RoBERT BLACK 

CICERO IN THE CURRICULUM OF ITALIAN 
RENAISSANCE GRAMMAR SCHOOLS* 

It is well known that Cicero had a place in the curriculum of fJ.f-
teenth-century Italian grammar schools: his treatises, De officiis, De se-
nectute and De amicitia were recommended by Aeneas Sylvius in his De 
liberorum educatione(l); Cicero's letters were used by Guarino Veronese, 
so suggests his son Battista, to teach Latin(2); schoolmasters in com-
munes such as Pistoia were enjoined to lecture on Ciceronian texts in-
cluding De officiis(3). Nevertheless, this didactic interest was not ).mprece-
dented in the long and complex history of Cicero's post-antique transmis-
sion. There is evidence to show the important place which Cicero 
occupied in the medieval grammar curriculum as well. Thus, in Aimeric of 
Gatinaux's Ars lectoria of 1086, Cicero was one of the recommended au-
thors, albeit placed in the second or silver rank alongside Donatus, Pris-
cian or Boethius(4). In the following century he received higher status at 
the hands of Conrad of Hirsau, who placed him firmly among the auctores 
maiores(5) of the grammar curriculum, recommending in particular De 
amicitia and De senectute(6). Even more Ciceronian texts were endorsed 
at the end of the twelfth century by Alexander Neckham, who added De 
oratore, the Tusculan Disputations, the Paradoxa stoicorum and De offici-
is to Conrad's more modest suggestions(?). 

(*) The following abbreviations will be used: BLF = Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, 
Florence; BNF = Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence; BRF = Biblioteca Riccardiana, 
Florence; BAY= Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana; ASP= Archivio di Stato, Florence. 

(1) Tractatus de liberorum educatione, in Il pensiero pedagogico dell'Umanesimo, ed. 
E. Garin, Florence 1958, 270, 294. 

(2) Battista Guarino, De ordine docendi et discendi, ibid. 452; he claimed this treatise 
was based on the pedagogical practices of his father, Guarino: ibid. 434-436. 

(3) A Zanelli, Del pubblico insegnamento in Pistoia dal XIV al XVI secolo, Rome 1900, 
147. 

(4) E. R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, tr. W. R. Trask, New 
York 1953, 464-65; B. Munk Olsen, I classici net canone scolastico altomedievale, Spoleto 
1991, 5-6. 

(5) Ibid. 5. 
(6) Curtius, European Literature, 49. 
(7) Ibid. 50. 



106 ROBERT BLACK 

With Alexander's Sacerdos ad altare, one has obviously left the real 
classroom and entered into the realm of an ideal curriculum, but it is clear 
that, as far as Cicero is concerned, these early curricular lists corresponded 
to some extent with actual educational practice. Summarizing the findings 
of recent codicological research, including his own monumental cata-
logue(8), Birger Munk: Olsen has gone a long way to disclosing the real-
ities which lay behind ideals of an Aimeric, Conrad or Alexander. While 
in the ninth and tenth centuries, this research offers little evidence of Ci-
cero as a grammar school author(9), by the eleventh century the situation 
is beginning to change: there is uow a significant if still modest presence 
of the shorter moral treatises (De amicitia, De senectute and De officiis) 
among surviving manuscript copies(lO); contemporary library catalogues 
reveal almost as many references to his moral treatises as to Juvenal or 
Lucan, and more than to Ovid or Statius(ll); and there are a significant 
number of glossed Cicero manuscripts(l2). By the twelfth century, Cicero 
had become a staple of the medieval grammar schools, second as a prose 
writer only to Sallust: surviving manuscript copies include 41 of De offici-
is, 38 of De amicitia and 23 of De senectute(l3); there are some citations 
of glossed Ciceronian texts in contemporary inventories(14); and there are 
a notable number of commentaries on the moral treatises (15). Particularly 
indicative of Cicero's role as a grammar school author in the twelfth cen-
tury are the number of different accessus now accompanying the moral 
treatises, including nine to De amicitia, six to De officiis and five to De se-
nectute(l6). 

In I classici nel canone scolastico altomedievale the findings are pre-
sented without geographical distinction; nevertheless, it is clear, even so, 
that much of this educational use of Cicero, insofar as it is documented by 
Munk: Olsen, took place in Northern Europe: for example, all the citations 
of glossed Ciceronian texts in contemporary catalogues are German(17). 
More geographical precision would be useful here, especially since it has 
sometimes been argued that there was a significant divergence in educa-

(8) B. Munk Olsen, L'etude des auteurs classiques Iatins aux XI• et XII• siecles, 3 vols., 
Paris 1982-1989. 

(9) Munk Olsen, I classici, 23-32. 
(10) Ibid. 32. 
(11) Ibid. 33. 
(12) Ibid. 34. 
(13) Ibid. 38. 
(14) Ibid. 42. 
(15) Ibid. 47. 
(16) Ibid. 48-49. 
(17) Ibid. 42. 



CIC~RO IN THE CURRICULUM 107 

tion during the twelfth century between Northern Europe, on the one hand, 
and Italy, on the other: "con riferimento alle scuole- in particolare alle 
preuniversitarie - del Xll secolo [ ... ] puo assumersi [ ... ] che, mentre. nelle 
scuole preuniversitarie francesi [ .. ,] ha notevole rilevanza una formazione 
culturale a carattere generale, in Italia [ ... ] e quella giuridica in utroque-
quindi immediatamente utilitaristica - che tende ad assorbire tutti gli -spa-
zi. Sicche lo 'scolaris' s' adopera per acquisire con rapidita la 'latinitas' 
[ ... ]per concentrarsi poi sugli studi pratici [ ... ] la partita che si gioca negli 
ultirni decenni dell' XI secolo pare grossa: da un lata la chiosa all' 'auctor' 
[ ... ]; dall'altro il nuovo modello messo innanzi dalla scuola bolognese [ ... ] 
Nei tempi nuovi d'Italia le ragioni della 'lectura' stavano per riuscire 
'aspre' e 'spinose"'(18). 

Although it would be distorted to suggest that there was no contrast 
between grammatical study in Italy and France in the twelfth century, nev-
ertheless the decline of the authors resulting from the rise of the law 
schools and the ars dictaminis in the twelfth century can be exaggerated. 
In this connection, the moral philosophical treatises of Cicero, f0r exam-
ple, suggest the longue-duree of traditional lectura in Italian grammar 
schools up to the turn of the thirteenth century. One example is a well-
glossed Italian manuscript of De amicitia(l9), dating from the later twelfth 
century, with many of the typical features of a grammar school text: letters 
written over words to show word order(20); a contemporary simple acces-
sus outlining the work's intentio, utilitas and philosophical classifica-
tion(21); elementary glosses ("Anibal rex cartaginensis"(22), "Thernis-
tode inperator grecus fuit"(23)). There is even a direct reference here to 
school experience, with the comment that ecclesiastical grandees tend to 
forget their school friends: "sicut fit de episcopis qui [ ... ] spernunt veteres 
amicitias [et] scholarres quos habuere" (24). Another Italian glossed copy 
of the moral treatises dating from the twelfth century contains De officiis 
and a fragment of the Paradoxa stoicorum(25): although there are some 

(18) G. C. Alessio, Le istituzioni scolastiche e l'insegnamento, in Aspetti della letteratu-
ra latina nel secolo XIII, ed. C. Leonardi and G. Orlandi, Perugia and Florence 1986, 4-9. 

(19) BLF, 76, 23. 
(20) Ibid. fol. 1r, 2r, 3r, 3v, 4r, 6r, 7r, 8v, 9v, 13r, 14v, 16v. 
(21) Ibid. fol. 20r: Est ergo Ciceronis in hoc opere materia arnicitia [ ... ] lntentio est auc-

toris de arnicitia tractare, precepta quidem de ea dare de quibus veram a non ['a non' repea-
ted] vera posscimus [sic for possimus] agnoscere et honestis modis excolere. Utilitas est quod 
per huius operis doctrinam sciemus arnicitiam congruis modis excolere. Utilitas est nobis 
[arnicitiam] parare et falsam et inhonestam evitare. Subponitur ethicae. Ostendit enim mores 
qui digni sunt [ ... ] 

(22) Ibid. fol. 3r. 
(23) Ibid. fol. 8r. 
(24) Ibid. fol. 10v. 
(25) BLF, 76, 13. 



108 ROBERT BLACK 

word-order markers here(26), there is relatively little simple interlinear 
paraphrase glossing, and the more sophisticated contents of some of the 
glosses, as well as citations of other authors (Lucan[27], Seneca[28], Ju-
venal[29], Ovid[30]) may suggest a post-school reader. Another Italian 
annotated manuscript dating from the same period contains De officiis and 
De amicitia(3l); there are not really enough contemporary glosses here to 
comment on the academic level of the reader, but there can be little ques-
tion that the text of De amicitia contained in an Italian manuscript dating 
from the turn of the thirteenth century emanated from a grammar 
school(32). The copyist, who was also the principal glossator, appears to 
have been a relatively inexpert reader, who frequently, for example, used 
word order markers (33) and gave very simple philological marginal 
glosses to the text (e.g. the biography of Cato [34] or the fable of 
Orestes [35]) typical of school manuscripts. He also included a great deal 
of vernacular interlinear glossing: (fol. 15v) scomonecata, presentanza, 
adunatrice; (fol. 16r) ordinaremo, addemandare, iudicamenti; (fol. 18v) 
confortante; (fol. 21v) indigeant = abesonge; (fol. 22v) intolerabilius = 
non sostenebele, sperni = refudare; (fol. 24r) commova, tracta; (fol. 24v) 
conestringere; (fol. 25v) losengando; (fol. 28v) selvatebre; (fol. 29r) dis-
sonore; (fol. 31v) contumelie = disunuri; (fol. 35v) desertu; (fol. 36r) 
comitas = cortesia, losengamentu (also on fol. 37r, 38v, 39r); (fol. 37v) 
contio = aringo. 

As far as Cicero is concerned, therefore, the shorter moral treatises 
remained the subject of traditional lectura in Italian grammar schools up 
to the beginning of the thirteenth century. It is problematic to assess 
whether Cicero continued to be read in twelfth-century Italian grammar 
schools with the same intensity as had taken place earlier at Montecassino, 
but it is clear that during the thirteenth century the shorter moral treatises 
dropped out of the Italian· grammar school curriculum. In fact, it is very 
difficult to find any Italian manuscripts at all containing De amicitia, De 
senectute, Paradoxa stoicorum or De officiis which are clearly datable to 
the thirteenth century: this seems to hold true not only for Florentine li-

(26) Ibid. fol. 1v, 29r, 54r. 
(27) Ibid. fol. 5r, 7r. 
(28) Ibid. fol. 8v, 16v. 
(29) Ibid. fol. 15r. 
(30) Ibid. fol. 21v. 
(31) BLF, 76, 20. 
(32) BLF, Edili, 214. The dating of this manuscript and of the vernacular glosses has 

been confirmed by Prof. A de la Mare. 
(33) Ibid. fol. 15r, 19v, 21v, 24v, 29r, 30r, 30v, 33v, 40r. 
(34) Ibid. fol. 2r. 
(35) Ibid. fol. 10r. 



CICERO IN THE CURRICULUM 109 

braries but also for manuscripts so far described in Les manuscrits clas-
siques Iatins de la Bibliotheque Vaticane (36). These texts began again to 
be copied in Italy during the"fourteenth century, but they seem not yet to 
have re-entered the schoolroom(37). Whatever academic use they had in 
the fourteenth century seems to have been at the university level, to judge 
from one Florentine manuscript of De officiis, with the following col-
ophon: "Marci Tulii Ciceronis liber tertius et ultimus ad Marcum eius fil-
ium feliciter explicit per me Michaelem filium Domini Johannis de Mutina 
die iovis XII mensis decembris 1392" (38). This was apparently a uni-
versity-level textbook, originally a large volume ruled in the customary 
fashion with double lines. round a small central text and surrounded by a 
dense, all-embracing commentary. In this case, unfortunately, it is im-
possible to discover how De officiis was studied, since the comment was 
scrubbed off the margins and is only faintly visible now under ultraviolet 
light(39); but more can be said about another university-level text of Par-
adoxa stoicorum, dating from the turn of the fourteenth century ( 40). Here 

(36) Paris, 1975-. One manuscript datable to the thirteenth century from this selection is 
BAV, Borg. Lat. 326, containing on fol. 100r-159r De senectute, De amicitia, Paradoxa stoi-
corum and De officiis, which despite this catalogue (vol. I, p. 232: "origine: italienne") is 
clearly French, for example using Z = et. L. D. Reynolds, The Medieval Tradition of Sene-
ca's Letters, Oxford 1965, 72 and 109, gives a French provenance. BFL, Ashb. 250 (De in-
ventione, Rhetorica ad Herennium, Paradoxa stoicorum) is datable to saec. XIIIIXN, but the 
glosses are from the fourteenth century. 

(37) The fourteenth-century Italian manuscripts of the shorter moral treatises listed in 
this note have all been examined and eliminated as schoolbooks. Florentine libraries: BLF, 
76, 25 (De amicitia, Paradoxa); BLF, 76, 32 (De senectute, Paradoxa, Brutus, Somnium Sci-
pionis); BLF, 89, inf. 41 (De senectute, Orations, De officiis, Paradoxa); BLF, Strozzi, 35 
(De officiis); BLF, Strozzi, 36 (De officiis, De amicitia, Paradoxa, De senectute); BRF, 516 
(De amicitia, De senectute); BRF, 566 (De officiis). Fourteenth-century Italian manuscripts 
of the shorter moral treatises in BAV: Arch. S. Pietro, H22 (De officiis, Somnium, De amici-
tia, De senectute); Vat. Lat. 1739 (De officiis [fragmentary'], De amicitia, Paradoxa); Chigi, 
H. V. 151 (De officiis). Catalogued as saec. XIV but eliminated as actually saec. XV and in 
any case not apparently schoolbooks: Vat. Lat. 1736 (De officiis, De amicitia, De senectute, 
Paradoxa: humanist script, saec. XV); Ottob. Lat. 1494 (De officiis: humanist script, saec. 
XV); Vat. Lat. 2880 (De officiis, Paradoxa: heavy late. gothic script, saec. XV); Vat. Lat. 
1747 (Orations, De amicitia: late gothic script, saec. XV); Ottob. Lat. 2034 (De officiis: hea-
vy, late gothic script, saec. XV); Chigi H. IV. 106 (Paradoxa, De amicitia, De senectute, De 
officiis: widely spaced, late gothic hands, saec. XV); Arch. S. Pietro H. 21 (Tusculanae, De 
officiis: late gothic script, saec. XV); Barb. Lat. 116 (De officiis, De amicitia, De senectute, 
Paradoxa: humanist script, saec. XV in.); Pal. Lat. 1526 (De officiis: late gothic script, saec. 
XV); Vat. Lat. 1737 (De officiis: late gothic script, saec. XV) 

(38) BLF, Edili, 213, fol. 79v. The ms. was written on reused notarial parchment, dated 
(fol. 27v) "Millesimo trecentesimo trigessimo quinto". 

(39) The university-level commentary has been erased from the following folios: 2r-19r, 
33r, 34r, 55r, 56v, 57r, 59r, 61r. The manuscript passed into the ownership of Giorgio Antonio 
Vespucci in the later fifteenth-century: see fol. 84v for his ex libris and fol. Illv for his mot-
to. 

(40) BLF, Ashb. 250. 



110 · ROBERT BLACK 

the text forms the third part of an anthology with the Ciceronian rhetorical 
works, De inventione and Rhetorica ad Herennium; it seems that the nu-
merous fourteenth-century students of rhetoric who left their copious 
glosses on this manuscript went on to read the Paradoxa, making gram-
matical (e.g. fol. 65r, 70r), philological (e.g. fol. 70r), rhetorical(41) and 
moral philosophical ( 42) comments on the text, suggesting they were pos-
sibly following a course on rhetoric and moral philosophy, often studied in 
the early stages of the notarial or legal university curriculum(43). 

It is one of the achievements of the Italian Renaissance to have re-
stored the shorter moral treatises to the grammar school curriculum, after 
two centuries of disuse. Now in the fifteenth century one again fmds co-
pies of the shorter moral treatises with typical school features such as al-
phabets at the conclusion or on the fmal folios ( 44); probationes pennae in 
the vernacular, sometimes with childish contents ("Francesco mio fratello, 
io vorei che tu mi mandasi una scarsella"(45), "Detur pro pena scriptori 
pulcra puela"(46), or "scolares"(47), or in illiterate Latin ("Deus in none 
tuo salum me fac")(48); references to the glossator's teacher ("quod turn 
magister meus non sensit") ( 49); childish ownership notes (" questo libro e 
di Baroncino Baroncini; chi lo truova silo renda")(50); puerile and illiter-
ate verses ("Ad risum multum potes cognoscere stultum./ Si prestabis non 
reabebis./ Si reabebis non tarn bonum./ Se tarn bonum non tarn cito./ Se 

(41) Ibid. fol. 65r, where the glossator provides an accessus, emphasizing the power of 
rhetoric to render true statements probable, which otherwise would remain improbable and 
obscure. 

(42) Ibid. fol. 66v: In hac seconda paradoxa est intentio Ciceronis quemdam errorem 
vulgarem attenuare et funditusextinguere. Dicebat enim vulgus solos divites esse beatos et 
virtutem penitus alienam a beatitudine, quod iste improbat, ostendendo solam virtutem suffi-
cere ad beatitudinem, quod habetur in titulis paradoxe, cum dicitur in quo virtus sit ei nichil 
deesse ad beate vivendum [ ... ]; fol. 68r: non enim actendendum est in quot peccetur, qui 
enim delinquit in uno reus est omnium. 

(43) This was the kind of course offered, for example, by Giovanni Travesio da Cremo-
na in the later fourteenth century at Pavia: see V. Rossi, Dal Rinascimento al Risorgimento, 
Florence 1930, 3-30; Barzizza was appointed to teach moral philosophy and rhetoric at Padua 
in 1407: L. A Panizza, Gasparino Barzizza's commentaries on Seneca's letters, "Traditio" 
33, 1977, 298-99; R. G. Mercer, The Teaching of Gasparino Barzizza, London 1979, 39 ff., 
91 ff. 

(44) ASF, Carte Cerchi, 740 (De officiis, De amicitia, De senectute, Orations, Tuscula-
nae [fragmentary]), fol. [1]43v, [1]44v; BRF, 555 (De senectute, De amicitia, Paradoxa, 
Somnium), fol. 80v (alphabet written by 16th c. hand). 

(45) ASF, Carte Cerchi, 740, fol. [1]37v. 
(46) BRF, 555, fol. 80v; cf. also ibid. fol. 29v: detur pro pena scriptori pulcra puella. 
(47) BNF, Panciat. 166 fol. 98v (Paradoxa, De amicitia, De senectute, Litterae familia-

res, dated 1474 [fol. 35v] and 1460 [fol. 66r]). 
(48) ASF, Carte Cerchi, 740, fol. [1]43v. 
(49) BNF, Panciat. 166, fol. 37r. 
(50) BRF, 579 (De senectute, De amicitia, Paradoxa), fol. 84v. 



CICERO IN THE CURRICULUM 111 

tarn cito perdis amicus [sic]./ Omnia mea mecum porto.")(51); vernacular 
notes or glosses ("imperio= signoria"(52), "itaque =per la qual cosa, ex 
quo = per la qual cosa"(53), "manza, la rason, la possanza, le 
zanze"(54)); glosses and notes referring to other standard works in the 
grammar school curriculum(55) (fol. 78v: "Catholicon id est liber quidam 
ita dictus quia universalis in tota gramatica", fol. 81v: "Secundum Uguzo-
nem" and "Secundum Papiam", fol. 82r: "Secundum K<a>tholicon et 
Magistrum Bene [ da Firenze] "); schoolboyish colophons (" Finito libro is-
to frangamus ossa magistro")(56); simple Latin-vemacular vocabulary 
lists(57); basic one-word equivalents of elementary vocabulary ("videre-
tur = manifestum est, adiumentum = auxilium, non modo = non solum, 
dissidentia = discordantia") (58). 

In the fifteenth century, such copies of the shorter moral-philosophi-
cal treatises now abound(59), demonstrating the secure place which Cice-
ro had regained in the grammar school curriculum. In this way Renais-
sance grammar masters were deviating from the path of their thirteenth 
and fourteenth-century predecessors, but this important curricular/innova-
tion did not in practice herald the emergence of a new distinctive humanist 
pedagogy, direc!ed towards human moral improvement and the formation 
of the whole man. Humanist educational theorists such as Aeneas Sylvius' 
may have suggested that the study of Cicero's moral treatises would lead 
schoolboys to philosophical knowledge and wisdom(60), but in practice 
the scope of lessons on these texts in fifteenth-century grammar schools 
was more modest. Occasionally one fmds in these manuscripts brief moral 
comments (e.g. "Molesta veritas est, si quidem ex ea nascitur odium quod 

(51) Ibid. fol. 83v. 
(52) BRF, 580 (De amicitia, De senectute, Paradoxa), fol. Sr. 
(53) BRF, 575 (De amicitia, De senectute, Paradoxa, Rhetorica ad Herennium [frag-

mentary]), fol. 5v. 
(54) BLF, Ashb. 1886 (De amicitia, De senectute, Somnium, Paradoxa), fol. 83v; see al-

so BRF, 555: arillus, -li est lo vinaciuolo del'uva (fol. 18v); talus, -li: el dato grosso, inde tac 
xillus, -li: el dado piccolo (fol. 20v); vulgare dictus parisitorum: e ghiotoncelli (fol. 59r). 

(55) BLF, Ashb. 1886. 
(56) BRF, 575, fol. 20v. 
(57) BLF, Ashb. 920 (De amicitia, Paradoxa), fol. Ilv: e.g. discedo, -dis, -ssi, -ssum: 

per partirsi [ ... ] hec mors, -tis: la morte. 
(58) BRF, 3600 (De officiis), fol. lr. 
(59) E.g., BLF, Ashb. 976 (De officiis); BLF, Ashb. 1082 (De senectute, De amicitia, 

Paradoxa); BRF, 3600; BRF, 582 (De officiis); BRF, 517 (De amicitia); BRF, 569 (De senec-
tute, De amicitia, Paradoxa); BRF, 577 (De officiis, Paradoxa, De senectute, De amicitia); 
BLF, 76, 29 (De amicitia); BNF, 11, Ill, 222 (De officiis); BRF, 579; BLF, Ashb. 1886; BRF, 
580; BRF, 575; BNF, Panciat. 166; BRF, 555; ASF, Carte Cerchi, 740; BLF, Edili, 213 (glos-
ses saec. XV; text dated 1392: see above p. 109); BLF, Ashb. 920. 

(60) De liberorum educatione, ed. Garin, 292-294. 



112 ROBERT BLACK 

est venenum amicitie, sed obsequium multum maius [ms: maior]"(61), or 
"Quid est honestas? Est vite fmis. In quot partibus dividitur? In quatuor 
partes: iustitiam, temperantiam, fortitudinem, prudentiam"(62) or 
"Sapientia tres habet partes, scilicet, memoriam, intelligentiam et provi-
dentiam;'(63); but the overwhelming fare in teaching the shorter Cicero-
nian moral treatises in the fifteenth century was the simple philology typ-
ical of the grammar school: figures, etymology, mythology, geography, 
history, institutions, simple rhetorical analysis, Roman customs, vocabu-
lary definitions, simple literary history, parts of speech and elementary 
grammatical ana1ysis(64). 

There may sometimes have been an intention to provide instruction in 
moral philosophy, but manuscript evidence suggests that this was seldom 
realized in fifteenth-century grammar schools. The traditional accessus to 
one fifteenth-century text of De amicitia may have pointed to the moral-
izing intentions of the teacher: "Est ergo Ciceronis in hoc opere materia 
amicicia, res utique honesta et clara et in rebus pluribus valde necessaria. 
Interest auctoris de amicicia tractare, precepta quidem de ea dando quibus 
veram amiciciam possimus cognoscere et honestis moribus excolere. Util-
itas est quod huius operis doctrina [ms.: doctrinam] sciemus amiciciam 
congruis moribus parare et falsam et inhonestam devitare. Supponitur eth-
ice, quia tractatur de moribus"(65). But this teacher's moral intentions 
soon were overtaken by the need to provide a detailed philological analy-
sis, so making the text comprehensible to his pupils and fulfilling the more 
basic purpose of teaching Latin. Thus, a dense interlinear commentary is 
given, providing one-word Latin equivalents to the vocabulary of the text; 
and as far marginal glossing is concerned, this consists of the simple phi-
lology typical of the grammar school: for example, "Nota quod in tabella 
tunc temporis scribebantur leges et constitutiones civitatis a comuni ordine 
imposite sed tabella est nomen diminutivum in qua solebant scribi capitula 
noviter extracta ab aliquo novo officiali"(66). Besides texts of De senec-
tute, De amicitia and Paradoxa stoicorum, all glossed in this manner, this 
manuscript also contains some verses attributed to Guarino(67), possibly 

(61) BRF, 569, fol. 32r. 
(62) BRF, 3600, fol. 1r. 
(63) BRF, 517, fol. 41v. 
(64) E.g. see BRF, 555, fol. 3v, 4v, 5v, 7r, 7v, llr, 12r, 13v, 18v, 20v, 21r, 21v, 23r, 23v, 

~~~-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
66r, 66v; BRF, .569, fol. 17r, 17v, 18r, 18v, 19r, 29v, 32r, 34v. 

(65) BLF, Ashb. 1082, fol. 26v. 
(66) Ibid. fol. 38r. 
(67) Ibid. fol. 54v: Versus Guarini Veronensis ad Antonium Panormitam: Musarum de-



CICERO IN THE CURRICULUM 113 

suggesting some connection with a humanist school, but as such its tradi-
tional character is all the more striking. 

Indeed, this gap between the moralizing intentions of the teacher, as 
announced in the accessus, and the ensuing philological character of the 
glosses, is typical· of earlier medieval grammar school manuscripts of Ci-
cero. Thus, in one of the twelfth-century Florentine manuscripts of De 
amicitia mentioned above, there was almost no moral philosophy after the 
accessus; instead, the fare was the usual simple philology such as: "con-
suetudo Romanorum erat ut per novem dies [ms.: novem diem] unum 
quemque mortuum custodirent cum diversis instrumentis musicae" (68). 

There is a small amount of evidence that occasionally other Cicero-
nian texts such as De oratore(69), Orator(10) or Disputationes Tuscula-
nae(11) were read at grammar school in the fifteenth century, but this con-
stituted no more than a fraction of the interest devoted to the shorter moral 
treatises. As far as lectura Ciceronis is concerned, therefore, the fifteenth-
century saw an important innovation in the reintroduction of the shorter 
moral philosophical treatises into the grammar school classroom, ralthough 
the teaching methods applied to these texts appear to have remained en-
tirely traditional, concentrating on skills in comprehending Latin prose 
rather than on moral philosophy. In this sector of education, Cicero at 
school in the Renaissance was not an entirely novel departure from medie'-
val practice, but there was another aspect of Ciceronian pre-university 
pedagogy which was entirely without medieval precedent. This was intro~ 
duction of Cicero's letters into the grammar schoolroom. With regard to 
Latin composition, as distinct from reading Latin texts ("lactinare" as op-
posed to "auctores audire"), the grammar school curriculum involved a 
graduated progress from the composition of short phrases or passages up 
to the composition of an entire letter. Thus, the grammar courses laid out 
by Francesco da Buti (72) in the fourteenth century (and still widely used 
throughout Quattrocento)(73), as well as that constructed by Niccolo Pe-

cus Antoni per secu1a salve = L. Bertalot, Initia humanistica latina, ed. U. Jaitner-Hahner, 
Tiibingen 1985, n. 3462, where they are not attributed to Guarino. 

(68) BLF, 76, 23, fol. 3v. 
(69) BRF, 506, 561. 
(70) BRF, 506, 2127. 
(71) BRF, 508, 510. 
(72) E.g. BRF, 674; Oxford, Bod1eian Library, Lat. Mise. e. 52. 
(73) E.g. see BLF, Medic. Palat., 64, fol. Illr: lste liber est mei Iovanis Petri de Vu1terris 

in sco1a Magistri Taddei de Piscia. Taddeo da Pescia taught in Vo1terra from 1426 to 1427, 
and from 1434 to 1437: see M. Battistini, Taddeo da Pescia maestro di grammatica del 
sec. XV, "Bullettino storico pistoiese" 31, 1929, 86-93. For many fifteenth-century manu-
scripts of Francesco da Buti's Regule, see G. C. Alessio, "Hec Franciscus de Buiti", "Italia 
medievale e umanistica" 24, 1981, 86-87, as well as W. K. Percival, Renaissance grammar: 
rebellion or evolution?, in Interrogativi dell'Umanesimo, ed. G. Tarugi, Florence 1976, II, 



114 . ROBERT BLACK 

rotti in the second half of the fifteenth century(74), both ended with exten-
sive treatments of epistolography. It seems to have been at this final stage 
of the grammar curriculum that Cicero's letters, almost completely un-
known in the middle ages and rediscovered by Petrarch and Salutati in the 
fourteenth century, were used in the fifteenth-century schoolroom. 

Their place at the end of the grammar curriculum is suggested by an 
interesting series of Florentine grammatical compilations, preserved in 
five Florentine manuscripts(75) and five others outside Florence(76), all 
dating from the second half of the fifteenth century. The compilation in 
the five Florentine manuscripts seems relatively uniform for a grammat-
ical anthology. In general, they seem to constitute a full school-level 
grammatical course of study, beginning with morphology of the parts of 
speech(77) (=the contents of Ianua); continuing with syntax especially of 
the verb but also of nouns, comparatives, participles, relatives etc. (78) ( = 
the contents of Guarino's or Francesco da Buti's Regule); going on to 
Guarino's orthography(79) and his Carmina differentialia(80); and end-
ing with a brief section on verbal conjugations(81). Although this is the 
end of the strictly grammatical section of the manuscript, it goes on to give 
the text of twenty-seven very short familiar letters of Cicero(82), and a 
couple by Pliny(83). The compilation ends with a series of sententiae 
drawn from the Bible, the Church Fathers and various Latin classiCal au-
thors(84). Other grammar courses sometimes included sententiae: e;g. that 
by Filippo Casali(85), grammar master in Florence, Pistoia~ Bologna and 

73, n. 1 and his Textual problems in the Latin grammar ofGuarino Veronese; "Res publica 
litterarum" 1, 1978, 252, n . .13. 

(74) See e.g. N. Perotti, Rudimenta grammatices, Naples 1479 (BRF, Edizioni rare, 546). 
The statement of W. K. Percival, The place of the Rudimenta graminatices in the history of 
Latin grammar, "Res publica litterarum" 4, 1981, 233 ("Perotti, however, broke new ground 
by adding to his graminaf a manual of epistolary style, which comprises the final third of his 
work.") is therefore incorrect. 

(75) BNF, L 37; BRF, 675, 999, 1236; BNF, Conv. Soppr. J.II.22. 
(76) Columbia University, Plimpton, 136; British Library, Burney, 316; British Library, 

Add. 10351; Biblioteca Marciana, Lat. 4479; Warsaw, Biblioteka Narodowa, Cod. Boz. 35. I 
have not yet seen the last two manuscripts, whose location and shelf-marks I have taken from 
G. Bursill-Hall, A Census of Medieval Latin Grammatical Manuscripts, Stuttgart 1981. 

(77) E.g., BRF, 999, fol. 1r-20r. 
(78) Ibid. fol. 20r-73v. 
(79) Ibid. fol. 73v-74r. Cfr. Bodleian, Canon. Mise. 102, fol. 53r-v: 
(80) BRF, 999, 74r-79r. Cfr. Bodleian, Canon. Mise. 102, fol. 53v-59v. 
(81) BRF, 999, 79v-84r. 
(82) Ibid. fol. 84r-89r .. 
(83) Ibid. fol. 89r-v. 
(84) Ibid. fol. 89v-94r. 
(85) BLF, Ashb. 1658, fol. 1r-117r. 



CICERO IN THE CURRICULUM 116 

Volterra in the third quarter of the fifteenth-century(86). This constitutes 
the kind of syllabus becoming fashionable in the second half of the fif-
teenth century, in that, like Perotti but unlike Guarino or Francesco da Bu-
ti, it comprises both elementary morphology. and. intermediate syntax. It 
seems that the Ciceronian letters are placed at the end of the treatise for 
stylistic inspiration in epistolography, which, as has been seen above, was 
the traditional end of the school grammar course; because of their brevity 
and their proximity to the Carmina differentialia (87) as well as to the sen-
tentiae, these Cicero letters may have been intended for memorization by 
the pupil. Memorization of his letters for stylistic improvement, indeed, 
was recommended by Battista Guarino: "In Ciceronis epistulis declama-
bunt, ex quibU:s stili turn elegantiam turn facilitatem et sermonis puritatem 
ac scientiarum gravitatem adipiscentur; quas si memoriae mandaverint 
mirificos postea fructus in scribendi promptitudine percipient" (88). This 
grammar course seems to have a strong Florentine affiliation, given that 
five manuscripts are now in Florence. Albinia de la Mare informs me that 
two further manuscripts are associated with Giorgio Antonio ,Vespucci 
(one written mainly in his hand(89) and the other corrected by him(90)), a 
fact which would obviously strengthen this Florentine connection; his 
copying and annotation, of course,· might indicate authorship, or, at least, 
use· in teaching his grammar pupils. 

This group of Ciceronian letters can be related to the model letters 
traditionally associated with the ars dictaminis, a custom continued in the 
fifteenth century with such compilations as Barzizza's Litterae ad exerci-
tationem accommodatae or Gian Mario Filelfo's Novum Epistolarium seu 
ars scribendi epistulas(91). It is well known indeed that various florilegia 
from Cicero's letters were compiled, probably for school use, including 
Giorgio Valagussa's lnflosculis epistolarum Ciceronis vernacula interpre-

(86) M. Battistini, Filippo da Bologna maestro di grammatica a Volterra nel secolo XV, 
Bologna 1917. 

(87) Verse was regarded as particularly suitable for memorization; see for example the 
following comment on Alexander de Villa Dei: "sermo metricus ... ad plura se habet, quam 
prosaicus, quem sequitur Piiscianus, et hoc ita probatur: sermo metricus utilis factus est ad 
faciliorem acceptionem, ad venustam et utilem brevitatem et ad memoriam firmiorem". (Ci-
ted by G. Manacorda, Storia delta scuola in Italia, vol. I. 11 medio evo, Milan, Palermo and 
Naples 1914, Parte II, 231), a view reiterated by Battista Guarino, De ordine docendi et di-
scendi, ed. Garin, p. 446: "non inutilis erit is liber qui sub Alexandri nomine versibus habe-
tur, ... nam praeterquam quod omnia sumit a Prisciano, facilius etiam quae carminibus scripta 
sunt memoriae commendantur conservanturque". 

(88) Ibid. 452. 
(89) Columbia University, Plimpton, 136. 
(90) British Library, Burney, 316. 
(91) W. Bracke, Fare la epistola nella Roma del Quattrocento, Rome 1992,. 35-36. 



116 . ROBERT BLACK 

tatio and Giovanni Gabriele's Ciceronis clausulae ex epistolisfamiliaribus 
excerptis (92). 

But Cicero's letters also provided another kind of stylistic exercise in 
the fifteenth-century grammar schoolroom. Fourteenth and fifteenth-centu-
ry teachers illustrated various syntactical points by reference to vernacular 
sentences which are then provided with Latin translations. This reflects the 
schoolroom practice of themata, which were vernacular passages assigned 
to pupils for Latin translation. This type of exercise was established by the 
early fourteenth century and is explicitly mentioned by two early four-
teenth-century Florentine grammar teachers, Filippo di Naddo(93) and 
Guglielmo da Veruscola(94). Indeed, many of the grammatical points in 
their treatises were specifically mentioned in order to solve problems of 
translation from vernacular to Latin and were accordingly introduced by 
the phrase "si detur therria". 

The use of themata to teach Latin syntax can be amply illustrated in 
the most important intermediate Latin grammar of the fourteenth century, 
the Regule grammaticales by the Pisan grammarian, Francesco da Buti 
(d. 1406). Francesco's textbook is particularly rich in the vernacular, in-
cluding copious lists of Latin verbs with vernacular translations, but it is 
especially notable for its detailed treatment of problems in translating ver-
nacular sentences into Latin. For example, he gives four modes for themat-
ic translation of deponent verbs: when there is no personal object: 

"Io ingiurio" debemus dicere "ego iniurior"; 

when there is a subject but not an object: 

"Io sono ingiuriato" debemus dicere "aliquis iniuriatur"; 

when there is a subject and ap object: 

"lo ingiurio Piero" - "ego iniurior Petro"; 

and when there is neither subject no object: 

"In questa terra si ingiuria" debemus dicere "in hac terra fit iniuriato 
[sic]"(95) .. 

(92) Ibid. 36. 
(93) In his widely diffused treatise on syntax, inc. Constructio est unio constructibilium, 

e.g. BLF, Gaddi, 203; Ashb. 243; or BRF, 2795. For his biography, seeS. Debenedetti, Sui 
piu antichi "doctores puerorum ", "Studi medievali" 2, 1906-7, 341 n. 2. 

(94) BNF, Nuove accessioni, 398 ("Regule mediocres Magistri Guillielmi de Verruscola 
Bosorum", preserved in a manuscript with a Florentine watermark dating 1341, which ac-
cords well with the scrittura cancelleresca used by the copyist), fol. 6v : "si detur thema". 

(95) BRF, 674, f. 10r. 



CICERO IN THE CURRICULUM 117 

Another point at which he illustrates thematic translation concerns imper-
sonal verbs: 

"A me piace lo leggere"- "legere placet mihi"(96). 

A typical thematic problem comes when explaining. how to translate the 
past tense of certain verbs lacking a preterite: 

Et nota quod quando datur thema in preterito tempore ... debemus recurrere 
ad sum/es/est et capere tertiam personam singularis numeri in eo tempore 
per quod datur thema et ad infinitum verbi per quod datur thema etdaresi-
bi suppositum et appositum ... ut in hoc exemplo: "Io sono stato studiato 
dal maestro" debemus dicere "michi fnit studeri a magistro" et "tu se' sta-
to medicato da uno buono medico" "quemdam bonum medicum fuit med-
eri tibi" et "le virtu sono .. ~ state ricordate dame" "me fuit reminisci virtti-
tum"(97). 

Francesco not only treats thematic problems in translating vernacular 
verbs; thus for nouns lacking Latin plurals he explains: 

Et nota quod quando datur thema per . . . nomina in plurali nu'mero quo 
charent debemus recurrere ad hoc nomen maneries et ponere in eo casu 
que<m> vult verbum et predicta nomina in genitivo vel ad nomina adiecti-
va ponderalia et ponere ista in singulari numero cum predictis nominibus in 
eo casu quem requirit verbum ut in.boc exemplo: "due fummi escuveno di 
chasa tua" debemus dicere "due maneries fummi exibant domum tuam" 
vel "duplex fumus exibat domum tuam?'(98); 

or similarly: 

"Io abbo due seti" debemus dicere "ego <h>abeo duas maneries sitis" vel 
"duplicem sitim"(99). 

Francesco similarly deals with thematic translation problems for compara-
tives, superlatives, verbal nouns and especially participles, but he was of 
course not the only early· school grammarian to help his pupils with such 
translation difficulties. Even earlier, there is an intermediate probably Tus-
can schoolbook written in notarial script of the first half of the fourteenth 
century which has substantial sections devoted to problems of translating 
vernacular words such as the definite article, prepositions, or "che"(lOO). 

It is possible that the use of themata, that is, translation from the ver-
nacular into Latin, in the schoolroom was of Bolognese origin. In the let-

(96) Ibid. f. 13v. 
(97) Ibid. f. 16r-v. 
(98) Ibid. f. 17r-v. 
(99) Ibid. f. 18r. 
(100) BNF, ll. Vlll. 121, not foliated. 



118 ROBERT BLACK 

ters of Pietro de' Boattieri found in BNF IT. N. 312, a school anthology, as 
Zaccagnini has shown(10l), dating from 1314(102), there are various ver-
nacular letters followed by Latin translations and on one occasion even 
introduced by the phrase "Tema istarum llll 'epistolarum"(103). More-
over, in the list of 1321 giving all Boattieri's works, mention is made of 
"formando themata quelibet dicendorum"(104). It seems therefore that the 
thema was a teaching method well-established at Bologna by the turn of 
the fourteenth century, and one might conjecture that it was from Bologna, 
the "caput exercitii litteralis" (Buoncompagno da Signa)(105), that thema-
ta arrived in Tuscany during the first half of the Trecento. When Perotti 
devoted the last section of his Rudimenta grammatices to turning an entire 
vernacular letter into Latin, he was probably repeating a not infrequent 
pedagogic practice in the fifteenth century; indeed, Wouter Bracke has re-
cently published a short collection of such dual-language letters, with the 
Latin text following the vernacular version(l06). A similar dual-language 
work was Francesco Filelfo's Exercitatiunculae, consisting of 214 of his 
letters preceded by vernacular translations and published in at least four 
incunables (107). 

What is significant for the history of Cicero' s use in the Renaissance 
classroom is that one can find manuscripts of his familiar letters preceded 
by such vernacular translations. One maimscript contains twelve such let-
ters by Cicero, as well five by Leonardo Bruni, similarly preceded by ver-
nacular translations (108). This manuscript seems to have belonged to Bat-
tista, the twenty-one year-old son of the papal secretary, Pietro Lunense, 
during the former's enforced residence in Viterbo during an outbreak of 
plague in Rome during the summer of 1451(109); it is clearly a schoolbook 
associated with the studia humanitatis, which, so Battista declares, he 
himself was pursuing at the time(llO). Not only does it contain mis-

(101) G. zaccagnini, Le epistole in latino et in volgare di Pietro de' Boattieri, "Studi e 
memorie per la storia dell'Universita di Bologna" 8, 1924, 213-248. 

(102) Ibid. 221. 
(103) Ibid. 243, 246. 
(104) Ibid. 245. 
(105) Ibid. 237. 
(106) Bracke, Fare la epistola, 59-117. 
(107) L. Quacquarelli, Felice Feliciano nel suo epistolario, "Lettere italiane" 46, 1994, 

p. 118. 
(108) BLF, 90, sup. 65, fol. 61r-72r. 
(109) Piergiorgio Parroni, Il cod. Oliv. 23 di Marziale e il suo copista Battista Lunense, 

"Studia Oliveriana" 11, 19(!3, 3-10. 
(110) Ibid. 5: "Cum humanitatis studia quibus omnem operam praestare decreveram Ro-

mae aeris intemperie interrupta essent, meque Viterbii nullis impeditum negociis haberem 
[ ... )". 



CICERO IN THE CURRICULUM 119 

cellaneous philological information useful to a beginning classicist(111), 
as well as a text of Cicero's Somnium Scipionis, glossed in the usual 
schoolish elementary philological manner(112), but also metrical analyses 
of verses by Boethius (113), whose poems in De consolatione philosophiae 
were frequently studied in this way in fifteenth-century schools(114). This 
manuscript bears various signatures or probationes typical of a school-
book, including one with a reference to the gratuity ("lo vanto") (115) nor-
mally given to schoolmasters on various religious holidays. It is to be pre-
sumed that a pupil such as Battista Lunense practised his Latin prose com-
position by translating the vernacular text given first in the manuscript, 
and then comparing the results with Cicero's original. ·Other manuscripts 
make it clear that this practice of using dual language Ciceronian letters 
continued into the sixteenth century(116). The stylistic use of Cicero's let-
ters in fifteenth-century schools is also suggested by their distinctive ap-
pearance in manuscripts; unlike his shorter moral treatises, they are rarely 
glossed(117), and this contrast is all the more telling when the unglossed 
letters appear in the same manuscript(118) together with texts trapitionally 
subject to lectura, such as Horace's satires(119), heavily glossed for exam-
ple in a version copied by Francesco de' Medici in 1515 (120), who, as a 

(111) BLF, 90, sup. 65, fol. lr: Significatio litterarum antiquarum et abbreviature antique 
que reperiuntur in aepistolis prescriptis. fol. 2r: Debent omnia poni in eo casu et proferri in 
quo posite sunt dictiones ad quas referuntur ut M. Cicero Marcus Cicero, ut M. Ciceroni 
Imp. Marco Ciceroni imperatori [ ... ]. 

(112) Ibid. fol. lOOr: legio a legendo quia meliores legebantur milites; tribunus dicitur a 
tribu quia populus romanus in tribus partibus dividebat[ur]; migrare cum tota familia ire[ ... ]; 
fol. lOOv: legatus quem hodie dicirnus commissarius [sic], sine quo nee bellum nee pacem 
dux tractare quibat. 

(113) Ibid. fol. 121r-122r. 
(114) E.g. BLF, 78, 21, fol. 9v, 11v, 27r, 28r, 29r, 30r; BNF, II, VI, 12, fol. 2v, 5r, 9r; BLF, 

Conv. Soppr. 258, fol. lr, 2r, 2v, 3v, 5v and passim. 
(115) BLF, 90 sup. 65, fol. 189r. This meaning of "vanto" does not appear in N. Tomma-

seo and B. Bellini, Dizionario delta lingua italiana, IV, pt. 2, Turin 1879, p. 1728. "Vanto" 
was a standard educational term in the Quattrocento meaning the "mancia" given by pupils 
at various religious holidays (Easter, Christmas, Santa Maria Candelaia, Ognisanti) to tea-
chers. For example, according to the ricordi kept for the heirs of Francesco Pecori, on 27 Ja-
nuary 1474 reference was made to "S. cinque ... dati a Dino Francesco per dare il vanto al mo 
dell'abacho per lla chandellaia": ASP, Dono Panciatichi, Patrimonio Pecori, 51, fol. 45 right. 

(116) BNF, Magi. VI, 88 (Epistolae familiares). 
(117) BNF, Magi. VI, 165, compiled for "pueris" in 1462 (fol. lv); BLF, 90, inf. 52: 2 

readers, one learned, the other school-level, the latter of whom hardly glosses, while the for-
mer's glosses are too sophisticated and learned for a school (e.g. fol. 20r); BLF, 49, 16, fol. 
80r-100v; BRF, 421: a few school-type interlinear glosses only on fol. 2r-3r, 5r (see puerile 
probationes on fol. 41r-v, 42v-43r). 

(118) BRF, 594, fol. 144r-185r. 
(119) Ibid. fol. lr-34v. 
(120) Ibid. fol. 144r: Hec sunt quedam epistole Ciceronis ex toto volumine electe et 

scripte fuere a Francisco Medice in anno MCXV tertio nonas octobris. 



120 ROBERT BLACK 

pupil, begs the forbearance of his readers: "Que cernis lector scripsit dis-
cipulus ipse Franciscus; patcas barbara signa [que] leges"(121). 

Thus, in Italian Renaissance grammar schools Cicero represented 
various levels of innovation: in respect to what had been taught over the 
previous two hundred years, his shorter moral treatises constituted novel 
reading material; moreover, his letters had never been stylistic models in 
the medieval schoolroom. Nevertheless, these innovations can be related 
to important medieval precedents: the use of the shorter moral treatises as 
textbooks in twelfth-century Italian grammar schools; the continued ab-
sence of moral philosophical lectura in the fifteenth century, despite the 
lofty claims of humanist educators; and the resemblance between medie-
val themata and dual-language letter collections by dictatores such as Pie-
tro Boattieri and the dual-language Ciceronianletter anthologies of the fif-
teenth century. 

(121) Ibid.