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Rhetoric and Humanism in Quattrocento Venice

2003; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 56; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1261610

1935-0236

Virginia Cox,

Historical Influence and Diplomacy

Abstract This essay examines the development of humanistic rhetoric in fifteenth-century Venice, taking as its starting point a remark of Ermolao Barbaro's on the inadequacy of academic rhetorical instruction as a preparation for the practical oratorical skills necessary to Venetian civic life. It is argued that the context of Barbaro's remark is a series of humanistic polemics on rhetoric that took place in Venice and Padua in the latter decades of the Quattrocento, culminating in the famous debate of the 1490s on the authenticity of the Rhetorica ad Herennium . As the essay shows, a consideration of these debates reveals the way in which local, contextual factors inflected the development of humanistic rhetorical culture in Italy, the key factor here being the continuing importance in republican Venice of a live tradition of deliberative debate.