Ciceronianism was the tendency among the Renaissance humanists to imitate the language and style of Cicero (106–43 BC) and hold it up as a model of Latin. The term was coined in the 19th century from the much older term ciceronianus, 'a Ciceronian'.[1] That term is contrasted with christianus (Christian) in Jerome in the 4th century. Erasmus employs it the same way in the title of his dialogue Ciceronianus (1528).[2] During the Renaissance, however, the term could have both positive and negative connotations, depending on whether slavish or creative imitation was in view.[1]
Cicero's writing was already considered classical by Quintilian in the 1st century.[1] He was admired for his style in the Middle Ages, but only his De inventione and Topica were widely known.[3] His language, however, had little influence on Medieval Latin.[1] His rise to preeminence began with Petrarch's discovery of the Epistulae ad Atticum in 1345 and with the discovery of De oratore, Orator, and Brutus by Gerardo Landriani [de] in 1421. It culminated in Pietro Bembo establishing a Ciceronian style for official papal documents in the 16th century. By that time, however, there was also a robust anti-Ciceronianism, as exemplified by Erasmus' Ciceronianus.[3] Against Erasmsus, Julius Caesar Scaliger wrote his Oratio pro Cicerone contra Desiderium Erasmum ('Speech for Cicero against Erasmus', 1531–1537) and Étienne Dolet his pamphlet Erasmianus (1535).[2]
Titlepage from Nizolio's Observationes in Ciceronem (1561 edition)
Anti-Ciceronianism was in practice often just moderate Ciceronianism opposed to radical or strict Ciceronianism.[1] In his dispute of 1485 with Paolo Cortesi, who took Cicero to be the sole model to which Neo-Latin authors should look, Angelo Poliziano labelled the radical Ciceronians simii Ciceronis, 'apes of Cicero'.[1][2] In general, radicals looked to Cicero primarily or only as a model of language. Anti-Ciceronianism, strongest in Germany, criticized such reliance on a pagan author as incompatible with a Christian age. By the time of Petrus Ramus' Ciceronianus (1577), Ciceronianism was fading and Tacitism, a new trend toward later Latin authors, such as Tacitus, was ascendant.[1]
^ abcdefFosca Mariani Zini, "Ciceronianism", in Marco Sgarbi (ed.), Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy (Springer, 2022), pp. 747–750.
^ abcdefgA. García-Bryce, "Ciceronianism", in Roland Greene (ed.), The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, 4th ed. (Princeton University Press, 2017).
