La polemica sulla nobiltà nell’Italia del Quattrocento

Abstract

In the year 1440, Poggio Bracciolini wrote his work «De nobilitate», where he asserted that true nobility results only from virtue and not from lineage and old wealth. Moreover, he censured all the real aristocracies of the italian cities, except Florence, and foreign countries. Many very harsh angry replies came from italian cities, which carried on a very heated controversy. Leonardo da Chio (Genoa), Lauro Quirini and Paolo Morosini (Venice), Jacopo di Porcìa (Friuli) and Tristano Caracciolo (naples), although they acknowledged the importance of virtue, it was nobility from lineage and old wealth they defended the most. At the end of the century, Antonio De Ferrariis (Lecce) re-asserted that nobility could result only from virtue.