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Historical Truth in Fifteenth-Century Italy: Verisimilitude and Factuality in the Humanist Debate , by Giuliano Mori

Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: In this book, Giuliano Mori argues that Quattrocento historiography featured two distinct traditions, namely what he calls the ‘Brunian tradition’, which centred around the notion of verisimilitude or credibility, and the ‘antiquarian tradition’, which aimed at factual truth. The former tradition includes Leonardo Bruni, Bartolomeo Facio, Lapo da Castiglionchio, Pontano, George of Trebizond, Poggio Bracciolini, Benedetto Accolti and a great number of other humanists. To the latter tradition belong Lorenzo Valla, Flavio Biondo, Pomponio Leto, Maffeo Vegio and authors writing in an annalistic style. According to Mori, these approaches stood in sharp contrast to each other. The former approach is greatly indebted to Cicero. For these authors, history must be told in a convincing and persuasive way: it should be impartial, useful, brief and devoid of digressions, and most of all it should be credible or plausible, which demands that style and presentation should fit the subject and the overall meaning the historian wants to emphasise. In practice, this meant that civic and political interests to a large extent determined how the story was told, what was being omitted, what was being added (which could include things that might have not been factually true but which made the story more credible). The antiquarian approach, on the other hand, stressed the importance of telling the historical truth, rejecting credibility and the ideal of brevity.
DOI: 10.1093/ehr/ceaf200
Author: Lodi Nauta
Language: English
Subfield: History
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4416975819
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