Abstract The German epic, "Niebelungenlied," and Bruni's "History of the Florentine People" are, respectively, an unselfconsciously fictional work and a self-consciously nonfictional work of historical literature. Both tell tales of nation-founding in completely different genres. This paper shows, however, that fiction and nonfiction were not always the rigorously divided categories they are in media constructions today. This flexibility between fiction and nonfiction, history and myth, was true when Bruni authored his early Renaissance chronicle of the city and people of Florence, and the "Niebelungenlied" was constructed at a date historians of the Austrian and Germanic provinces tenuously date to the 12th century. The paper shows that both works have clear ideological agendas, despite their different factual genres.
From the Paper "Bruni thus begins with his Florentine city's founding, tracing it to Roman authority and rule, evolving chronologically and linearly from past to present, unlike the sprawling myths of the Teutonic poem. However, in Bruni's tracing of the Roman Empire's fall, an ideological agenda through the cool, factual recounting of verifiable events becomes clear. Unlike the old Rome, the Roman Empire was not a republic. Like the feudal era of the past, Bruni begins to cast the ideal state as human triumph of freedom over tyranny, republicanism over despotism and immortality-a tale to be applied to the present state of the city of Florence, he suggests, by implication and objective authority-an objective authority and verifiable sense of truth he creates for himself as an author."
Abstract This paper explains that Battista Sforza, Duchess of Urbino, was very much a woman of her time; she encapsulated all the ideals of the Renaissance. The author stresses that, although women were restricted from activities outside of traditional women's activities, she eagerly devoured all that learning had to offer, patronized great artists, and corresponded with brilliant men like Leonardo Bruni. The paper relates that, most significantly, she taught other women that, not only could they run their own lives and make their own decisions, they could contribute to the world around them and on their own terms.
From the Paper "In other words, the arts of rhetoric and reasoned debate are a waste of time for women, simply because women have no place in the "forum" i.e. in public life. The woman who spends her time studying all the techniques of public speaking, who learns all the special phrases, the emotional pauses and gestures, the persuasive powers of yelling loudly or speaking in a faint, but meaningful whisper will have accomplished absolutely nothing. A woman's rhetoric is like the sound of a tree falling in an uninhabited forest ? it makes a loud noise, but there is no one around to hear it."
Abstract This paper explains that the Renaissance marked the first time in centuries that Europeans had launched anything like a concerted and scientific attempt to investigate and record the past. The author points out that, in rediscovering the works of the great Classical historians such as Tacitus, Livy and Herodotus, the scholars of the later Middle Ages and Early Renaissance were digging into more than simply a huge treasure-trove of information; they were also unearthing a long-lost method of logic and inquiry. The paper stresses that, in reexamining these ancient histories, the great minds of the Renaissance were beginning to set limits on what was acceptable and what was not acceptable in academic research, to be critical of the material, not always automatically assuming that all was correct, the recorder of that material had been unbiased or had even been properly qualified to give the information at hand. Several long quotations.
From the Paper "The Renaissance's discovery of the concept of historical perspective was to have dramatic consequences at the time, but even more astounding consequences for the future. The realization that actions had direct consequences, that a provable pattern actually existed, forced human beings to look at, and analyze their actions. Things could be seen to work because they truly made sense; and those things that "did not make sense" could be dispensed with - dispensed with the full understanding of what it was that was wrong with them. Our generation has inherited the taste for scientific experimentation that began in those far-off centuries. A reliance on the firm belief that there is a real logic to the world, and the cosmos, has permitted us to make discoveries that would have been impossible for our ancestors."
