Bartolomeo Platina: Lives of the Popes, Paul II: An Intermediate Reader: Latin Text with Running Vocabulary and Commentary

by Platina, Thomas G Hendrickson

Pope Paul II arrested a prominent group of humanists on charges of conspiracy and heresy. They were imprisoned in Castel Sant'Angelo and tortured before ultimately being released. One of those humanists, Bartolomeo Platina, later wrote a Lives of the Popes that became the definitive history of the papacy for hundreds of years. The work included a Life of Paul II, which Platina used as an opportunity to defend himself and humanism— and to attack Paul II. It is a remarkable work of literature, in which the main conflict in the story plays out between the protagonist and the author himself. For Latinists interested in exploring Renaissance literature, there are few better introductory texts than Platina's Life of Paul II. The narrative is animated by the controversies stemming from the rediscovery of Classical literature, including issues such as republicanism, homoeroticism, and debates about the immortality of the soul. Platina's Paul II also introduces readers to key Renaissance institutions like the Papal Curia and the Roman Academy.This edition aims to enable intermediate-level students of Latin to read the text in its original language. There is a substantial introduction that provides background on fifteenth-century Rome and on Latin in the Renaissance, as well as new research on the constitution of the text. The Latin text includes a running glossary and grammatical commentary on every page.

179 pages, Paperback

Published November 30, 2017

About the author

Bartolomeo Platina, originally named Sacchi (1421 – 1481) was an Italian Renaissance writer.
He first enlisted as a soldier, and was then appointed tutor to the sons of the Marquis Ludovico II Gonzaga. In 1457, he went to Florence, and studied under the Greek scholar Argyropulos. In 1462 he proceeded to Rome, probably in the suite of Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga. After Pius II had reorganized the College of Abbreviators (1463), and increased the number to seventy, Platina, in May 1464, was elected a member.
Probably in the summer of 1465 Platina composed De honesta voluptate et valetudine ("On honourable pleasure and health"). This first printed cookbook, a monument of medieval cuisine in Renaissance intellectual trappings, left the press in 1474 and ran into dozens of editions, disseminating Roman ideas about fine dining throughout Western Europe. In a high moralizing display of humanist learning Platina embedded recipes cribbed from a professional chef, Maestro Martino de' Rossi of Como, whom he had encountered in the summer of 1463 at Albano, where Platina was the guest of Martino's employer, a cardinal.

Reviews

[Daniel C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book mainly because I was in a pinch for something to read in Latin and the pdf is available on the publishers site so I was able to start reading it on my phone before the book actually arrived. The vocabulary and notes leave nothing to be desired save some general ecclesiastical info about different offices or heresies. However, that’s probably more on me since I don’t really know anything on papal history.