Models of Vulgarizer

Facing the question of democratization of knowledge in Renaissance Italy is such a vast task, and one that comprises so many disciplines, that achieving solid conclusion would seem an elusive prospect. For this reason – as I have outlined in the Introduction – I focus in this essay on the democratization of knowledge in connection with Aristotelian philosophy. In particular, I will consider democratization in the light of the concomitant phenomenon of vulgarizations, which – even though they do not necessarily entail forms of popularization – are nonetheless concerned with the process of extending knowledge to a large number of people of different cultural extractions. In order to understand the nature of these vulgarizations and to what extent they contributed to the democratization of knowledge in this special period of Italian history, I will start by examining the figures of the democratizers and vulgarizers of knowledge themselves. I will focus on those who conceived a project of vulgarization of a certain magnitude because I believe that the biographical context within which these enterprises of democratization of knowledge were undertaken may offer a contribution to understanding the entire phenomenon. From the detail of their lives I will emphasize those common patterns which allow us to assess the intellectual framework within which the idea of democratization of knowledge emerged.

In the “Vernacular Aristotelianism in Renaissance Italy, c. 1400–1650 Database” there are currently listed more than 120 vulgarizers: 3 in the thirteenth century, 2 in the fourteenth century, 5 in the fifteenth century, and all the remaining in the sixteenth century.

I am seriously embarrassed in concluding this essay without a real conclusion. It is an open epilogue. My research leaves unresolved too many questions and too many problems for a single scholar to answer. In the previous chapters I have shown the possibilities and the limits of the democratization of knowledge. What I would like to point out at the end of this investigation are some consequences of this process, recapitulating what has been outlined above.

From the very beginning I have stressed the pivotal role of Erasmus. Starting from Erasmus is not a historiographical arbitrary choice. As we have seen, his work and spirit galvanise the thought of the vulgarizers and democratizers in a period in which to be associated with or related to Erasmus was extremely dangerous. Pier Paolo Vergerio recognizes the influence Erasmus had on generations of scholars:

To understand Erasmus’s contribution is essential for understanding how the process of the democratization of knowledge was sparked in sixteenth-century Italy. I do not want in any way to suggest that Erasmus was the initiator of this project, or to trace a direct genealogical line that sees in Erasmian thought the essential precondition without which some processes would not have happened. His thought, rather, represented a platform upon which intellectuals carried on the idea of the democratization of knowledge.

The sources are divided here according to discipline and each group brings together authors from different periods using different linguistic registers. In italics I emphasize in bold the intended recipients of these works.

… having laboured … to reduce to the form of paraphrase all eight books of the Politics … adding a particular commentary to each book, as well as various annotations and pertinent questions to help in the overall understanding of the text, which it has been greatly pleasing to bring to this point, as it has allowed me to see clearly how great a benefit the civil discourses written by Aristotle are to men, who are manual operators of government, for setting them up, ordering them, and maintaining them.

Since no small benefit is derived by men from the knowledge of government and the running of cities, in these past days from Greek sources I have drawn Italic streams, the eight books of the Republic, which they call Politics.

But since the doctrine of Aristotle is wrapped in considerations of such depth that a great deal of study and attentive research is required of any who wish to master it, it has been my intention to ease the way of this science, reducing it so to speak to the substance, and explaining it clearly and succinctly, so that thus exposed to greater ease of understanding it shall reveal of its own the errors that have entered into the art of politics from the world … having left aside the digressions, the responses and the lengthy disputations … I have captured the sentiment of Aristotle … so that, if I am not mistaken, in brevity no greater clarity could be wished for, nor could such breadth of material be reduced to greater brevity. And in so doing I believe I have made a useful and worthy contribution to Princes & men of republic & court, for whom it shall serve as a reminder of civil discipline, seeing as they are distracted by their work and responsibilities and cannot normally attend to such studies ….

Casting Pearls

The process of democratization of knowledge in Renaissance Italy can be helpfully illuminated by reflecting on two important passages in the New Testament that had legitimatized until then a substantially aristocratic approach to knowledge. The first passage is the Gospel according to Matthew 7:6, in which Christ peremptorily asserts

After the Sermon on the Mount, Christ summons his disciples, telling them not to waste things of value, especially holy things like the evangelical word by giving it to those unable to appreciate its message and who will only make dirty them. The idea suggests that knowledge should be kept as the prerogative of a limited group of people able to value the Bible’s message and understand its depth and mysteries. Not all knowledge should be shared. The second passage is Epistle to the Romans 11:20, in which according to the Vulgate St Paul wrote

This Pauline sentence too would have led the ecclesiastical authorities to inhibit and quench the thirst for wisdom, and also the process of the democratization of knowledge, by binding the most important questions of life to matters of faith and religion. In general, these two evangelical messages have been consistently taken in the history of elite as an imperative not to disseminate or dissipate wisdom, as a sign that knowledge should be sealed off, allowed to circulate only within a narrow circle of intellectuals, or else the dignity of their ideas and doctrines will be lost and dispersed.

In a seminal contribution to the definition of the “history of knowledge,” the illustrious English historian Peter Burke writes that the second half the twentieth century was “the great age of the democratization of knowledges, thanks in part to radio lectures, televised science, open universities and online encyclopaedias.” Nothing on a similar level occurred, obviously, in the Renaissance. Nothing of the same magnitude or significance. However, something certainly occurred in the Renaissance, something that seems to point to a process of democratization of knowledge. New instruments and means of gathering, producing and disseminating knowledge – the printing press is but one example – emerged. New languages – vernacular ones – established themselves as languages of knowledge. New approaches to spirituality and religion were born with the Reformation and the spread of heterodox groups in Europe. Not irrelevant issues at the time, but central topics that historians have characterized – albeit in their very different interpretations – as foundational elements of the Renaissance. Yet, it is still legitimate to ask to what extent we are facing here a genuine process of democratization of knowledge.

Many are the critical voices that have been raised against a too simplistic and indiscriminate acceptance of the idea of democratization of knowledge. In relation to idioms, for instance, as Burke himself asserts, “to write in a vernacular language was to widen access to many knowledges in one way, by making them available to social groups that had not learned Latin … however, writing in a vernacular narrowed access in another way, access for foreigners.” This is for instance the famous case of Galileo Galilei and his two major masterpieces mainly written in the vernacular, namely the Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo and the Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze, and only later translated in Latin.

Erasmian Echoes

In sixteenth-century Italy, especially in the thirties and forties, many intellectuals were influenced by the Erasmian exhortation to vulgarize and popularize knowledge. Among these, a special place should be reserved for Antonio Brucioli, who in his vulgarization of the Bible and in his commentaries used and drew great inspiration from Erasmus’s writings and paraphrases.

In his vulgarizations, Brucioli’s intentions was to make the truth available to all people, echoing Erasmus’s work. His 1538 dedicatory letter to King Francis I of France in his translation of the New Testament is clear on this:

Brucioli’s words are an indirect response to Alberto Pio: vulgarizations are not only important, but also a moral and religious duty, because otherwise there would be no way of explaining why Christ “sent the Holy Spirit to make illiterate men speak and be understood in all languages.”

Intended public

Democratization is a process. Not all the intentions to democratize were successful. Intellectuals were well aware of the difficulties they faced in bringing knowledge to a wider public. In his Poetica d’Aristotile vulgarizzata et sposta – rightly selected by Luca Bianchi as an example of an erudite vernacular text requiring knowledge of Classical languages and literature – Lodovico Castelvetro shows himself to be conscious of having vulgarized “perhaps with greater ardour of spirit than felicity of result.” In a rare moment of modesty, Castelvetro acknowledges that despite being moved by genuine desire to clarify and share as far as possible the content of Aristotle’s poetics, the outcome is not what he had hoped for.

Another notable case is Alessandro Piccolomini’s In mechanicas quaestiones Aristotelis paraphrasis paulo quidem plenior (1547), vulgarized in 1582 by Oreste Vannocci Biringucci under the title Parafrasi di Monsignor Alessandro Piccolomini … sopra le Mechaniche d’Aristotele. Biringucci maintained that in order to “satisfy his just and ardent desire to benefit all, without prejudice of any kind, easily and happily, he [Piccolomini] set about adorning our language with every kind of science,” and above all “regretted having written in Latin, alongside certain other fine works, during his best years, and among his studies is also this paraphrase of the Mechaniche d’Aristotele, because he saw that since it was in Latin it was not accessible to those who could have made the best use of it,” that is “engineers and architects.”

The research is based on the project Le biblioteche degli ordini regolari in Italia alla fine del secolo XVI – http://rici.vatlib.it. I have corrected the titles where possible, but otherwise maintained the original spelling.

Alessandro Piccolomini

Language of Knowledge

To achieve the ambitious intentions and to realize the grand project of the democratization of knowledge, intellectuals were in need of a language capable of expressing even the most complex philosophical and scientific content, and also textual techniques that made it digestible for popular audience. Language and techniques are the democratizers’ tools of the trade. I have already pointed out that the democratization process was strictly related to language, and in particular to the diffusion of the vernacular. For more than a thousand years in Europe the main language for philosophy and science had been Latin. Latin in its various forms – albeit with regional and historical differences that cannot be smoothed away – constituted a relatively homogeneous background for European culture at least until the end of the nineteenth century. Around the twelfth century, vernacular languages appeared on the literary scene alongside Latin, yet – except in a few sporadic cases – the vernacular language was neither judged suitable for, nor commonly implemented in philosophy and sciences.

If the democratization of knowledge implies the adoption of the vernacular language – and I believe it so – it is important to understand how and why the vernacular became a “language of knowledge” in the period under consideration. By “language of knowledge,” I mean a language that is used to transmit different kinds of knowledge-seeking activities – such as philosophy or the sciences, or even sacred knowledge – and that is not restricted to any specific literary genre or area of interest.