Poggio Bracciolini
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Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini, usually referred to simply as Poggio Bracciolini, was an Italian scholar and an early Renaissance humanist. He is noted for rediscovering and recovering many classic
Engraving of Bracciolini
Historia Florentina, 1478
Urb. lat. 224, 15th century
1597 engraving of Poggio Bracciolini
De rerum natura
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De rerum natura is a first-century BCE didactic poem by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius with the goal of explaining Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. The poem, written in some 7,400 d
Opening of Pope Sixtus IV's 1483 manuscript of De rerum natura, scribed by Girolamo di Matteo de Tauris
First lines: Aeneadum genetrix, hominum divomque voluptas. / alma Venus, caeli subter labentia signa / Quae mare navigerum, quae terras frugiferentis... (Translation: Mother of Aeneas’ tribe, delight of men and gods, nurturing Venus, who under the gliding signs of heaven [brings] fruitfulness to the ship-carrying sea and the lands..). 9th century copy, Leiden University Library.
Lucretius opens his poem by addressing Venus (center), urging her to pacify her lover, Mars (right). Given Lucretius's relatively secular philosophy and his eschewing of superstition, his invocation of Venus has caused much debate among scholars.
Lucretius pointing to the casus, the downward movement of the atoms. From the frontispiece to Of the Nature of Things, 1682.