Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (; 11 February 1380 – 30 October 1459), usually referred to simply as Poggio Bracciolini, was an Italian scholar and an early Renaissance humanist. He was responsible for rediscovering and recovering many classical Latin manuscripts, mostly decaying and forgotten in German, Swiss, and French monastic libraries. His most celebrated finds are De rerum natura, the only surviving work by Lucretius, De architectura by Vitruvius, lost orations by Cicero such as Pro Sexto Roscio, Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria, Statius' Silvae, and Silius Italicus's Punica, as well as works by several minor authors such as Frontinus' De aquaeductu, Ammianus Marcellinus' Res Gestae (Rerum gestarum Libri XXXI), Nonius Marcellus, Probus, Flavius Caper, and Eutyches.
Birth and education
Poggio di Guccio (the surname Bracciolini added during his career) was born near Arezzo in Tuscany, in the village of Terranuova, which in 1862 was renamed Terranuova Bracciolini in his honor.
Taken by his father to Florence to pursue the studies for which he appeared so apt, he studied Latin under the amanuensis Giovanni Malpaghino of Ravenna, the friend and protégé of Petrarch. His distinguished abilities and his dexterity as a copyist of manuscripts brought him into early notice of the chief scholars of Florence; both Coluccio Salutati and Niccolò de' Niccoli befriended him. He studied notarial law, and, at the age of twenty-one he was received into the Florentine notaries' guild, the Arte dei giudici e notai.
Career and later life
In October 1403, on high recommendations from Salutati and Leonardo Bruni ("Leonardo Aretino"), he entered the service of Cardinal Landolfo Maramaldo, Bishop of Bari, as his secretary, and a few months later he was invited to join the Chancery of Apostolic Briefs in the Roman Curia of Pope Boniface IX, thus embarking on 11 turbulent years during which he served under four successive popes (1404–1415), first as scriptor (writer of official documents), soon moving up to abbreviator, then scriptor penitentiarius, and scriptor apostolicus. Under Martin V he reached the top rank of his office, as Apostolicus Secretarius, papal secretary. As such he functioned as a personal attendant (amanuensis) of the Pope, writing letters at his behest and taking dictation, with no formal registration of the briefs, but merely preserving copies. He was esteemed for his excellent Latin, his extraordinarily beautiful book hand, and as occasional liaison with Florence, which involved him in legal and diplomatic work.
Throughout his long career of 50 years, Poggio served a total of seven popes: Boniface IX (1389–1404), Innocent VII (1404–1406), Gregory XII (1406–1415), Antipope John XXIII (1410–1415), Martin V (1417–1431), Eugenius IV (1431–1447), and Nicholas V (1447−1455). While he held his office in the Curia through that momentous period, which saw the Councils of Constance (1414–1418), in the train of Pope John XXIII, and of Basel (1431–1449), and the final restoration of the papacy under Nicholas V (1447), he was never attracted to the ecclesiastical life (and the lure of its potential riches). In spite of his meager salary in the Curia, he remained a layman to the end of his life.
The greater part of Poggio's long life was spent in attendance to his duties in the Roman Curia at Rome and the other cities the pope was constrained to move his court. Although he spent most of his adult life in his papal service, he considered himself a Florentine working for the papacy. He actively kept his links to Florence and remained in constant communication with his learned and influential Florentine friends: Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406), Niccolò de' Niccoli (1364–1437), Lorenzo de' Medici the elder (1395–1440), Leonardo Bruni (Chancellor, 1369–1444), Carlo Marsuppini ("Carlo Aretino", Chancellor, 1399–1453), and Cosimo de' Medici (1389–1464).
In England
After Martin V was elected as the new pope in November 1417, Poggio, although not holding any office, accompanied his court to Mantua in late 1418, but, once there, decided to accept the invitation of Henry, Cardinal Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, to go to England. His five years spent in England, until returning to Rome in 1423, were the least productive and satisfactory of his life.
In Florence
Poggio resided in Florence during 1434−36 with Eugene IV. On the proceeds of a sale of a manuscript of Livy in 1434, he built himself a villa in the Valdarno, which he adorned with a collection of antique sculpture (notably a series of busts meant to represent thinkers and writers of antiquity), coins and inscriptions, works that were familiar to his friend Donatello.