Niccolò Niccoli

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Niccolò Niccoli (* 1365 in Florence ; † February 3, 1437 ibid) was an Italian merchant and an important exponent of Renaissance humanism . He took over political responsibility in his hometown and created around the year 1423 with the humanistic cursive the archetype of the Latin script and the conditions for the development of the first italic printing type .

Life

Niccolò Niccoli comes from a family that had lived in Florence since the beginning of the 14th century. He was the eldest of six sons Jacopo, Giovanni, Bernardo, Piero and Vettori. His father was Bartolomeo Niccoli , who brought the Niccoli family to great prosperity as a wool merchant as early as 1350. After the death of his father in the 1380s, the relationship with his brothers was marked by conflicts of a financial nature, and the affected brothers sometimes publicly resolved their conflicts in court.

In the time after the death of his father, Niccoli took over the trading business himself for a few years. However, Niccoli turned to humanism in the 1390s and gave up his activity as a merchant. Niccoli was also known because he began with the inherited fortune to collect manuscripts and antiquities in a systematic way . His private book collection was bribed with fine bindings (“ libri ben legati” ).

Niccoli also devoted a large part of his time to Greek literature, where he was faced with high costs for language teaching and for the procurement of codes.

Giannozzo Manetti described Niccoli in his autobiography as "a lovable, graceful and humorous person" . For example, when Niccoli took part in scholarly discussions, which he supposedly did to relax, he uttered anecdotes and derisive remarks in a way that made the audience laugh for a long time.

At the beginning of the 1400s, Niccoli is said to have made a radical change in life and created a parallel world, according to which Niccoli rejected contemporary society, in particular the culture influenced by the three Florentine crowns ( "tre corone" ) Dante , Petrarca and Boccaccio . Instead, Niccoli wanted to devote himself to details of history in an individual way and concentrate on "modern" learning. Niccoli repeatedly took the view that the perceived culture was irrelevant to Leonardo Bruni . In order to be well read, a new learning process is required, which also goes hand in hand with the rediscovery of classical antiquity. According to Poggio , Niccoli had an excellent knowledge of ancient history and was able to quote from the books and works of ancient scholars, although Poggio wrote about him in his later funeral address that Niccoli had such knowledge of antiquity as if he had lived there myself.

The years of life of Niccolò Niccoli are partly puzzling in literature and science: Niccoli is said to have belonged to Coluccio Salutati's sphere of activity . However, no letters from Salutati to Niccoli have survived. Niccoli was friends with other greats of the Italian Renaissance, which can be seen from letters he received from Poggio Bracciolini , Leonardo Bruni and Ambrogio Traversari , among others . No replies from Niccoli have survived, with the exception of a letter to Cosimo de 'Medici , whose circle Niccoli belonged to later in his life. He also shared his interest in history with Carlo Marsuppini da Arezzo .

Not a single work by Niccoli has survived. According to Guarino, however, Niccoli wrote a work on correct writing ( "De Ortographia" ). Repeatedly and loudly in the public discussion he criticized the spelling of the scholars in Florence.

After his death in 1437, Cosimo de 'Medici released around 800 manuscripts from his creditors and in 1444 spent them in the Dominican monastery of San Marco in Florence, which became the first public library .

Political activity

In February 1392 Niccoli was appointed to the Florentine parliament ( Consiglio del Popolo ). Between February and November 1413, Niccoli was part of the six high officials responsible for reducing the city's debt. In 1414 he was appointed to the directorate of the University of Florence ( Studio Fiorentino ), but did not appear there until November 1434 after the return of the Medici brothers, Cosimo de 'Medici and Lorenzo di Giovanni de' Medici , after a renewed appointment . Niccoli is said to have despised the political class until the Medici returned to Florence.

Pioneer of the Latin script and the cursive roman type

Humanistic italics by Niccolo Niccoli
Niccolo de Niccoli italic handwriting.jpg
Humanistic cursive: handwriting by Niccolò Niccoli
Poggio handwriting.jpg
Humanistic minuscule: Reading by Poggio Bracciolini

Niccolò Niccoli made a lasting contribution to the development of Latin script . Through his extensive experience as a calligrapher , he developed a new type of handwriting (first recorded in 1423) while quickly copying many ancient manuscripts , which were mainly written in Carolingian minuscule . It has gone down in the history of writing as a humanistic cursive (English italic , French italique ). This typeface, which had no role models, was characterized by fluency and clarity. The slanted lowercase letters were characterized by a synthesis between the Italian forms of the Gothic cursive and Carolingian script elements of the humanistic minuscule . They were not built, but written in one piece and often linked together. The upright capital letters were taken from the Capitalis monumentalis . As a dynamically accentuated utility font, the Humanist Italic was a successful counterpart to the static book font, the Humanist Minuscule (forerunner of the Antiqua ).

Niccolò Niccoli created the archetype of Latin script with his handwriting. Its italics were adopted by many humanist scholars and artists ( Julius Pomponius Laetus had helped spread it). At the same time, Niccoli created the prerequisites for the development of the first italic type. With the stylistic perfection of the so-called Cancellaresca , the font was cut in 1500 by the die cutter Francesco Griffo and used in 1501 by Aldus Manutius for printing in Venice . This stabilized their form structure to a prototype of italics, which was then only varied in detail. The French die cutter Claude Garamond (1480–1561) was the first to succeed in combining the cursive with the upright antiqua into an aesthetic unit. Since then, every font family in Antiqua has included the design of italics as a markup font .

  • Handwriting by Julius Pomponius Laetus

  • Handwriting of the poet Jacopo Sannazaro

  • The first italic type printed by Aldus Manutius in the Virgil edition of 1501

  • Antiqua and Antiqua italics by Garamond

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Daniel Luger: Humanism and humanistic writing in the chancellery of Emperor Friedrich III. Böhlau, Vienna 2016, p. 20 .
  2. ↑ Bernd Roeck: The morning of the world . 1st edition. CH Beck, Heidelberg 2017, p. 464 .
  3. ^ A b Lauro Martines: The Social World of Florentine Humanists, 1390-1460 . 1st edition. Princeton University Press, Princeton 1963, pp. 160 (English).
  4. ^ Lauro Martines: The Social World of Florentine Humanists, 1390-1460 . 1st edition. Princeton University Press, Princeton 1963, pp. 163 .
  5. ^ Arthur Field: The Intellectual Struggle for Florence . 1st edition. Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 236 .
  6. ^ Arthur Field: The Intellectual Struggle for Florence . 1st edition. Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 235 (English).
  7. ↑ Ludwig Geiger: Renaissance and Humanism: in Italy and Germany . Salzwasser Verlag, 1882, ISBN 978-3-7428-6541-0 , p. 92 .
  8. ^ Arthur Field: The Intellectual Struggle for Florence . 1st edition. Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 243 .
  9. ^ Arthur Field: The Intellectual Struggle for Florence . 1st edition. Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 249 .
  10. ↑ Bernd Roeck: The morning of the world . 1st edition. CH Beck, 2017, p. 463 .
  11. ^ Arthur Field: The Intellectual Struggle for Florence . 1st edition. Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 238-239 (English).
  12. ^ A b Arthur Field: The Intellectual Struggle for Florence . 1st edition. Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 239-240 (English).
  13. ^ A b Arthur Field: The Intellectual Struggle for Florence . 1st edition. Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 240 .
  14. ^ Arthur Field: The Intellectual Struggle for Florence . 1st edition. Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 245; see. also footnote 72 .
  15. ^ A b c d Berthold Louis Ullman: The Origin and Development of Human Script . Roma: Edizioni di Storia e letteratura, Rome 1960, p. 59 .
  16. ^ Hans Rupprich: The German literature from the late Middle Ages to the Baroque - First part: The outgoing Middle Ages, Humanism and Renaissance . tape VI / 1 . CH Beck, 1973, p. 438 .
  17. ^ Arthur Field: The Intellectual Struggle for Florence . 1st edition. Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 244 .
  18. ^ A b c Lauro Martines: The Social World of Florentine Humanists 1390-1460 . 1st edition. Princeton University Press, Princeton 1963, pp. 161 (English).
  19. ^ Arthur Field: The Intellectual Struggle for Florence . 1st edition. Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 237 .
personal data
SURNAME Niccoli, Niccolò
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Niccoli, Niccolo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian humanist
DATE OF BIRTH 1365
PLACE OF BIRTH Florence
DATE OF DEATH February 3, 1437
Place of death Florence