BRUNI, LEONARDO. — Historian and humanist, born at Arezzo around 1374 (and therefore also called Leonardo Aretino); he studied under Malpaghini and Crisoloro, while also attending the circle of Coluccio Salutati and the periodic meetings and conversations held by the humanists of S. Spirito in the Augustinian convent at Florence. From 1405 to 1415, owing to his reputation as a Latinist, he obtained a position as secretary in the papal Curia;
he was consequently present at the Council of Constance and recounted in an Epistola to Niccolò Niccoli the events of his journey from Verona to the city of the Council. Elected chancellor of the Signoria of Florence in 1417, he held the office until his death, which occurred on 8 March 1444. His body was crowned with laurel in the presence of the Florentine people, and the eulogy was delivered by Giannozzo Manetti. Buried in S. Croce, he was honored with a majestic monument, a valuable work of art by B. Rossellino; the inscription was composed by Carlo Marsuppini: « Postquam Leonardus e vita migravit, Historia Iuget, Eloquentia muta est; ferturque Musas tum Graecas tum Latinas lacrimas tenere non potuisse ».
The work of his entire life was the Historiarum fiorentini populi libri (edited by E. Santini, in Rerum italicarum scriptores, XIX, III, Città di Castello 1914-26), published at Strasbourg in 1610 and subsequently translated into the vernacular by Donato Acciaiuoli. The narrative begins with the Roman origins of Florence and reaches the death of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, which occurred in 1402. In the Storie fiorentine, Machiavelli reproached B. for having been « timidly silent » concerning the factions that most agitated Florentine life; but, beyond history, B. was interested in the absolute elegance of Latin. In his desire to model his characters on the examples of Livy and Sallust, the Florentines were skillfully presented as people of the good ancient age, with all the solemnity of classical attire. But B. regarded only those who had succeeded in becoming authors, or at least translators or disseminators, of the eloquence or learning proper to the Greco-Roman world as « living beings » (cf. De Avaritia). He therefore did not wish to learn Hebrew, assuring Poggio Bracciolini that such study was « useless, indeed harmful ». Noteworthy are his translations of Aristotle’s Etica and Politica and of some dialogues by Plato, as well as, even more so than his historical work, De bello italico adversus Gothos. Of greater interest for knowledge of the man and his age is the Rerum suo tempore gestarum commentarius (edited by C. Di Pierro, in Rerum italicarum scriptores, XIX, III, 1926). Among his other writings, mention should be made of the essay on the value of women in society, De studiis et literis tractatulus, and the lives of Petrarch and Dante; especially that of Alighieri is « the work of a wise and serious historian who weighs the facts before accepting them, makes extensive use of written evidence, and bases his assertions upon it » (G. L. Passerini).