The early knowledge of Petrarch's works in medieval Poland: the case of Jan Długosz
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The_early_knowledge_of_Petrarchs_works_i.pdf (1.72 MB)
0000-0003-4977-6160 Date
2020
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NUME Gruppo di Ricerca sul Medioevo Latino
Abstract
Jan Długosz (1415-1480) was the eminent Polish historian of the late Middle Ages, whose opus magnum - Chronicles - is one of the biggest works of Eastern European medieval historiography. Abundant studies on it are accompanied by the unfading discussion on the question, if its author and style was truly medieval, or should be rather called as,,humanistic". My study aims to reveal the new evidence of Długosz humanism in the form of hidden quotations from the works of Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), one of the earliest Italian humanists. The enormous number of them was found through accurate computer-assisted analysis and comparison of n-grams in Długosz' Chronicles and the corpus of Petrarch's works. Collected data served as material for the detailed analysis of whole passages, utterance frames and phrases taken from the Italian writer's texts (e.g. from De remediis utriusque fortunae or Epistolae familiares) and masterfully interspersed in the narrration of Polish chronicle. Furthermore, usage of stylometric methods on appointed material gave the opportunity to observe the similarities and differences between two writers. In this speech I would like to present selected examples from the collected material in order to: (1) show the method and manner of using quotations from Petrarch's works by the Długosz and (2) add the new voice to the discussion on the Chronicles and the intellectual range of Polish medieval literature. It could be also used as the starting point for the discussion on the position of Eastern European medieval historiography in the historiography of the Europe in the late Middle Ages.
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Koczarski Zdzisław (2020), The early knowledge of Petrarch's works in medieval Poland: the case of Jan Długosz [in:] VI Ciclo di Studi Medievali. Atti del Convegno (Firenze, 8-9 Giugno 2020), Dolce R., Martini S., Del Monte R. (ed.), Firenze, p. 392-398