BRACCIOLINI, POGGIO (POGGIO FIORENTINO). — Born at Terranova Valdarno, near Arezzo, around 1380. Since he was not wealthy in family possessions, his early studies were difficult. At Florence, in the school of Giovanni da Ravenna, he was soon known for liveliness of intellect and aptitude for letters; and Coluccio Salutati and the friendship of the most distinguished humanists greatly helped him to make his abilities recognized. When he arrived in Rome in 1403, his literary reputation was already established; the following year Bonifacio IX appointed him secretary, and he thereafter held this office almost continuously for about half a century, even amid the troubled circumstances of the Roman pontificate during those years.
B. may be regarded as having been privileged: his journeys from one council to another enabled him to undertake fruitful searches for manuscripts in the monasteries of half of Europe. Particularly important, among other things, was his discovery of the Lucretian poem.
After an unfruitful stay in England, B. returned to Rome and to his office; in his final years he left the Curia to become chancellor and historian of the Republic at Florence, as well as prior. He was thus able to await death peacefully (1459) at his villa in Valdarno, while attending to his final literary work, the Historia fiorentina, later rendered into the vernacular by his son Iacopo.
His works, numerous and interesting, generally lack depth, but certainly not liveliness. The correspondence, one of the finest of the period, contains various travel descriptions and notes on the customs and practices of foreign peoples; one of his letters to Bruni concerning the torment and death of the Hussite heretic Girolamo da Praga acquired particular fame. His dialogues (De avaritia [1429]; De nobilitate [1440]; De infelicitate principum [1440]; De varietate Fortunae [1448]; Contra hypocritas [1449]; Historia convivialis [1450]; De miseria humanae conditionis [1455]) are rather slow in development and poor in philosophical content, but skillfully woven with pleasing anecdotes and acute observations, and imbued with sincere aversion to impostors, idlers, and vicious people. The Facetiae, a collection of anecdotes imagined as having been told in the papal antechamber (the bugiale, as he calls it) by members of the household to pass the time, enjoyed particular circulation; unfortunately, coarse and licentious speech is not lacking in them, just as it is not lacking in some of his other works. The Historia florentina, written as a continuation of Bruni’s history, remains far removed from the Livian model in refinement of style and breadth of investigation.
B.’s invectives against Valla, Filelfo, and the antipope Felice were famous, and often scurrilous: such was the custom of the age. Mediocre were his translations of Xenophon, Lucian, and Diodorus.
Works by B.: Poggi Opera (Strasbourg 1513); Poggi Opera (Basel 1538); Poggi Epistolae, edited by T. Tonelli, 3 vols. (Florence 1832–61). V. also some unpublished letters published by Walser in the work cited.