Ada Palmer: evaluation

Transcript context

…As with many processes, the answer is that there are multiple steps, and it’s complicated, and some of the steps are realizing that the earlier steps didn’t work. Petrarch, who lived through the Black Death, and lives in a moment when Italy is wracked by civil war and foreign mercenary troops are raiding and pillaging. Italy is wracked by bandits. When Petrarch survives the Black Death after losing so many friends, he gets a letter. Two of his friends are alive. He had given up hope that anyone he knew would survive, but two of his younger scholar friends are alive. They’re going to come visit him. On the way, they were attacked by bandits. One of them was killed, and the other was lost in the mountains and wounded, and he didn’t know that his friend was alive for another year and a half. The bandits are very real in this period. Petrarch looks around him and says, “This is an age of ash and shadow. What we need is to imitate the arts of the ancients. Let’s try to figure out how the Romans did it.” And specifically, the problem is our leaders. Our leaders are selfish. Our leaders care more about their wealth and their family honor and their power than they do about the people. This is where Romeo and Juliet is really helpful for us to understand. Lord Montague and Lord Capulet, as their goons are knifing each other in the street, they care about defeating each other. Do they care about the good of Italy? Do they care about the good of the city of Verona? No. Their feud is harming the city of Verona, and they don’t care. They demand that Romeo get away with murder because he is their son. That is not service to the state. Petrarch reads about the ancient Roman Brutus—not the one who killed Caesar, but the ancestor to whom that one was trying to live up. Brutus was one of the first consuls of Rome, and he learned while in office that his sons were plotting to take over the state and make him king. So he executed his own sons for treason against the state. Can you imagine Lord Montague wanting to execute Romeo for treason against Verona? He would never do that. When you’re living in the plot of Romeo and Juliet and you read about these ancient Roman figures, as described in the lofty biographies of someone like Livy, you read them and you say, “Wow, if only our leaders would act like that.” Well, how were they raised? Can we raise our leaders the same way? Can we make libraries filled with what young Cicero read and what young Brutus read? What did they read? They read Plato, and they read Homer. So we need these things. Can we recreate the educational environment that produced them? Petrarch suggests this. His students and successors embrace this idea and pour money into traveling across the Alps to look for manuscripts, traveling to Constantinople to purchase manuscripts from the wealthier East where books are common, and bringing them back to assemble these libraries. aveling across the Alps to look for manuscripts, traveling to Constantinople to purchase manuscripts from the wealthier East where books are common, and bringing them back to assemble these libraries. Then they raise tutors like Marsilio Ficino, who can know Greek and Latin and surround the young princes and princesses of Europe with these values in the hopes that they will act like Brutus and not like Lord Montague. This is based on an assumption that education is very much like osmosis, that if you’re exposed to something, you’ll imitate it. And the uptake of this is strong because Italy is also full of upstart rulers who just seized power five minutes ago by having a coup in their state and have no legitimacy and no right to be ruling what they’re ruling and are resented by their people. But they can dress up like a Roman emperor. And they can have a parade with allegorical figures of the virtues next to them. And they can invest in an impressive palace that has a pediment on the front and looks like a Roman building to the eyes of the period, and cover themselves with the trappings of antiquity. Then people might look at them and say, “This guy is different from what we’ve had. This guy is like the Caesars. The days of the Caesars were pretty good. Maybe we want this guy. Maybe he’s not going to be a tyrant. Maybe he’s going to be a good prince, and he’s going to make a golden age.” And so the first dream is idealistic: let’s make better rulers. The adoption is self-serving and propagandistic: “Hey, I’m a tyrant, but I can seem like something better than just a tyrant. If I make myself look like Julius Caesar, then people will like and respect me.” Or in the case of Florence with the Medici, “We are merchant scum. We are dirt compared to everybody around us. We’re not even one of the important families of Florence. We’re three ranks down. Even on the standards of merchant scum, we’re extra scummy merchant scum. But if we can have Latin and Greek and quote Cicero and seem like the ancients, people will take us seriously and respect us and talk to us even if we don’t have it.” Let me give an example. Imagine that you are an ambassador from France, and you’re on your way to Rome, because a new pope has just been elected. Whenever a new pope is elected, every country in Europe has to send a special ambassador whose job it is to deliver a long-winded oration that says, “I am the ambassador from a very wealthy country and a very powerful prince.” And he’s so glad you’re the pope. Congratulations. Only you have to do that for an hour. You have to give a gift to the pope, and it has to be very impressive, and you have to be a really important person. You’re the most important person who can leave your country without causing a political crisis. You might be the heir to the throne, for example. Or you might be a more minor ambassador, but you’re at least the son of a count. You’re on your way to Rome, you’re heading along the length of Italy, you’re going to go through Florence, it’s on the way. Ugh. There’s nobody there worth talking to because it’s just a pit of scum and villainy. ur way to Rome, you’re heading along the length of Italy, you’re going to go through Florence, it’s on the way. Ugh. There’s nobody there worth talking to because it’s just a pit of scum and villainy. In fact, also filth and depravity because, of course, Florence is the sodomy capital of Europe. To Florentine is the verb for anal sex in several different European languages. In the laws of France, you can be indicted for sodomy on the grounds that you have ever once in your life even visited Florence. That’s considered evidence enough. So you’re on your way to this matchlessly filthy dive of scum and villainy. And then you approach the city, and there are these statues. They look like ancient statues, the kind that are so lifelike that it’s as if they’re about to breathe and move. You’ve never seen an intact new statue like that. That isn’t something we know how to do. You ride through the city a bit, and it’s a large, impressive city, and you get to the cathedral, and it has this massive dome, way bigger than anything you’ve ever seen except for old Roman ruins. You come to the banker’s house, and your servant knocks at the door. The banker greets you humbly at the door and apologizes that his humble palace is not worthy to host Your Excellency, and you’re like, “Yeah, it’s not. You’re correct.” He invites you in, and the instant you step inside, you’re in a space like nothing you’ve ever seen before with white light streaming in through this airy, rounded windowed courtyard that feels cleaner and more outdoors than the outdoors did, because something about the air is cool and fresh. It’s like nothing you’ve— Wait, wait. It is. It’s like the Roman ruins in the backyard of the castle where you grew up. But we don’t have the ability to do that anymore. All that’s lost. In the middle of the square is another one of these bronze statues that looks like it’s about to come to life, except it’s shining and new. It hasn’t even turned green yet. Around the courtyard are busts of all the Roman emperors in order, and above them are portraits of this guy and the members of his family. Off in the corner are some men wearing robes that look like the robes the ancients wear. You say, “Who are those guys?” He says, “Oh, they’re Platonists. They’re speaking ancient Greek.” You say, “I thought I didn’t understand that language, but ancient Greek is lost. We don’t have ancient Greek.” He says, “We have lots of ancient Greek here.” You say, “And also, we don’t have the works of Plato. They’re also lost.” “Oh, we have lots of Plato here. Look, here’s my grandson, Lorenzo. He’s just written a poem in ancient Greek about the three parts of the soul. Would you like to hear him recite it?” Now there’s a ten-year-old boy reciting a poem at you in ancient Greek about the three parts of the soul, and you’re like, “Where am I? None of this is possible. None of this has existed for a thousand years.” That’s the moment that Cosimo de’ Medici turns to you and says, “Would you like to make an alliance with Florence?” And you can say no. You can say, “No.…

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