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Emperors and Imperial Discourse in Italy, c. 1300-1500

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Anne Huijbers

Imperium and res publica: conflict or harmony?

‘Tullius’ and res publica

Uses and attributions of the republican notion in fourteenth-century Italy

Carole Mabboux

Resumen

The historiography of Italian civic humanism has undergone important renewals since the 1990s. Following the work of Hans Baron, historians have discussed when this concept first emerged and what its criteria are. Identified by discursive, political, and civic characteristics, this movement has long been associated with communal institutions and an anticipated form of modern republicanism. This paper aims to reassess the presence and uses of the notion res publica during the first humanism movement in Italy, in communal and imperial discourses. It discusses the references to this expression, its attributes and the authorities associated with it. The republican notion can be situated in a more long-term moralist tradition and a specific place can be given to the Christianised Cicero – “Tullius” in medieval sources.

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  • 1 Baron 1955.
  • 2 For an overview of the historiographical debates that revised our understanding of civic humanism, (...)
  • 3 Lee 2018.

1Civic humanism, as described by Hans Baron in 1955, has long obscured the contribution of historical culture and humanist rhetoric to imperial discourse. According to Baron, the fundamental contribution of the first humanists to the political culture of its time consisted in an exclusive preference for republican forms of government – which would have persisted in contemporary manifestations of this constitutional option – and a new focus on the notions of libertas and individual investment in a vita activa – which was more highly valued than contemplative life.1 Baron attributed this evolution to both cultural (rediscovery and imitation of classical literature) and political changes (reconfiguration of power among the Florentine elites and the opposition to Visconti’s Milan around 1400). Both these causes and the characterisation of civic humanism have been widely discussed, modified and criticised by later historians.2 The humanistic characteristics traditionally attributed to the civic ideology have since been re-evaluated in non-communal institutional frameworks, including the Empire.3

  • 4 On this point, see Cary Nederman’s bibliography. For a general overview of the issue, see Nederman (...)

2Beyond the scope of its application, the political ideology associated with humanism has been discussed in its chronological framework. The conceptual and referential indicators identified by Baron and his successors can be observed in communal writings long before the diatribes of the Florentine chancellor Coluccio Salutati against his Milanese counterpart. Historians have predated the valorisation of civic engagement to the end of the thirteenth century, under the pen of the Florentine notary Brunetto Latini. Later, other researchers refused to distinguish between landmark authors and to identify a shift in political philosophy from a medieval to a humanist model.4

  • 5 Revest 2013.
  • 6 On the medieval reception of Cicero, see Mabboux 2022.
  • 7 In the twelfth century, De officiis served as a model, for example, for the Moralium dogma philoso (...)

3The reference to Cicero is considered to be a determining criterion of humanistic writing – partly because of the gradual shift in stylistic norms towards Ciceronianism.5 From the second third of the Trecento onwards, Tullius (as he was called by medieval writers in his role of auctoritas, while “Cicero” was the historical figure) was a master of prose and also a leading authority on community thinking. His private correspondence offered a review of his senatorial engagements. In preceding centuries, he was an example of political involvement in ancient Rome, a moral reference validated by tradition (transmitted in a Christianised form by the Church Fathers) and a rhetorical tutelage embedded into the didactic standards of the liberal arts.6 The rules for correctly integrating an individual into collective life were generally taken from De officiis, De inventione, and De amicitia. De republica was virtually unknown in the Middle Ages, because only its last book, Somnium Scipionis, continued to be copied. Despite his limited corpus, Cicero was the key reference for understanding social life through behavioural norms and the goals that each member of a civic society must set for himself.7 One important goal was the preservation of the res publica, or that which is common to all. The polysemy of the term and its modern political meanings have contributed to relating the Ciceronian “republic” to a type of regime, more than to collective practices and principles.

  • 8 Hermand-Schebat 2011.
  • 9 Some key quotations from the In Catilinam speeches were transmitted throughout the Middle Ages. In (...)

4The association of res publica with a political system was reinforced because Tullius, magister eloquentiae par excellence, served the rhetorical demonstrations of chancellors, masters and dictatores who were increasingly solicited from the thirteenth century onwards to support communal, imperial, and pontifical ideologies, and to establish the superiority of these governments in the written word. Cicero was both the argument and source of affirmations of supremacy and legitimation. Discourses, letters, and invectives were at the center of humanist political views. Their ancient counterparts attracted the attention of scholars seeking insight into the heroic lives of major Roman figures. These figures also inspired and shaped contemporary speeches, in which fluent Latin could be expressed with verve, and of which Petrarch’s are the most well-known.8 “Cicero”, which gradually replaced “Tullius” under the classical influence, inspired by his lexicon, by his style, and also by the forms of his political expression.9

5In order to compare urban and imperial discourses, it is necessary to examine the conceptual tools and references available to medieval authors. Although some topics appear to be specific to a type of power, others are, undoubtedly, wrongly considered specific to a given space because of diachronic evolution. Here we examine the republican notion, whose imperial use appears counter-intuitive at first. What is meant by res publica in the fourteenth century, when humanist writing entered the field of political praise? In what way did the growing influence of classical models lead to a divergent evolution of the term? What place is given to Cicero in this evolution, as a guide for forms of discourse and as a philosophical leader?

The medieval res publica: horizons of an Augustinian transmission

  • 10 Moatti 2001, p. 812.

6The res publica transmitted to medieval authors by late-antique texts is almost exclusively that of Cicero. Although the term res publica appears in earlier sources,10 the Ciceronian definition became established over the centuries as a lexical and conceptual referent. Thus, Augustine uses this notion as a basis for establishing whether or not a Roman republic had existed:

  • 11 Quae sententia fuerit Ciceronis de Romana republica. […] Scipio ad intermissa reuertitur recolitqu (...)

Cicero’s opinion of the Roman res publica. […] A res publica is the people’s estate. He specifies, however, that by a people he means, not every gathering of a throng, but a gathering united in fellowship by a common sense of right and a community of interest. Then he explains the great advantage of definition in debate, and he concludes from those particular definitions that a state, that is, a people’s estate, exists when there is good and lawful government […].11

  • 12 Cicero clarifies this meaning in the Pro Sestio discourse. See Zarecki 2014, p. 7.
  • 13 Kharkhordin 2010, p. 239.

7Through the Christian influence which the Augustinian tradition gave to Cicero, the republican semantics established by Cicero became a classic reference for the terminology relating to collective organisation. Res publica describes a wide variety of conditions, both material and idealistic, which unite members of a community; thus, since Antiquity it has referred to multiple objects: shared possessions, and those which more broadly relate to a collective interest12 or that which, through this interest, creates a common sense of belonging.13 As a result, the term can refer to a specific community of people, such as citizens, and through them denote the Roman state. However, according to Cicero, res publica does not describe a type of political regime.

  • 14 Sassier 1988, p. 27.
  • 15 Mager 1991.

8These definitions – and this last limitation – were spread unevenly during the Middle Ages. The term is present in Carolingian imperial documents and then in non-administrative texts to determine a common interest to all those governed.14 It evolved over the centuries to become synonymous with the political community. In the twelfth century, the governmental term of res publica emerged; res publica is what organises and orders the community, beyond the community itself and its resources.15 Reviewed by jurists, the notion can describe a collective entity endowed with jurisdictional autonomy.

  • 16 The practice of compilation induces lexical reproduction – which does not always go alongside conc (...)
  • 17 From the twelfth century, jurists were divided as to the appropriateness of such a definition. The (...)
  • 18 Bonaini 1855, p. 38.
  • 19 Dutour 2015.
  • 20 Among the edited statutes which use this vocabulary (rarely) in vernacular, see in particular the (...)

9By virtue of its long literary tradition and its polysemy, res publica is a recurring term in Italian texts from the fourteenth century, used in various thematic and lexical contexts. It is used to denote the state in all references to ancient Roman society, in compilations and sometimes in translated texts.16 In the movement of legal affirmation of the communes against the Empire, res publica is also sometimes synonymous with an autonomous city, with its own deliberative bodies. Thus, several communal statutes use this expression to denote their institutions or, more broadly, the interests of their citizens.17 The term, albeit rarely used, appears in several official urban documents. A fourteenth-century copy of the Florentine “Ordinances of Justice” of 1293, states, for example, that these were enacted pro evidenti Reipublice utilitate et necessaria causa.18 The presence and diffusion of this republican vocabulary in pragmatic literature in Italy during the thirteenth century has already been highlighted.19 Far from belonging to a lexicon specific to didactic literature, this expression would have been relatively integrated into a pragmatic political culture aimed at non-literate circles. The word republica appears in vernacular administrative documents, for example, in several communal statutes from Tuscany (Siena and Florence) during the fourteenth century.20

  • 21 For example, in the opening lines of Pro Marcello, Brunetto translates Cicero’s phrase: M. enim Ma (...)
  • 22 Antonio Pucci, Libro di varie storie, p. 159, 242, 249; Bettarini Bruni 2016.
  • 23 “Natura del folle è riprendere gli altrui vizi e non correggere sé de’ suoi. Buono uomo non fa mai (...)

10Nevertheless, for a long time the term was an alternative to a contemporary term and not a spontaneous signifier. It belongs to a lexicon that has been favoured for its classical connotations and for the ideological ambitions it conveys. Brunetto Latini generally does not include the term res publica in the vernacular version of his translations of Ciceronian speeches. He considers the term comune more adapted to a contemporary readership when referring to an idea – according to him similar – to a shared political institution.21 It appears that the term became more common during the fourteenth century among individuals involved in communal offices, who were more likely to be influenced by documents written by urban authorities, and among individuals who read classical Latin sources, sometimes through humanistic texts. For instance, the administrative activity of Antonio Pucci in the Florentine commune is documented throughout the second half of the Trecento; he uses the expression in vernacular form in his Libro di varie storie around 1362. Although he can be culturally assimilated to the historiographical category of illiterati – that is to say, men of culture who base their knowledge on non-Latin literature – he adopts the notion of “republic” without directly copying the classical expression, as evidenced by the spelling of the word (repubrica/repubbrica). Pucci refers to an expression that is presumably heard, rather than read.22 He uses it to describe examples from Antiquity within the framework of the Roman Republic, and to describe the moral notion of taking into consideration the collective good.23

  • 24 Tabacco 1979.
  • 25 Jacobus da Varagine, for example, uses res publica in the 1290s to describe the optimal functionin (...)
  • 26 In Franco Sacchetti’s Sposizioni dei Vangeli, around 1380, the communes can go against the Republi (...)
  • 27 “Tra’ quali era uno chiamato Pecora, gran beccaio, sostenuto da’ Tosinghi, il quale facea la sua a (...)
  • 28 De re publica quid ego tibi subtiliter? Tota periit: Cic., Att., II.21. See Moatti 2001, p. 822.
  • 29 The phrase res publica periit is particularly widespread, so much so that it can be found outside (...)

11The ideological dimension that underpins the use of the expression res publica in the fourteenth century exploits the lasting polysemy of the term. The res publica refers to a government through the influence of jurists and describes at the same time a judicious consideration of the needs of all and the preservation of collectively managed entities and goods. The notion has both moral and civic connotations, upon which the proponents of the first Italian communes could draw from the end of the twelfth century onwards.24 In the decades preceding the humanist movement, the use of the expression res publica was sometimes used to identify a political entity (government, civic group, city) but more often to describe the virtuous activities of the entity. In the tradition of the Augustinian definition, didactic works use this term to refer to the respect of justice and the defence of collective interests.25 In this respect, several authors at the end of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries distinguish the “commune” from the “republic” in their descriptions.26 Dino Compagni in the early fourteenth century, rarely used republica which refers to the optimal state of the Florentine commune, an ideal goal which is never achieved and, therefore, is only described by its absence and remoteness in unfortunate situations.27 This theme of the loss or destruction of the perfection of collective sentiment – a narrative and edifying theme already present in Cicero’s work28 – is particularly enduring and was revived by the early humanists.29

 

  • 30 Ronzani 2018.
  • 31 De Jong 2019, p. 198‑199.

12Evoking at the same time a recollection of ancient Rome, an ethical ideal of collective life and the materiality of government, the republic gradually saw its ideological influence shift towards the theme of political autonomy and insubordination to an external power, notably during the fourteenth century. This ancient interpretation seems to be gradually revived in conflicting Italian contexts. It was debated at length by jurists, and then it appears with increasing frequency from the thirteenth century onwards in texts whose primary purpose was neither teaching nor sovereign debate. For example, the Franciscan Salimbene di Adam states in his Chronica that secular powers must submit themselves to the Church, appointing the former as a res publica facing the Ecclesia.30 He then returns to a distinction frequently employed in the Carolingian period, distinguishing between the res of secular bodies and the res of the Church.31 In Salimbene’s case, the res publica indicates a responsibility and a right of action, the attribution of an authority over a defined space and type of object.

  • 32 Kennedy 2014; Atkins 2018.

13This search for exclusive attribution was advanced further by jurists with the reactivation of the notion libertas, which Cicero associated with the republic. According to him and in accordance with Augustinian tradition, the community of interests can only be recognised and preserved when a shared corpus of laws is established and respected. The maintenance of the republic implies the preservation of libertas, understood as the fight against injustice. In De republica, Cicero extends this notion to include the refusal of domination.32 This notion was quickly taken up by the polemical writings opposing the Empire and Church and gradually infiltrated the governmental culture of a wider literate public. Thus, during the fourteenth century, many authors associated republican ideals with the capacity for self-determination, integrating “freedom” into the lexical field of res publica. Giovanni Villani, for example, who wrote his Cronica between the 1320s and 1340s, uses the expression in vernacular to refer to ancient Rome and, at the same time, to highlight that the state of political autonomy could be endangered in contemporary times:

  • 33 Giovanni Villani, Cronica, VII.33, XI.213, XII.70, XIII.3 and 17. For emphasis, Italics were added (...)

Quegli che si chiamavano Guelfi amavano lo stato del papa e di santa Chiesa, e quegli che si chiamavano Ghibellini amavano e favoravano lo ‘mperadore e suoi seguaci, ma però il popolo e Comune di Firenze si mantenea in unitade, a bene e onore e stato della repubblica.
[…] il legato col re Giovanni aveano ordinato di cominciar guerra da più parti per sottomettere a·lloro la nostra Repubblica.
[…] dare asempro alla nostra città e popolo di Firenze a·ssapere i nostri cittadini guardare la libertà della nostra republica
I detti priori cogli altri ordini, dodici e’ gonfalonieri, e gli altri consiglieri, in nulla guisa vollono asentire di sottomettere la libertà della republica di Firenze. […] tutto avenne per l’unità in che·ssi trovaro i cittadini a ricoverare la loro libertà e quella della republica del Comune. […] il detto duca occupò con frode e tradigione la libertà della republica di Firenze.33

14The lexical and conceptual debt to Cicero appears obvious, but is it real? Were the Italian authors of the fourteenth century aware, upon using the republican notion, that they were returning to a path already mapped out by the ancient philosopher?

Cicero: the authority on public moral thought

  • 34 For example, the Liber glossarum was written in the 8th century but formed the basis of later dict (...)
  • 35 Mountford 1925, p. 120.
  • 36 Dante Alighieri, Monarchia, II.5.
  • 37 Petrarch, Rerum memorandarum libri, III.69.

15Before the end of the fourteenth century and the emergence of writings which directly confronted classical sources, the Ciceronian filiation of the republic is rarely highlighted. Lexically, the word is not automatically associated with the works of Cicero. Res publica rarely appears in medieval glossaries. Cicero is frequently cited for terms which might appear somewhat unspecific to medieval readers – except for frequent references to the speeches against Catiline.34 The term res publica is present in the Liber glossarum, with the term patria as a synonym, and its significance is explained through the anonymous quotation of the Ciceronian De republica.35 This work is sometimes referred to in discussions about types of government, but his quotations are usually referenced as Augustine’s. The Ciceronian filiation is more readily cited in the fourteenth century as auctorial and moralist support in legal discussions. Dante, for example, draws on De inventione, De officiis, and De finibus for a long passage from the second book of the Monarchia in which he discusses the bonum rei publice. Through Cicero, he aims to recall that the purpose of laws is to preserve the common interest. It is also through the words of the ancient moralist that he intends to show that the “submission” imposed by the Roman people on those around them did not oppose the ideals of freedom – and that it was for the benefit of the collective good.36 Also Petrarch draws on De officiis and on a moral conception of the State in order to recall what, according to him, should guide the formation of a city or a republic: the will to go beyond individual interest.37

  • 38 Fioravanti 1999; Sère 2010.
  • 39 La Salle – Blythe 2005; Yun 2008.
  • 40 Nederman – Sullivan 2008.

16Cicero was first and foremost a rhetorical and moral authority in the Middle Ages. It is therefore logical to see him assuming the role of adviser for social order from an ethical rather than a legal or institutional perspective. Other auctoritates also held this position, notably Aristotle, particularly from the thirteenth century onwards.38 Were the intellectual and conceptional contributions of these authorities considered contradictory by medieval authors? This question is currently being debated by historians. Around 1300, the Dominican Ptolemy of Lucca extended the De regno by Thomas Aquinas, in order to discuss the period when “civic humanism” appeared in Italy.39 Reflecting on a hierarchy of power, Ptolemy favoured collective governments, on the basis of the preservation of the common good. Today, however, there is relative agreement on Ptolemy’s conservatism regarding the choice of his sources of both Roman and Christian inspiration.40 Cicero is cited in De regno, with some passages from his De legibus and Tusculanae disputationes, for example, which aim to define the law and to express how political activity is the highest art form granted to man. He does not aim to define regimes, but to describe how they enable, or not, the res publica to be respected as a common good.

 

17Other ancient concepts seem to have replaced res publica in transmitting Ciceronian thought on civic and community relationships. Cicero’s influence is more frequently found in the use of the lexicons civitas and bonum commune. In addition to describing a city or institution, civitas is used to refer to a community of citizens, as Brunetto Latini recalls in the Rettorica through a definition inspired by the Augustinian tradition:

  • 41 “Che è cittade – Cittade è uno raunamento di gente fatto per vivere a ragione; onde non sono detti (...)

A definition of a city. The city is the assembly of people with the aim to live under the same law; thus, those who are called “citizens” of the same commune are not so called because they are grouped together within the same area; but because they are welcomed to live under the same law.41

  • 42 Concordia est virtus concives et compatriotas in eodem iure et cohabitacione spontanee vinciens: M (...)
  • 43 Quid est autem civitas, nisi multitudo hominum in quoddam vinculum redacta concordiae? Apud eos en (...)

18Brunetto emphasises the spatial and juridical unity of civitas, which described the people in Cicero’s work. The notion is also sometimes translated as concordia. Thus, for the Moralium dogma philosophorum, “the concordia is the virtue uniting fellow citizens and compatriots under the same law and in spontaneous cohabitation”.42 The patristic tradition christianised this notion by associating its implementation with an individual quest: Concordia is used by Augustine to describe both a balance between sentiment and will and the understanding between men. However, Augustine borrows the association between civitas and the sense of unity from Cicero.43

  • 44 Bruni 2006.
  • 45 Remigio dei Girolami, p. 152, 160, 196, 224.
  • 46 Among the quotations used by Remigio, some passages from the De officiis are frequent in communal (...)

19This inclusive concept of society is also expressed by the notion of bonum commune. In 1301, the Dominican Remigio dei Girolami was one of the first authors to write a treatise on peace in the communal world. He invites his readers to favour “common good” rather than factional interests. Remigio compiles all the arguments – some based on the authority of the Bible – in one treatise (De bono comuni) demonstrating the moral and material benefits of consensus which alone can ensure the prosperity of a community. Three years later, he renews this idea in De bono pacis, questioning the sacrifices that an individual can or must make for collective peace. The objective is to prove that shared benefits include private benefits. In each of the two works, Remigio bases his argument on Aristotelian theories. He borrows the ontological concept of a society which subordinates the individual – inevitably imperfect since it is part of a larger whole – to the civic community, regarded as an absolute unit.44 The Ciceronian comments complement the contributions of the Nicomachean Ethics. Remigio regards Cicero as a thinker on public morality, who addresses the cohesion of the community and the necessity of making the common good a standard.45 To achieve this, Remigio uses two of Cicero’s recommendations: to seek collective utilitas and to align one’s own goods with it.46

  • 47 Lecuppre-Desjardin – Van Bruaene 2010.
  • 48 Sère 2010, p. 280‑281.
  • 49 The ideal of the common good is regularly invoked in texts concerning communes, kingdoms, the Chur (...)
  • 50 Kempshall 1999, p. 16‑17.
  • 51 Ibid., p. 24.

20Bonum commune is a recurrent notion in medieval sources, although it refers to distinct contexts, with some semantic variations including “common good”, “common utility” and “good of the commune”.47 In the Middle Ages, although the term might have had a simple patrimonial meaning, it was conceived as a moral ambition. In fact, scholastic thought, based on Aristotelian texts, defined the good of the community as the supreme, most divine good.48 However, the medieval reference to the “common good” appears before the rediscovery of the Aristotelian texts.49 The term was already being used at the beginning of the thirteenth century in the Corpus iuris civilis and the Stoic concepts spread by the works of Cicero.50 These notions are more practical than metaphysical. While scholasticism considers the common good in the context of virtue, valued for its capacity to bring the individual closer to the notion of the Good, the Ciceronian notions, spread by Augustine, encourage the search for a shared utilitas.51 In the last third of the thirteenth century the two ancient interpretations merged, so that the vocabulary and definitions used no longer allowed a formal identification of the sources inspiring the “common good”. The expression becomes a topos of regulatory texts and libri de regimine, so much so that within political arguments the negation of the common good becomes a characteristic of tyranny. From the twelfth century, jurists brought together the capacity for people to act for the collective good and the notion of libertas.

  • 52 Achard 1981, p. 316‑320.
  • 53 The expression is used by Benvenuto da Imola in his commentary on Dante’s Commedia: Roma etiam fui (...)
  • 54 Frequently mentioned figures include Cato (against Caesar), Cicero (against Catiline) and Manlius (...)
  • 55 Anonimo romano, p. 161; Di Carpegna Falconieri 2002, p. 71.
  • 56 Petrarch, Varia, p. 42. Petrarch refers to the Roman barons, who were opposed to Cola, as foreigne (...)

21In Cicero’s work, as with several authors of republican Rome, libertas describes a community regulated by laws to prevent arbitrariness and the capacity for legislative self-determination of the citizens.52 The term frequently appears in the historiography of communes which invariably uses the lexicon libertas to discuss the institutional birth of the commune and the risks taken against the Empire. A shift occurred in the first decades of the fourteenth century; the term became frequent in treatises, in the context of opposition between universal powers and of the increasing power of the lordships. However, the Italian communes had a historical model of a free city: Republican Rome. As the true patria libertatis,53 Rome is depicted as an example of success and courage, by individuals who saved their fellow citizens from submission to an illegitimate power.54 Thus, the communal ambition of Cola di Rienzo in Rome was supported by a lexical and conceptual notion reinforcing the parallelism between an ancient republican city and medieval urban self-governments. He associated the overthrow of power with a “liberation” which he demonstrated in May 1347 when he took the title of libertatis, pacis iusticieque tribunus.55 Petrarch clarifies this title in a letter addressed to Cola the following month: the freedom described is the capacity for self-determination of citizens in a city insubordinate to foreign powers.56 Petrarch here associates freedom with republican institutions. Glorifying Cola, his letter is characterised by civic representations of the ancient republic, advocating death over the submission of the city. Thus, in this context, freedom has a patriotic value.

  • 57 Coluccio Salutati, Contra maledicum et obiurgatorem, p. 230‑232.
  • 58 Skinner 1984.
  • 59 Nulla libertas maior quam optimo principi, cum iusta praecipiat, oboedire: Coluccio Salutati, De t (...)

22Coluccio Salutati defended freedom in the invectives he exchanged with Antonio Loschi in 1403-1404,57 using the Roman legal concept and examples of figures from Antiquity (including Cicero vs Catiline). Salutati associates political freedom with a specific type of regime that is the Republic or, in its medieval form, the Florentine commune. According to him, the monarchy restricts freedom to a minority, which enjoys it as a privilege. Libertas must allow the convergence of personal interests: it is a freedom of action and demand.58 However, Salutati gives a very different interpretation in De tyranno: “there is no greater liberty than obedience to the just commands of a virtuous prince”.59 The phrase is proverbial, transmitted in many compilations, so the author does not make its meaning explicit. This variation shows Salutati’s opportunistic use of the notion. Libertas is used to differentiate Florence from other modes of government in an offensive argument.

23The Ciceronian legacy is used here to promote a regime. While his personality and his political commitment were criticised from the first “rediscoveries” of his private correspondence in the 1330s, Cicero continues to be considered as an unsurpassable authority on justice, in its ethical sense, during the fourteenth century. His opposition to Caesar and Catiline made him a republican figure in humanist imagery. But the idea that Cicero, a humanist politician, would have been republican in a strictly communal sense is now being questioned. Through his conceptual and lexical contributions, Cicero is associated with the civitas of men more than with institutional forms in fourteenth-century sources: moral auctoritas, he serves the libertas of Florence as much as he can guarantee the historical legality of the Empire.

The Ciceronian res publica and imperial discourse

  • 60 Lee 2018, p. 21.

24It has been frequently observed that the most well-known Ciceronian texts of the Middle Ages could have provided advice to monarchical governments and communal authorities.60 The same goes for their promotion. As discussed previously, several authors appointed to political office chose to base their demands for autonomy on Cicero’s auctoritas, while taking advantage of the achievements of the Republic, with which he is historically associated. However, as tradition has made him a standard reference for moral canons, Cicero can also be seen to support philo-imperial arguments – or, less specifically, supporting the need for universal power.

  • 61 Quaglioni 2012.
  • 62 Dante Alighieri, Monarchia, I.1.2.
  • 63 Ibid., II.v.7.
  • 64 Ibid., p. 327‑389.
  • 65 Ibid., p. 406, 409, 414, 422.

25Cicero appears regularly in fourteenth-century polemical literature claiming the pre-eminence of the Empire over the Church. Following the establishment of communal Italy, this imperial support is often expressed by the joint assurance that urban freedom is to be respected. Notably, this can be seen in Dante’s Monarchia. Written around 1313, the text defends the rights of the emperor and, as a counterpoint, reduces papal tutelage over the Guelph communes.61 From the first sentences of the treatise, Dante recalls that it is everyone’s duty to contribute to the res publica.62 While his arguments are above all Aristotelian, he includes Cicero in his discussion, particularly to demonstrate the historical legality of the Roman Empire and its necessity in order to achieve universal concord. Cicero’s words are used to present the extension of the Empire as a positive effect of respecting the common good. Cicero serves as a historical source and a standard authority for defining the moral practice of government, in passages describing just war and the primacy of collective interests.63 This treatise quickly became a success among Italian readership and there were at least two commentaries of the Monarchia in the fourteenth century. However, these commentaries unequally relay the place given to Cicero in the hypotext. Around 1330, the Dominican Guido Vernani, who opposed the philo-imperial vision of Dante in his De reprobatione monarchie, does not discuss the Ciceronian statements in the Monarchia and does not rely on them to support his argument.64 According to him, Cicero’s authority on political matters is not pertinent. Thus, it does not require correction. On the contrary, Cola di Rienzo supported Dante’s opinion in his work In Monarchiam commentarium, some twenty years later. Not only does he note the uses of the Ciceronian reference, but he adds other reflections made by Cicero. Cola quotes De officiis on the subject of justice, recalling its virtuous character and social role.65 He expresses his affection for Tullio nostro, but limits his political opinions, restricting his statements to the general morality of behaviour. One perceives, through these examples, a wider reality in terms of intellectual and cultural tutelage. The majority of the pro-pontifical treatises replying to Dante rarely quote pagan authors, following De reprobatione monarchie. References are preferentially taken from works written in a strictly Christian tradition. The Scriptures form a lexical and illustrative corpus frequently used by both sides, but pagan wisdom, expressed by historical or philosophical means, is more specific to the supporters of the Empire.

26Thus, about ten years after Dante, Marsilius of Padua also partly based his argument on pagan authors in the Defensor pacis, often in demonstrations of authority:

  • 66 Hec rursum docenti seu predicanti Romano aut alteri cuivis episcopo credere vel obtemperare, nil a (...)

Again, to believe or obey the Roman or any bishop when he teaches or preaches such things is nothing other than to allow the root of all principates to be cut out from under and the chain and bond of any civil order or realm to be dissolved. For I do not think such things have any root or bond other than the mutual oath and good faith of subjects and princes. As Cicero states in Book I of De officiis, this faith is the foundation of all justice.66

  • 67 Briguglia 2014, p. 22.
  • 68 Capdevila 2010.
  • 69 According to Alan Gewirth, the first part of the text is “republican” and addresses communal aspir (...)
  • 70 According to Marsilius, a realistic concept of individual interest demonstrates that it cannot be (...)
  • 71 Quillet 1963.
  • 72 Marsilius of Padua, Defensor pacis, I.i.4.
  • 73 Ibid., I.xiv.3. Despite few quotations (there is no mention of Cicero’s works in the Defensor mino (...)

27In this treatise of 1324, Marsilius, a physician and spokesman for the Ghibellines, supported a society unified by the emperor, in order to resolve the conflicts that were destroying Italy. According to him, the political ambitions of the papacy amount to rhetorical demonstrations, which can be reduced to sophism.67 This temporal power is not justifiable, neither by law nor by the Scriptures. The pope, in his role as bishop, is subject to the emperor, who must respect the divine law as interpreted by the council.68 Marsilius’s commitment to an institutionally “republican” principle has been discussed.69 Although he makes little use of the term res publica, he nevertheless suggests placing the common good at the heart of his reflections and urges for an engaged citizenship, requiring all individuals to take part in maintaining political order and peace.70 Aristotle is the main source of inspiration, in addition to the sacred sources which provide the majority of the arguments in the Defensor pacis.71 Cicero only appears in the background of the work, but Marsilius gives him a social dimension, not only a moral one, with De officiis serving as a call for collective investment.72 Moreover, Marsilius makes Cicero an illustration of the effective governmental use of prudence, by his fight against Catiline: this, at the price of illegality, averted a civil war.73

  • 74 Conversely, there is no mention of pagan authors in the memoir written by Ugolino da Celle for the (...)
  • 75 Ptolemy of Lucca, Determinatio compendiosa, p. 253‑316.
  • 76 Scholz 1914, p. 16‑28.
  • 77 Ibid., p. 76‑88

28The use of Cicero in philo-imperial arguments may seem paradoxical at first. Authors such as Dante, Marsilius, and Cola mainly refer to Cicero, in their defence of communal autonomy and a peaceful society, at the price of an alliance with the Empire against pontifical universalism.74 Ancient republican authorities often serve to counter papal ambitions rather than to defend the imperial government. Conversely, the defenders of pontifical power favoured sacred sources and canon law to support their position, abandoning sources from Antiquity. For example, there is no mention of Cicero in Determinatio compendiosa de iurisdictione imperii by Ptolemy of Lucca, written around 1300.75 Likewise, Cicero’s name is absent in the works opposing the treatise of Marsilius of Padua. At the end of the 1320s, Cicero does not appear in the Reprobatio errorum by Guglielmo Amidani,76 nor in the Contra Bavarum by Francesco Toti.77

  • 78 Capdevila 2010.

29The difference in the use of Ciceronian texts between the supporters of the Empire and the promoters of pontifical power is related to the arguments that these two sides supported rather than a desire to exclude pagan authors. Hierocratic views place ecclesial mediation at the heart of social organisation and are based, in many cases, on a corporeal metaphor portraying the soul as the guide of the various members. However, the theme of political mediation is rarely addressed by Cicero outside De legibus. According to Cicero, it is the general consensus of the citizens that empowers the magistrate, without divine intervention or justification. On the contrary, its evocation seems relevant in support of the notion of people’s sovereignty developed, in particular, by Marsilius of Padua.78 Because of his republican tropism, Cicero is not cited at the same frequency by both sides. He is cited to support philo-imperial claims in positive, valorising arguments. Conversely, he is seldom cited in derogatory statements attempting to prove the illegitimacy of the opposing power. This lack is attributable, on the one hand, to his depiction of the citizen as an indirect ruler, a concept that is far removed from the strict distinction of statuses that is implied by the universal power; and on the other hand, to his emphasis, outside of the De republica, on civic practice rather than on the theory of powers.

 

  • 79 Huijbers 2020.
  • 80 Bolaffi 1949.

30The imperial discourse uses the republican reference,79 as do the supporters of urban self-governments during the fourteenth century in Italy. In various cases, the arguments are based on ancient Christian legacy that establishes res publica as a fight against arbitrariness and to preserve collective interest. They both employ an image of an honest politician (governor or citizen, judged on his behaviour and intentions) from the Roman Republic, notably through moral examples provided by Sallust, which were particularly popular in Italy from the beginning of the thirteenth century.80 We could then wonder what change historiography has identified through civic humanism. With what respect has this change sealed the two distinct evolutions of the republican notion within and outside of Florence, within and outside of a power characterized as collective?

  • 81 On the example of Cato, see Faivre 2010.
  • 82 Historians of Florence have since shown that the literary movement of civic humanism identified by (...)
  • 83 Gilli 2004.
  • 84 The institutional definition making res publica inoperative in a monarchy is late: Hankins 2010.
  • 85 Coluccio Salutati addressing Antonio Loschi with his invective against Milan, uses res publica onl (...)

31One aspect of this evolution involved an increasing use of the expression res publica in the late fourteenth century, when, in preceding decades, terms such as civitas, the common good or libertas would have been used. The linguistic and literary practices of the emerging humanism played a significant role in this process. Direct comparisons with classical texts gradually resulted in the imitation of lexicons – that of res publica was particularly present in Cicero’s work. Thus, there is a spontaneous use of the expression especially at the end of the Trecento, but without a quotation from the classical source. Beyond the lexicon, this increased use is due to the association of ideas concealed in res publica, conveyed partly by the exempla of the heroes of collective devotion, including Cato.81 The moral tradition associated with their edifying value reflects on the Republic that they defend, the related ideals of freedom (philosophical and political) and peace. But these recurring references do not exclude philo-imperial authors from this evolution. The distancing of the republican notion in Florence is not related to the opportunity of an argumentative mobilisation, as res publica and its medieval continuations were standard in the governmental didactics of each institutional space. Nor is the distancing due to a marked change in political practices, as Hans Baron suggested.82 According to recent historiography, the distancing from the Florentine republican model in the fourteenth century and the first years of the fifteenth century did not bring anything to the political culture at the time: it was the continuation of concepts and references which had already been used in the past.83 If we exclude the stylistic evolution which reproduces the Ciceronian modes of expression, the main originality of the use of the republican concept by the first humanists, considered a posteriori as “civic”, does not concern the definition of the notion,84 nor its argumentative value, but the argumentative context in which it is set. From meliorative demonstrations seeking to enhance one power (at the expense of another), the republic, as explained by Cicero, becomes a vehicle of hostility. It rarely takes the form of res publica, but uses more traditional lexicons,85 and no longer defines the moral ideal. With its historical background, it describes in concrete terms the digressions in which the opponents of the collective good get lost. The defence of republican ideals takes the form of invectives, using the model of Cicero’s passionate speeches against Catiline and Mark Antony, whose behaviour was considered destructive. The Republican defence becomes denunciation. It does not condemn any institutional framework, but attacks those who betray ancient political ideals (both individual and collective), whether they belong to universal, shared or individual governments.

Conclusion

  • 86 For an example of a philo-imperial use of the republican notion by a master of rhetoric in the ear (...)

32The medieval concept of res publica, which was particularly polysemic and transmitted under various terms, corresponds to the norms transmitted by the Cicero-Augustinian tradition. In the thirteenth century, this concept got enriched by an Aristotelian influence that was soon integrated into a larger corpus of behavioural and moral rules concerning participation in collective life. In the fourteenth century, the republican notion was still a moral objective rather than a governmental type. It therefore applied to every member of a civic body and to every entity regulating the latter, in accordance with Christian principles. The res publica, as described in the fourteenth century, should be interpreted over a long period of time: it is part of a scriptural tradition of advice to rulers that the valorisation of vita activa only superficially renews. As a rejection of arbitrariness, the republican argument answers the legal and anti-tyrannical claims of the majority of established governments, as well as of those trying to establish themselves. In this sense, res publica has always been integrated into imperial discourses.86

33The Ciceronian reference and the classical turn at the end of the fourteenth century enabled an opportunistic reconsideration of the arguments that were available to valorise a government or discredit its opponents. The republican notion undergoes few interpretative changes but acquires considerable strength through different forms of political communication, such as invectives or official discourses. Alongside the notion, the lexical fields are recomposed, gradually giving greater space to libertas, dethroning the ancient omnipresence of concordia.

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Notas

1 Baron 1955.

2 For an overview of the historiographical debates that revised our understanding of civic humanism, see Hankins 2000.

3 Lee 2018.

4 On this point, see Cary Nederman’s bibliography. For a general overview of the issue, see Nederman 2019.

5 Revest 2013.

6 On the medieval reception of Cicero, see Mabboux 2022.

7 In the twelfth century, De officiis served as a model, for example, for the Moralium dogma philosophorum, an anonymous compilation describing the rules of sensible conduct in accordance with Christian principles. The work was a great success in Italy until the fourteenth century. See Delhaye 1971.

8 Hermand-Schebat 2011.

9 Some key quotations from the In Catilinam speeches were transmitted throughout the Middle Ages. In addition, the three speeches before Caesar (Pro Marcello, Pro Ligario, Pro rege Deiotaro) met with great success in Italy as early as the thirteenth century. Finally, copies of the correspondence of Cicero and the Philippicae increase during the fourteenth century.

10 Moatti 2001, p. 812.

11 Quae sententia fuerit Ciceronis de Romana republica. […] Scipio ad intermissa reuertitur recolitque suam atque commendat breuem rei publicae definitionem, qua dixerat eam esse rem populi. Populum autem non omnem coetum multitudinis, sed coetum iuris consensu et utilitatis communione sociatum esse determinat: Aug., Civ., II.21. See Cic., Rep., I.39.

12 Cicero clarifies this meaning in the Pro Sestio discourse. See Zarecki 2014, p. 7.

13 Kharkhordin 2010, p. 239.

14 Sassier 1988, p. 27.

15 Mager 1991.

16 The practice of compilation induces lexical reproduction – which does not always go alongside conceptual reproduction. See Croizy-Naquet 2007. The expression is also transposed into medieval Italian by some popularisers. For example, in the first decade of the fourteenth century, the Dominican Bartolomeo da San Concordio, used the term repubblica to translate some references to res publica in De Catilinae coniuratione by Sallust. In other cases, he adopted the term comune, considered more current, in keeping with his approach of adapting a classical text to a contemporary readership. See Bartolomeo da San Concordio, Il Catilinario; Bambi 2009, p. 444‑445.

17 From the twelfth century, jurists were divided as to the appropriateness of such a definition. They questioned the sovereignty of communes and some considered that res publica could only refer to Rome. Rolando da Lucca applied it to civitates, as did Azzone da Bologna (late twelfth to early thirteenth century) and, later, Bartolo da Sassoferrato (fourteenth century). See Conte 2008, p. 207; Canning 1987, p. 123.

18 Bonaini 1855, p. 38.

19 Dutour 2015.

20 Among the edited statutes which use this vocabulary (rarely) in vernacular, see in particular the Siena statutes of 1309/1310 and the Florentine statutes of 1356/1357.

21 For example, in the opening lines of Pro Marcello, Brunetto translates Cicero’s phrase: M. enim Marcello vobis, patres conscripti, reique publicae reddito, as “essendo renduto Marco Marcello a voi, signori Senatori, ed al comune di Roma”. In order to update and better understand the aim of the authors, Brunetto translates the situations into a vocabulary for everyday use. Therefore, the notion of res publica is not entirely transparent or, at least, somewhat unnatural, to readers at the end of the fourteenth century. See Brunetto Latini, Pro Marcello, p. 336 ; Cic., Marcell., 2.

22 Antonio Pucci, Libro di varie storie, p. 159, 242, 249; Bettarini Bruni 2016.

23 “Natura del folle è riprendere gli altrui vizi e non correggere sé de’ suoi. Buono uomo non fa mai contra repubbrica né contra saramento né contra fede”: Pucci, Libro di varie storie, p. 242.

24 Tabacco 1979.

25 Jacobus da Varagine, for example, uses res publica in the 1290s to describe the optimal functioning of a city according to ethical criteria: “insuper animas eorum malo exemplo corrumpunt et ad desperationem pertrahunt, et sic demonibus sunt peiores. avari etiam iudices et rectores non curant de re publica, sed tantum de propria […]. Sequitur VIIIa. pars, in qua ponitur quales debentesse cives et habitatores civitatum […] in tertio, quod debent esse rei publice çelatores maximi. See Jacobus da Varagine, Chronica civitatis Ianuensis, p. 146, 150.

26 In Franco Sacchetti’s Sposizioni dei Vangeli, around 1380, the communes can go against the Republic, which is understood as a collective interest: “si potrebbe dire oggi a destruzione de la Republica e a conservazione del ben proprio de li Re, dei Principi e de’ Comuni, che quelle aumentano e conservano”. See Franco Sacchetti, Sposizioni di Vangeli, p. 124.

27 “Tra’ quali era uno chiamato Pecora, gran beccaio, sostenuto da’ Tosinghi, il quale facea la sua arte con falsi modi e nocivi alla republica”; “molte villanie furono dette a’ priori vecchi a gran torto […] molto gli vituperavano per piacere agli adversari, e molti dispiaceri ebbono. E chi disse mal di loro mentirono, perché tutti furono disposti al bene comune e all’onore della republica”. See Dino Compagni, Cronica, I.13, II.21.

28 De re publica quid ego tibi subtiliter? Tota periit: Cic., Att., II.21. See Moatti 2001, p. 822.

29 The phrase res publica periit is particularly widespread, so much so that it can be found outside classical literature. It is present in the Liber de gestis in civitate Mediolani by the Dominican Stefanardo da Vimercate at the end of the thirteenth century, and in Roman de Fauvel, a satirical poem from the 1310s. See Stacey 2007, p. 113‑115; Rosenberg – Tischler 1991, p. 56. Petrarch overturns the Ciceronian statement through the words of Scipio in Africa: Proceres, quibus ultima cura est urbis et imperii, vestigia nostra sequantur! Publica res nondum periit! See Petrarch, Africa, l. 209.

30 Ronzani 2018.

31 De Jong 2019, p. 198‑199.

32 Kennedy 2014; Atkins 2018.

33 Giovanni Villani, Cronica, VII.33, XI.213, XII.70, XIII.3 and 17. For emphasis, Italics were added by the author.

34 For example, the Liber glossarum was written in the 8th century but formed the basis of later dictionaries. It defines the verb abutere (reformulated into male uteris) from the famous introductory sentence of the first speech against Catiline. See Cecchini 2000; Cic, Catil, I.1. The Synonyma Ciceronis, named after Cicero in late Antiquity, does not contain the entry res publica. See Gatti 1993 and 1994.

35 Mountford 1925, p. 120.

36 Dante Alighieri, Monarchia, II.5.

37 Petrarch, Rerum memorandarum libri, III.69.

38 Fioravanti 1999; Sère 2010.

39 La Salle – Blythe 2005; Yun 2008.

40 Nederman – Sullivan 2008.

41 “Che è cittade – Cittade è uno raunamento di gente fatto per vivere a ragione; onde non sono detti cittadini d’uno medesimo comune perché siano insieme accolti dentro ad uno muro, ma quelli che insieme sono acolti a vivere ad una ragione”: Brunetto Latini, Rettorica, p. 10.

42 Concordia est virtus concives et compatriotas in eodem iure et cohabitacione spontanee vinciens: Moralium dogma philosophorum, p. 27.

43 Quid est autem civitas, nisi multitudo hominum in quoddam vinculum redacta concordiae? Apud eos enim ita legitur: Ita brevi multitudo dispersa atque vaga, concordia civitas facta erat: Aug., Epist., 138.10. The quoted phrase is supposedly taken from De republica; the philologists postulate that Augustine mentions a now lost passage from the Ciceronian text. It was not until the thirteenth century that concordia became synonymous with "peace" to describe, increasingly commonly, the ideal state of social and institutional stability. The association between pax and concordia could, among other things, have been inspired by several passages in De civitate Dei, in which Augustine defines one of the words using the second. Thus, to describe peace between citizens: Pax civitatis, ordinata imperandi atque obediendi concordia civium. See Aug., Civ., XIX.13.

44 Bruni 2006.

45 Remigio dei Girolami, p. 152, 160, 196, 224.

46 Among the quotations used by Remigio, some passages from the De officiis are frequent in communal writings; they highlight Plato’s advice. See ibid., p. 152; Cic., Off., I.22 and 85.

47 Lecuppre-Desjardin – Van Bruaene 2010.

48 Sère 2010, p. 280‑281.

49 The ideal of the common good is regularly invoked in texts concerning communes, kingdoms, the Church and monastic communities. Conversely, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Empire made minimal use of this terminology because of its association with a political culture which was traditionally hostile to imperial universalism. See Pio 2012.

50 Kempshall 1999, p. 16‑17.

51 Ibid., p. 24.

52 Achard 1981, p. 316‑320.

53 The expression is used by Benvenuto da Imola in his commentary on Dante’s Commedia: Roma etiam fuit patria libertatis, unde omnis liber homo appellatur civis romanus in iure civili. See Benvenuto da Imola, Comentum, Purgatorium, XXXII.

54 Frequently mentioned figures include Cato (against Caesar), Cicero (against Catiline) and Manlius Torquatus (against the Etruscans). Thus, in the Convivio: “Tulio contra tanto cittadino quanto era Catellina la romana libertate difese”. See Dante Alighieri, Convivio, IV.v.19.

55 Anonimo romano, p. 161; Di Carpegna Falconieri 2002, p. 71.

56 Petrarch, Varia, p. 42. Petrarch refers to the Roman barons, who were opposed to Cola, as foreigners, recalling the barbarians of ancient Rome.

57 Coluccio Salutati, Contra maledicum et obiurgatorem, p. 230‑232.

58 Skinner 1984.

59 Nulla libertas maior quam optimo principi, cum iusta praecipiat, oboedire: Coluccio Salutati, De tyranno, p. 128.

60 Lee 2018, p. 21.

61 Quaglioni 2012.

62 Dante Alighieri, Monarchia, I.1.2.

63 Ibid., II.v.7.

64 Ibid., p. 327‑389.

65 Ibid., p. 406, 409, 414, 422.

66 Hec rursum docenti seu predicanti Romano aut alteri cuivis episcopo credere vel obtemperare, nil aliud est quam omnium principatuum radicem succidi sinere, vinculum et nexum cuiuscumque civilitatis et regni dissolvi. Non enim radicem et nexum huiusmodi arbitror alium, nisi mutuum iuramentum et fidem subditorum et principum. Hec enim, fides scilicet, ut inquit Tullius, De officiis, libro primo, omnis est fundamentum iusticie: Marsilius of Padua, Defensor pacis, II.xxvi.13.

67 Briguglia 2014, p. 22.

68 Capdevila 2010.

69 According to Alan Gewirth, the first part of the text is “republican” and addresses communal aspirations, while the rest of the Defensor pacis addresses a more individual concept of power. See Gewirth 1951. His work was opposed in the 1970s by Hasso Hofmann’s work on the notion of representation in the Middle Ages.

70 According to Marsilius, a realistic concept of individual interest demonstrates that it cannot be entirely subject to the common good. See Nederman 2003.

71 Quillet 1963.

72 Marsilius of Padua, Defensor pacis, I.i.4.

73 Ibid., I.xiv.3. Despite few quotations (there is no mention of Cicero’s works in the Defensor minor or the De translatione Imperii), Cary Nederman argues that Marsilius can be considered as both Ciceronian and Aristotelian, especially with respect to his description of the origins of the society. See Nederman 1988.

74 Conversely, there is no mention of pagan authors in the memoir written by Ugolino da Celle for the emperor in 1323. See Stengel 1921, p. 71‑79. The jurist Giovanni Brancazolo only quotes Cicero indirectly in De principio et origine et potencia imperatoris et pape, in 1312, via Macrobe. See ibid., p. 44-52.

75 Ptolemy of Lucca, Determinatio compendiosa, p. 253‑316.

76 Scholz 1914, p. 16‑28.

77 Ibid., p. 76‑88

78 Capdevila 2010.

79 Huijbers 2020.

80 Bolaffi 1949.

81 On the example of Cato, see Faivre 2010.

82 Historians of Florence have since shown that the literary movement of civic humanism identified by Baron did not correspond to an evolution of intra-urban political reality and was not entirely caused by a change in geopolitical relations. The ideology aimed at a weakening of Florentine corporate power rather than a defence against Milan. See Najemy 2000.

83 Gilli 2004.

84 The institutional definition making res publica inoperative in a monarchy is late: Hankins 2010.

85 Coluccio Salutati addressing Antonio Loschi with his invective against Milan, uses res publica only as a synonym for a political entity.

86 For an example of a philo-imperial use of the republican notion by a master of rhetoric in the early thirteenth century, see Raccagni 2013.

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