Il ritorno di Senofonte nell'Umanesimo: il Commentarium rerum Graecarum di Leonardo Bruni e le Elleniche

The essay consists of three parts and intends to shed light on the nature of the Commentarium rerum Graecarum (1439), a late historical work by Leonardo Bruni deriving from Xenophon’s Hellenica and still lacking a critical edition. First of all, it aims to sketch the reception of the work by showing why it has been neglected by scholars so far and to what extent it can be considered original. Secondly, it outlines the historical circumstances in which the Commentarium rerum Graecarum was written and it argues that it probably originated from the meeting between Bruni and Pletho on the occasion of the Council of Ferrara-Florence. Lastly, it analyses the way Bruni abridged and reshaped the Greek text in order to create a new Latin one. The comparison between some relevant passages from the two works leads to the conclusion that the Greek manuscript used must belong to the second branch of the stemma codicum of the Hellenica.