A Talk by Dr. Unn Falkeid, University of Oslo
Rome, Penecost, Sunday, 1347. Hundreds of armed men, joined by the Roman papal vicar, marched through the city and ascended the Senator's Palace at the Capitoline Hill, encouraged by the chants and praises of the people lining the streets. From the top of the hill Cola di Rienzo--Roman plebian, son of a tavern keeper and cleaning woman--delivered the speech "On the misery and the servitude of the people of Rome," outlining the sins of the Pope and Roman baronial families against the city of Rome, and declaring himself Tribune of Rome, restorer of the Roman Republic. With Roman liberty and Italian unification on the horizon, poet laureate Francesco Petrarca writes a letter to Cola and the Roman people in support of the "young Brutus" and in defiance of his Roman patrons the Colonna and Orsini, as well as the Pope, hoping to position himself as an adviser to the restored Republic.
This talk will examine how Petrarch interweaves references to Cicero's Pro archia and Dante's Monarchia into his letter to Cola (Variae 48), and how he attempts to guide the young Tribune and prevent him from falling into tyranny, as so many before him.
Sponsored by the University of Arizona Department of French & Italian, Department of English, Department of Classics, Religious Studies Program, Group for Early Modern Studies (GEMS), Confluence Center for Creative Inquiry, Ikon Grant (SFI Grant, Office of Student Affairs), School of International Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (SILLC), and the College of Humanities.