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‘Habent et urbes suum terminum’. Rovina e decadenza in alcuni luoghi dell’umanesimo Italiano*
Abstract
The article focuses on the role the image of decadence and ruin played in
Italian Quattrocento Humanism. The depiction of the ruins of ancient Rome, a
frequent topic in humanistic poetry and a well-known approach to the theme
investigated, constitutes the paper’s starting point. Beside the contemplation
of ruins experienced in many ‘Roman’ poems, though, the fall of Constantinople in 1453 provided humanists with a sense of impending doom
on the whole ‘western’ world: the contemporary ruin of the Greek world was
seen, as some writings show, as an ‘apocalyptic’ event, which would eventually affect the whole of Christianity. It is argued, then, that in the humanistic depiction of ruins as an ongoing historical process, textual and thematic allusions to the Apocalypse act as a distinguishing feature.
Italian Quattrocento Humanism. The depiction of the ruins of ancient Rome, a
frequent topic in humanistic poetry and a well-known approach to the theme
investigated, constitutes the paper’s starting point. Beside the contemplation
of ruins experienced in many ‘Roman’ poems, though, the fall of Constantinople in 1453 provided humanists with a sense of impending doom
on the whole ‘western’ world: the contemporary ruin of the Greek world was
seen, as some writings show, as an ‘apocalyptic’ event, which would eventually affect the whole of Christianity. It is argued, then, that in the humanistic depiction of ruins as an ongoing historical process, textual and thematic allusions to the Apocalypse act as a distinguishing feature.
