Cicero was well known before the Renaissance:
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Influences on Medieval RhetoricCiceroMurphy demonstrates that Cicero’s work had more of an influence on Medieval rhetoric than any other Classical Rhetorician because his work had already been introduced to the Medieval world through the work of Augustine. His influence can be seen in three ways: imitation of his work, commentaries written on his work, and the use of his work in Medieval education.
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Quintilian, in his famous Institutio oratoria quotes Cicero 689 times, not counting innumerable allusions and references to Cicero that lace his prose. As for the transmission of Quintilian through the Middle Ages, there are ten major extant editions of Quintilian produced from the late ninth to the end of the eleventh centuries, that constitute the basis for our modern twentieth, twenty-first century editions, especially the famous Turin manuscript produced in Sankt-Gallen during the course of the early eleventh century. Furthermore, there are at least twenty early printed editions. In short, Quintilian’s work not only is without a doubt enormously indebted to Cicero, but Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria infused the medieval Latin reading public not only with what must have seemed to them the legendary figure of Cicero, an orator and intellectual of nearly divine capacity, but also with very solid subjects, expressions, questions, and structures of arguments, not to mention a whole quarry of pithy sayings and epigrams suitable for every possible occasion. Quintilian’s Cicero also offered an education, not only in rhetoric, but for life. This lecture will explore Cicero through Quintilian’s eyes and his profound influence on medieval mentality.
medievalstudies.ceu.hu |
