Flavio Biondo was born in the city of Forlì in Romagna in 1392. He spent his youth in Cremona, where he was educated, as was the custom, in grammar, poetry and rhetoric. After concluding his education, Biondo worked in multiple civic administrative posts around Northern Italy. These included the cities like Vicenza, Bergamo and Brescia. During this period Biondo befriended with a Venetian diplomat and humanist, named Francesco Barbaro (1390-1454). He later helped Biondo to gain the citizenship of Venice. In 1420, when Biondo was 28 years old, he met a distinguished humanist Guarino Veronese (1374-1460). Guarino would be later known especially for his work in translating Greek manuscripts into Latin and teaching the Greek language. This in mind, it surely feels odd, that though Biondo had a friend like Guarino, he never mastered the Greek language. Regardless, he and Guarino became lifelong friends.
Majority of scholars may classify Flavio Biondo mainly as an employee of the papacy and the church. This is not farfetched due to the fact that he worked almost continuously for 29 years for the successors of Peter. In this sense, the career of Biondo truly started in 1433 when he became a notary in the papal curia under the pope Eugene IV (pope 1431-1447).
However, it would be misleading to claim Biondo to be only a papal scribe. As mentioned above, Biondo had experience with civic administration and diplomatic assignments between different cities. This did not end in the curia, for Biondo was entrusted with several diplomatic missions as a representative of the papal curia. He kept good relations with Northern Italian cities and negotiated a successful peace between the Papal State and the duke of Milan, Francesco Sforza (1401-1466). The diplomatic relationships of Biondo reached all the way to the king of England, with whom the pope wanted to keep good relations.
Biondo was very loyal towards the Venetian pope Eugene IV, and when in 1434 the pope had to go into exile due to angry Romans, Biondo followed him without question. Eugene rewarded Biondo's loyalty by appointing him as a papal secretary in 1434 and as a writer of the apostolic letters in 1436. So, the papal court was moved to Florence for some time. There Biondo had the luxury of meeting some of the most distinguished humanists of the time, for example Leonardo Bruni, Poggio Bracciolini, Leon Battista Alberti and Ambrogio Traversari. Bruni (c. 1370-1444) is especially known for his work The History of Florentine People and translating many ancient Greek works into Latin. He is also regarded as one of the creators of the historical periodization into Antiquity, Middle Ages and New Age. Biondo uses and cultivated this periodization further in his works. Thus, during that time, Biondo connected strongly as a part of the Florentine humanist network, which aided him greatly later.
One of the high points of Biondo's career can be said to have been July 6th, 1439, when the leaders of both western and eastern churches signed the Bull of Unity (Laetentur Caeli), which at least temporarily settled the differences between the churches. The Bull was the highlight of the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1431-1449), on which Biondo was a key organizer. The Bull was signed by the pope with other leaders of the western church, and by the Patriarch of Constantinople. In addition, among them was also the emperor of Byzantium, John VIII Palaiologos (as emperor 1425-1448). In between these two sides Biondo, as the only lay member, wrote his own signature. This contract can be still witnessed here.
After returning Rome with the pope in 1443, Biondo got to work in the curia for a few years until after the death of Eugene IV, the new pope Nicholas V (as pope 1447-1455) fired Biondo from his duties as a secretary. The reason for this discharge has remained unknown, but already in 1453 Biondo was called back into papal service. He worked under several popes until his death on July 4th 1463. Biondo is buried on the Capitoline hill in Rome in front of the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli.
Works
Flavio Biondo is best known for his antiquarian and historiographical texts. These include Roma instaurata (1446), Italia illustrata (1453), Roma Triumphans (1459) and Historiarum ab inclinatione Romanorum imperii decades (1453). In addition, he wrote about Latin philology in his first work De verbis Romanae locutionis (1435) and promoted a new crusade against the Turks in his smaller treaties Oratio coram serenissimo imperatore Frederico et Alphonso Aragonum rege (1452), Ad Alphonsum Aragonensem de expeditione in Turchos (1453) and Ad Petrum de Campo Fregoso illustrem Genuae ducem (1453).
Roma instaurata is a topographical survey of Rome's ancient landmarks, including temples, walls and baths. Italia illustrata is very similar in theme, though focusing on the whole Italian peninsula and also describing its geography. Roma triumphans takes a little different route, and systematically goes through the various aspects of the public and private life of ancient Rome.
However, the most ambitious and largest work of Biondo was Historiarum ab inclinatione Romanorum imperii decades, in short Decades, which for the first time tried to tell an universal history of Europe from the Sack of Rome in 410 to Biondo's own time in the 1440s. This was one of the first histories of the period we now understand as the Middle Ages. Although Biondo never used the term 'Middle Ages', he laid the foundation to the historiography of the Decline and Fall of Rome, on which Edward Gibbon created his own work The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 300 years later.
Flavio Biondo was a very significant character in the fifteenth-century Italy and his works inspired many scholars in the following centuries. Modern scholars have also noticed Biondo's worth in the recent decade and I also aim at increasing the knowledge of this important humanist. You can follow the most recent research on Flavio Biondo here.
Used bibliography
Fubini, Riccardo, ‘Biondo, Flavio’. Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, eds. G. Pignatelli et al., 10. Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1968, 536-559.
Hay, Denys. 1988. ‘Flavio Biondo and the Middle Ages’. Renaissance Essays, 35–66. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Mazzocco, Angelo & Laureys, Marc. eds. 2016. A New Sense of the Past: The Scholarship of Biondo Flavio (1392-1463). Supplementa Humanistica Lovaniensia 39. Leuven: Leuven University Press.
Nogara, Bartolomeo. 1927. Scritti inediti e rari di Biondi Flavio. Studi e testi 48. Tipografia poliglotta Vaticana.
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