On Leaders and Tyrants Hardcover by Poggio Bracciolini

Product Details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press (2024-09-17)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 624 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780674297128
• Item Weight: 567.0 grams
• Dimensions: 0.0 x 0.0 x 0.0 cm

The first complete English translation of a controversial Renaissance debate centering moral questions on power and leadership.

Poggio Bracciolini was a prominent scholar-official of the early Renaissance and a leading representative of Florentine humanism. He was employed as a secretary to seven popes and ended his career as Chancellor of the Republic of Florence. On Leaders and Tyrants contains texts, the majority by Poggio, relating to a controversy on the relative merits of the lives and deeds of Scipio Africanus and Julius Caesar. The debate addressed the nature of tyranny and military glory, as well as the qualities necessary for republican leaders, such as Stoic virtue, lawfulness, and good citizenship. Poggio’s primary opponent was the educator Guarino of Verona, a humanist in the service of the duke of Ferrara. The psychology of power, the demands placed on public servants, and the dividing line between leadership and tyranny are as topical today as they were when Poggio wrote. This volume contains a fresh edition of the Latin texts and the first complete translation of the controversy into English.

About the Author

Hester Schadee is Senior Lecturer in European History at the University of Exeter.

Keith Sidwell is Emeritus Professor of Classics at University College Cork, Ireland, and Adjunct Professor of Classics at the University of Calgary.

David Rundle is Senior Lecturer in Latin and Paleography at the University of Kent.