Exil und Heimatferne in der Literatur des Humanismus von Petrarca bis zum Anfang des 16. Jahrhunderts
mirum est livor si vos exegit ab urbe.
Semper enim sequitur virtutem livor et una
gloria quae radiis livorem splendida perdit
denique. Thersitae nemo, nemo invidet Uti.
Thesea quin etiam, quod vulgo fertur, Athenae
ingratae nimiumque leves iecere parentem;
Scipiadae, patriam quem servavisse ruentem
et Poenum pressisse ferum dirumque rebelli
imposuisse iugum perhibent, stat gratia tanti
exilium meriti. Pateris nil durius omnes
quam clari consuere viri. Damnata Camilli
est pietas, cunctis invisa Themistoclis ingens
gloria: nimirum plebs omnis semper et omnes
ingrati stulti. Satis est quod perfidus olim
ipse etiam exilio livor rubet, atque fatetur
vos indigna pati, verum Pallanta verendum.6
(Small wonder if envy drove you all from the city.
Virtue is always attended by envy, as well as by glory
That in the end destroys envy with its glowing rays.
No one envies Thersites, no one envies Nemo [Niccoli].
But Theseus, the story goes, was expelled by Athens,
Ungrateful and fickle to her father. As for Scipio,
Who, they say, saved his collapsing country and laying low
The fierce Punic horde and placed a dire yoke on the rebel –
The reward for such merits was exile. You suffer nothing
Harsher than what all famed men usually suffer.
Camillus’ piety was damned, and Themistocles’ vast glory
Was hateful to all: for all the mob and all fools are forever
Ungrateful. Suffice it that treacherous envy some day
Blush in exile, and confess your wrongful suffering,
And let Palla be revered).
Dedicated to Rinaldo degli Albizzi, the leader of the exiled optimates, Satire 5, 8 was probably written in early 1440, when Albizzi lead troops into Tuscany. (In the event, the Medici forces would triumph at Anghiari on 29 June 1440.) Filelfo’s conclusion preaches Stoic forbearance while suggesting that Filippo Maria Visconti aid the optimate cause:
Quidquid Deus optimus offert,
nos alacris id ferre decet. Permisit ab urbe
nos pelli patria, modice toleravimus omnes
exilii aerumnas. Reditum nunc monstrat in urbem
calle brevi, nemo quem speravisset inire.
Ingrediamur iter, qua nos Deus ipse vocavit!
Non etenim sine mente Dei, sine numine certo,
auxilium nobis properat praestare Philippus.7
(Whatever God the Best offers us, let us
Cheerfully accept. From our country,
He allowed us to be driven, and we modestly bore
All the hardships of exile. Now he shows how to return home
By a shortcut that none had hoped to take.
Let us enter this path, to which God himself has called us!
It is not without God’s plan or divine aid
That Filippo hastens to bring us aid).
Like Petrarch, Filelfo uses his verse epistles as a form of political negotiation. The first satire of Book 5 (1436) addresses Filippo Maria Visconti, the duke of Milan. In a letter of 13 April 1436, written in Siena to the duke’s secretary Giovan Francesco Gallina, Filelfo characterizes his poem as a “satire-exhortation in verse” (satyrica exhortatio versibus ⟨a⟩ me scripta). Genoa has revolted, but Filelfo calls upon the duke to pardon the rebels, and to aid the exiled Florentines. Filippo Maria’s clemency was already demonstrated by his freeing Alfonso of Aragon, taken prisoner in the naval battle at Ponza (5 August 1435):
Carcere solvisti qui cum tibi semper amicus
Ante fuit, nulla se causa reddidit hostem.
Liberet exilio tua munificentia, qui te
hostili ex animo quo semper inarserat armis,
et studiis et amore pio servetque colatque.8
(You freed from prison a man who was always your friend
Before, but who without cause became your enemy.
Let your generosity free that person who
without the animosity that long kindled him in war,
would protect and honor you with zeal and pious love).
The next poem in Book 5 is addressed to pope Eugenius IV, who had fled to Florence to escape the wrath of the Roman mob. Filelfo consoles him for this misfortune, but deplores his role in Cosimo de’ Medici’s repatriation. As Filelfo narrates the events in his dialogue On Exile, Rinaldo degli Albizzi had planned a coup against the Florentine government, which envisioned an amnesty for the Medici faction. At the pope’s request, the conspirators surrendered their weapons, thus facilitating Cosimo’s return. Exculpating the pontiff, Filelfo suggests that it was the pope’s entourage – by implication, cardinal Giovanni Vitelleschi – that fostered the Medici return and reprisals, which led to the exile of the noble Florentine optimates:
Hinc est prima mali labes, hinc omnis origo
exilii cladisque fluit. Namque illa latronis
impia sacrilegi mox coniuratio Mundi,
subsidiis adiuta tuis potiusve tuorum
(non etenim talem se servantissimus aequi
polluerit meus Eugenius) […]
Nobilitas veneranda suis e sedibus omnis
Truditur insidiis; patriis fugit exul ab oris […]9
(Hence the first stain of evil, hence the whole origin
Of exile and ruin flowed. For soon the impious plot
Of the sacrilegious brigand Cosimo,
With your aid or rather your colleagues’ aid
(For my Eugenius, most observant of what’s right,
Would not have defiled himself so) […]
All the august nobility is driven from its seat
By treachery, and flees from its homeland as an exile).
Filelfo’s most extensive reflections on exile are found in his dialogue Commentationes Florentinae de exilio, initially planned as a series of ten dialogues. In the event, the humanist completed only three books, presumably abandoning the project after the 1440 defeat of the optimates and their Milanese allies at Anghiari.10 As his interlocutors, Filelfo casts a number of prominent Florentines, and he sets the dialogue during the early days of Cosimo’s return in 1434, just before the author and many of the so-called “optimates” were forced to leave Florence. In the first dialogue, On the Misfortunes of Exile (De incommodis exilii), the anti-Medici optimates Rinaldo degli Albizzi, and Palla and Nofri Strozzi are joined by several humanists, including Leonardo Bruni, Poggio Bracciolini, and Giannozzo Manetti. In the next two dialogues, On Disgrace (De infamia) and On