Project | Global Thucydides
Catalogue | Digital catalogue
Entry | Orationi militari. Raccolte per m. Remigio fiorentino, da tutti gli historici g…
Typology: Translation | Language: Italian | Place of publication: Venice | Publisher: Appresso Gabriel Giolito de Ferrari | Year: 1557
Greek Text: no
Content: Anthologies | Pericles’ Funeral Oration | The Debate on Mytilene
The book contains an anthology of Thucydides' speeches translated by Strozzi 1545, with minor revisions by Nannini: Thuc. 1.32-36, 68-71, 73-78, 80-86, 120-124, 140-144; 2.11, 35-46, 60-64, 87, 89; 3.9-14, 37-40, 42-48, 53-59, 61-67; 4.10, 17-20, 59-64, 85-87, 92, 95, 126; 5.9; 6.9-14, 16-18, 20-23, 33-34, 36-40, 75-80, 82-87, 89-92; 7.61-64, 66-68, 77.
Besides Thucydides, the volume features speeches by political leaders, diplomats, and military commanders drawn not only from ancient historical sources but also from medieval and Renaissance texts. It opens with a table listing thirty-eight historians, categorized into three sections. Spanning 740 pages, it covers the principal Greek and Latin historians up to the Renaissance. The first section includes speeches by Greek historians ranging from Thucydides to Flavius Josephus – matching the corpus of authors previously available in Italian translation. The second section features speeches from Latin historians, starting with Livy and extending to the medieval chronicler Saxo Grammaticus, reflecting Nannini's interest in Northern European history through Olaus Magnus. Specifically, it lists Livy, Sallust, Caesar, Quintus Curtius, Hegesippus, Ammianus Marcellinus, Procopius, and Saxo. The third section presents a range of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century authors, beginning with Leonardo Aretino and concluding with Ascanio Centorio. The book proved so popular that a second edition appeared in 1560 – expanded with additional authors until it surpassed a thousand pages – and a further edition was released in 1585. The Orationi Militari was the first truly encyclopaedic anthology – a work that not only introduced a new form but also established its own readership and standards. This format proved highly influential in the following decades, enjoying its greatest flourishing throughout the seventeenth century.
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