humously published in 1604.

33 The best writers on Lipsius are M. V. Croll, ‘Lipsius, Montaigne, Bacon’ in Schelling Anniversary Papers, 117–50, and Nordman, V. A., ‘Justus Lipsius als Geschichtsforscher und Geschichtslehrer’ in Annal. Acad. Scient. Fenn. XXVIII, 2, 1932Google Scholar. To be consulted also Ch. Nisard, Le triumvirat littéraire du XVIe siècle, 1852; P. Amiel, Un publiciste du XVIe siècle, 1884; Strowski, F., Pascal et son temps I, 1907, 18Google Scholar; Brocchieri, V. Beonio, ‘L'individuo, il diritto e lo stato nella filosofia politica di Giusto Lipsio’ in Saggi critici di storia delle dottrine politiche Bologna, 1931), 3194Google Scholar; Borkowski, S. von Dunin, S.J., , Spinoza IV, 1936, 264–6Google Scholar.

34 Cf. for instance, L. Zanta, La Renaissance du Stoicisme au XVIe siècle, 1914; P. Villey, Les sources et l'évolution des essais de Montaigne, 2 ed., 1933; R. Raduant, G. du Vair, l'homme et l'orateur, 1909; J. B. Sabrié, P. Charron. De l'humanisme au rationalisme, 1913; H. Busson, La pensée religieuse française de Charron à Pascal, 1933; Turóczi-Trostler, J., ‘Christlicher Seneca’ in Archiv. Philologicum of Budapest LXI, 1937, 2575Google Scholar made available to me by Professor A. Alföldi.

35 Politicorum libri sex. Introduction: ‘unius tamen Machiavelli ingenium non contemno, acre, subtile, igneum: et qui utinam Principem suum recta duxisset ad templum illud virtutis et honoris.’

36 M. V. Croll, o.c.; F. P. Wilson, Elizabethan and Jacobean, 1946, 35 ff.

37 Cf. Heyer, Th., Mém. Soc. d'Hist. et d'Arch. de Génève XV, 1865, 144Google Scholar; Jalla, G., Storia della riforma in Piemonte fino alia morte di Emanuele Filiberto (Florence, 1914), 338 and 381Google Scholar; Lombard, A., Jean Louis Paschal et les martyrs de Calabre (Geneva and Bâle, 1881), 53Google Scholar; B. Croce, Vite e avventure di fede e di passione, 1936, 242; A. Pascal, ‘La colonia messinese di Ginevra e il suo poeta Giulio Cesare Pascali’ in Bull. Soc. Storia Valdese, April, 1935. These writers help to revise on important points the account by R. P. Ignace Joseph de Jésus-Maria, Histoire ecclésiastique de la ville d'Abbeville, 1646, 511 ff., which is the source of Niceron, R. P., Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire des hommes illustres XVII, 1732Google Scholar, and, through Niceron, of later compilations.

38 A. Cabos, Guy du Faur de Pibrac, un magistrat poète au XVIe siècle (1529–1584), 1922. Notice that Pibrac had been a pupil of Alciato in Pavia. On Pibrac and Ronsard, P. Champion, Ronsard et son temps, 1925. Paschalius' life of Pibrac in Vitae xvii Eruditissimorum Hominum … olim collectae a Chr. Gryphio (Breslau, 1739).

39 Secunda Scaligerana (Amsterdam, 1740), 492 (in the Cologne ed., 1695, 301, there is some confusion with P. Paschal).

40 Cf. especially the two prayers: LII, Pro episcopo et pastore ecclesiae; LIII, Terminando civili bello gallico et impetrandae paci.

41 The unpublished MS of these dialogues is among the Cecil MSS at Hatfield. It will be discussed elsewhere.

42 This is said by high authority (Picot, E., ‘Les Italiens en France au XVIe siècle’ in Bull. Italien III, 1903, 130–1Google Scholar), and is made practically certain by the evidence quoted in the next note, but I have not seen the direct evidence.

43 The evidence collected by P. de Nolhac, and Solerti, A., Il viaggio in Italia di Enrico III re di Francia (Turin, 1890), 252Google Scholar. Cf. Caroli Paschali Cuneatis ad Henricum III Francorum regem oratio (Venice, 1574), reprinted in Composizioni volgari e latine fatte da diversi nella venuta in Venetia di Henrico III re di Francia et di Polonia (Venice, 1574).

44 A. Lombard, Jean Louis Paschal, pp. 100–101; Gautier, J.-A., Histoire de Genève, V, 1901, 332Google Scholar.

45 Niceron calls him ‘ambassadeur extraordinaire’. His ordinary source, Ignace Joseph de Jésus-Maria, speaks more generically of ‘seconde légation extraordinaire’. Mr. R. B. Wernham (Trinity College, Oxford), who generously consulted for me the proofs and manuscripts of the yet unpublished Foreign Calendar for 1589, did not find the name of Paschalius. He was certainly not one of the envoys who negotiated the two loans made by Elizabeth to Henry IV in 1589, but may have been in their suite.

46 Niceron quoted in n. 37.

47 Niceron and Jalla o.c. F. Agostini della Chiesa, Catalogo de' scrittori piemontesi, savoiardi e nizzardi (ed. of Carmagnola, 1660), gives the wrong date 1585.

48 Elogio della gran Caterina de' Medici, reina di Francia, madre del re, fatto in lingua italiana et latina per M. Matteo Zampini et tradotto in francese per M. Carlo Paschali et in spagnuolo per l' illustre signor Girolamo Gondi (Paris, 1586).

49 The ‘Elogium Eliae Vineti’ in Ausonii Burdigalensis Opera (Bordeaux, 1604), and other editions reprinting E. Vinet's commentary is by P. Pascal (or P. de Paschal, often confused with our C. Paschal. Cf. P. de Nolhac, Ronsard et l'Humanisme, 1921, 310. The mistake occurs already in Niceron, p. 242).

50 Secunda Scaligeriana, quoted p. 492: ‘Primus fui qui commendavi librum eius de Legato: est liber praestantissimus, omnia Hotomanus furatus est.’ G. Naudé, Bibliographia politica, ed. 1645 quoted, p. 54: ‘Carolum Paschasium [sic] politioris doctrinae luminibus illustrem, ordinis ac methodi perspicuitate clarum, soliditate iudicii maxime praestantem, ac talem in omnibus ut, eo veluti dictante, non Villerius Hottomannus modo, sed, quicumque post ipsum de Legatis scripsere, loquuti sint.’ On his discussion with J. Hotman, see provisionally Biographie Universelle, nouv. édition, s.d., vol. XXXII, 214, s.v. Charles Paschal.

51 L. Zanta, La Renaissance du Stoicisme au xvie siècle, 241 ff.

52 Cf. his comments on the ‘primum facinus novi principatus’: ‘Non satis est imperium adipisci; sed et aemulus, si quis est, si non continuo amovetur, maximum ab eo periculum est. … Quod siquis clamitat, indignum facinus esse innocentem nee opinantem opprimi, huic oppono verissimum illud Taciti dictum, Annal. lib. 14. Habet aliquid ex iniquo omne magnum exemplum, quod contra singulos utilitate publica rependitur’ (p. 8).

53 Cf. Tocco, V. di, Ideali d' indipendenza in Italia durante la preponderanza spagnuola (Messina, 1926)Google Scholar.

54 Historia delle guerre civili di Francia I (ed. London, 1775)Google Scholar, book VI, p. 410. J. Corbinelli went to Poland with Henry III and therefore knew Paschalius very well. He translated Pibrac into Italian for Catherine de' Medici (probably his unsavoury apology for Saint-Bartholomew). Cf. de Marchi, R. Calderini, J. Corbinelli et les érudits français (Milan, 1914), 57Google Scholar, n. 2, 59; also P. Rajna, ‘J.C. e la Strage di S. Bartolomeo’ in Arch. Storico Ital. XXI, 1898, 54. B. Del Bene dedicated a poem to Pibrac. See Couderc, C., ‘Les poésies d'un florentin à la cour de France au XVIe siècle’ in Giorn. Stor. Lett. Ital. XVII, 1891, 26Google Scholar. He had also close connections with the Piedmontese court. For these Italians, see also de Nolhac, P. and Solerti, A., Giorn. Stor. Lett. Ital. XVII, 1891, 446Google Scholar; L. Clément, Henri Estienne et son oeuvre francais, 1899; Soldati, P., Giorn. Stor. Lett. Ital. cx, 1937, 120Google Scholar.

55 Essais, Livre III, ch. VIII, ‘De l'art de conferer.’

56 Scipioni Ammirati celeberrimi inter neoxtericos scriptoris dissertationes politicae sive discursus in C. Cornelium Tacitum (Frankfort, 1609).

57 Chabod, F., Giovanni Botero (Rome, 1934), P. 33Google Scholar, n. 5.

58 Cf. Paolo Treves, ‘Il gesuitismo politico di G. Botero’ in Civiltà Moderna, 1931, 543.