Tacitus and Bracciolini. The Annals Forged in the XVth Century

by John Wilson Ross

Bracciolini was so struck by the attainments and captivated by the character of this man, that an acquaintance casually formed speedily ripened into an intimacy of the most confidential, cordial and communicative kind. Bracciolini, during his stay in Florence, was a guest in the house of Niccoli; and there, for nearly a year, he resumed and pursued his studies with ardour amid the rich stores of the large and select assortment of manuscripts, amounting to not far from a thousand in number. He was thus adding to the treasures of his lore with daily assiduity, when the news reached Florence that Cardinal Cossa had (notwithstanding the well-known virtues of Alexander V.) poisoned his predecessor, and had been elected to the pontifical chair by the title of John XXIII.

Behold Bracciolini once more in the palace of the Pontiffs of Rome; and now acting, in the capacity of Secretary, or, more properly, writer of the Apostolic Letters, to a Pope who was a poisoner. John XXIII. was even worse than that: he was a most atrocious violator of laws, human and divine; and some crimes he committed were so heinous that it would be indecent to place them before the public. One can imagine how agreeable must have been the occupation to that Pope of a military rather than an ecclesiastic turn, and fonder of deeds of violence and bloodshed than of acts of meekness and Christianity, when he was presiding at Constance over that General Council, which sent to the stake those Bohemian followers of the Morning Star of the Reformation, Huss and Jerome of Prague, to be burnt alive, according to general belief, with their clothes and everything about them, even to their purses and the money in them, and their ashes to be thrown into the Rhine; but, as will be immediately seen, from the account of an eye-witness, in a state of perfect nudity.

V. Bracciolini, who witnessed the burning of Jerome of Prague, gives a description of it in one of his Epistles, in a manner equal to anything that may be found in the Annals;—indeed, many of his contemporaries thought that his Epistles reflected the style and spirit of antiquity,—Beccadelli of Bologna, for example, who says, writing to Bracciolini: "Your Epistles, which, in my opinion, reflect the very spirit of the ancients, and, especially, the antique style of Roman expression":—"Epistolae tuae, quae veterum sane, et antiquum illum eloquentiae Romanae morem, prae ceteris, mea sententia exprimunt" (at the end of Lusus ad Vencrem, p. 47). The style is simpler, more unambitious, and more flowing and smooth than is usually found in the Annals; but, (as in the descriptive passages in that work), free play is given to the fancy which works unclogged by verboseness; and judgment marks the circumstances in a description which progresses, apparently without art, to the close of the beautiful climax, and strongly moves the compassion of the reader:—"When he persisted with increased contumacy in his errors, he was condemned of heresy by the Council, and sentenced to be burnt alive. With an unruffled brow and cheerful countenance he went to his end; he was unawed by fire, or any kind of torture, or death. Never did any Stoic suffer death with a soul of so much fortitude and courage, as he seemed to meet it. When he came to the place of death, he stripped himself of his clothes, then dropping on his bended knees clasped the stake to which he was to be fastened: he was first bound naked to the stake with wet ropes, and then with a chain, after which not small, but large logs of wood with sticks thrown in among them were piled around him up to his breast; then when they were being set on fire he began to sing a sort of hymn, which the smoke and the flames hardly put a stop to. This was the greatest mark of his soul of fortitude: when the executioner wanted to light the fire behind his back, so that he should not see it, he called out, 'Come here, and set fire to it before my eyes; for if I had been afraid of it, I never should have come to this place, which it was in my power to have avoided.' Thus did this man, perish, who was excellent in everything but faith. I saw the end of him; I watched every scene of it. Whether he acted from conviction or contumacy, you would have pronounced his the death of a man who belonged to the school of philosophy. I have laid before you a long narrative for the sake of occupation; having nothing to do I wanted to do something, and give an account of things very different, indeed, from the stories of the ancients; for the famous Mutius did not suffer his arm to be burnt with a soul so bold, as this man his whole body; nor Socrates drink poison half so willingly as he endured burning."

I shall now place the passage before the reader in the Latin, as it was written by Bracciolini, with some words in Italics, upon which I shall afterwards comment:—

"Cum pertinacius in erroribus perseveraret, per Concilium haeresis damnatus est, et igni combustus. Jucunda fronte et alacri vultu ad exitum suum accessit, non ignem expavit, non tormenti genus, non mortis. Nullus unquam Stoicorum fuit tam constanti animo, tam forti mortem perpessus, quam iste oppetiisse videtur. Cum venisset ad locum mortis, se ipsum exuit vestimentis, tum procumbens, flexis genibus, veneratus est palum, ad quem ligatus fuit: primum funibus manentibus, tum catena undus ad palum constrictus fuit; ligna deinde circumposita pectore tenus non minuscula, sed grossa palaeis interjectis, tum flamma adhibita canere coepit hymnum quendam, quem fumus et ignis vix interrupit. Hoc maximum constantis animi signum: cum lector ignem post tergum, ne id videret, injicere vellet: —'huc,' inquit, 'accede, atque in conspectu accende ignem; si enim illum timuissem, nunquam ad hunc locum quem effugiendi facultus erat, accessissem.' Hoc modo vir, praeter fidem, egregius, consumptus est. Vidi hunc exitum, singulos actus inspexi. Sive perfidia, sive pertinacia id egerit, certe philosophiae schola interitum viri descripsisses. Longam tibi cantilenam narravi ocii causa, nihil agens aliquid agere volui, et res tibi narrare paulum similes histories priscorum. Nam neque Mutius ille tam fidenti animo passus est membrum uri, quam iste universum corpus; neque Socrates tam sponte venenum bibit, quam iste ignem suscepit." [Endnote 145]

It will be seen, as a peculiarity in composition, that, in this not very long sentence, several words are re-introduced, and sometimes over and over again, when the repetition could have been avoided, as: "accedere," "agere," "videre," "narrare," "pertinacia," "constans," "animus," "mors," "exitus," "ignis," "vir," "locus," "palus," "cum," "tum," "tam," &c. As this runs through the whole of Bracciolini's compositions with much frequency, it is to be expected that it would be found to some extent in the Annals; because a man who so writes, writes thus unconsciously and unavoidably, and even when engaged in a forgery, striving to imitate the style and manner of another, he could not escape from so marked and distinctive a mannerism. Bracciolini, accordingly, is found adhering in the Annals to this uniformity of manner: many passages more forcibly illustrative of this peculiarity might be quoted; but I select the sham sea-fight in the XIIth book, for two reasons, because it is pretty much of the same length as the burning of Jerome of Prague, and because it is of a similar nature,—descriptive:—

"Sub idem tempus, inter lacum Fucinum amnemque Lirin perrupto monte, quo magnificentia operis a pluribus viseretur, lacu in ipso navale proelium adornatur; ut quondam Augustus, structo cis Tiberim stagno, sed levibus navigiis et minore copia ediderat. Claudius triremes quadriremesque et undeviginti hominum millia armavit, cincto ratibus ambitu, ne vaga effugia forent; ac tamen spatium amplexus, ad vim remigii, gubernantium artes, impetus navium, et proelio solita. In ratibus praetoriarum cohortium manipuli turmaeque adstiterant, antepositis propugnaculis, ex quis catapultae ballistaeque tenderentur: reliqua lacus classiarii tectis navibus obtinebant. Ripas et colles, ac montium edita, in modum theatri multitudo innumera complevit proximis e municipiis, et alii urbe ex ipsa, visendi cupidine aut officio in principem. Ipse insigni paludamento, neque procul Agrippina chlamyde aurata, praesedere. Pugnatum, quamquam inter sontes, fortium virorum animo; ac, post multum vulnerum, occidioni exempti sunt. Sed perfecto spectaculo apertum aquarum iter. Incuria operis manifesta fuit, haud satis depressi ad lacus ima vel media. Eoque, tempore interjecto, altius effossi specus, et contrahendae rursus multitudini gladiatorum spectaculum editur, inditis pontibus pedestrem ad pugnam. Quin et convivium effluvio lacus adpositum, magna formidine cunctos adfecit; quia vis aquarum prorumpens proxima trahebat, convulsis ulterioribus, aut fragore et sonitu exterritis. Simul Agrippina, trepidatione principis usa, ministrum operis Narcissum incusat Cupidinis ac praedarum. Nec ille reticet, impotentiam muliebrem nimiasque spes ejus arguens." (An. XII. 56-7).

In this passage it will be observed that the same thing takes place in the repetition of words:—"lacus," "ratis," "vis," "navis," "ac," "multitudo," "Cupido," "princeps," "tempus," "spectaculum," "edere," "proelium," "visere," "proximus," "aqua," "opus" and "pugna." The conjunctive particle "ac," is more particularly to be noted as an out of the way word for the ordinary copulative "et": "ac tamen spatium amplexus"; "ac montium edita"; "ac post multum vulnerum," occurring so frequently in such a brief sentence is just like the monotony of composition in the extract from Bracciolini with respect to "cum": "cum pertinacius in erroribus perseveraret"; "cum venisset ad locum mortis"; "cum lictor ignem post tergum," &c.

But this is not all as to the resemblance which the passage from Bracciolini bears to the writing in the Annals. The expression "quam iste oppetiise," i.e. mortem, "videtur," has its exact counterpart in the Second Book of the Annals in the phrase: "vix cohibuere amici, quo minus eodem mari oppeteret," i.e. mortem (II. 24). When, too, Bracciolini says of Jerome of Prague, "se ipsum exuit vestimentis," "strips himself of his clothes," instead of simply, "takes off his clothes,"—"exuit vestimenta,"— we have an expression precisely like that in the Annals, "neutrum datis a se praemiis exuit," that is, "strips neither of the rewards which he had given him" (XIV. 55), instead of "takes away the rewards,"—"praemia exuit."

But I will go by-and-bye more fully into matters of this kind. At present it is necessary that I should still pursue the career of Bracciolini,—or rather so much of it as is absolutely needed, in order that the reader may see how curiously it prepared and formed him to be the author of such a peculiar work as the Annals, which in its characteristic singularity, could have proceeded from him only, and by no manner of means from Tacitus.