Poggio Bracciolini's Moral Philosophy

There are voluminous humanistic dialogues and treatises in the early Quattrocento Florentine humanists group,most of them concern on moral philosophy.Poggio Bracciolini's treatises are a more typical one in these moral essays.Though Poggio's moral essays extensively on such themes as fate and free will,the active and contemplative life,and hypocrisy,avarice,nobility,reason which is tradition theme,while his discourses on moral philosophy version own a significant historical value.As the subtitle indicates that this dissertation inquired into Poggio's moral philosophy from a different perspective,namely,base my new interpretation on secularization perspective.For elucidating the relationship between Poggio's moral philosophy ideas and secularization,this study begins with discussing the background of the secularization of ideas in the early Quattrocento Florentine.In order to search for the formation of Poggio's moral philosophy,this study put a special emphasis on the times in which Poggio lived and Poggio's activity in the process of secularization.Generally,the arrangement of this study follows the tripartite division that accepted by Renaissance(oeconomics,ethics,politics),namely,the individual man was the subject of ethics;the home and its inhabitants were the subject of oeconomics;and the state was the subject of politics.“Poggio's secular view of life ethics” deal with his attitudes and perspectives toward the marriage,education and wealth,as well as,the way of life which he chose;“Poggio's secular moral ideas” focus on his discussions on the relationship between nobility,fortune and virtue;“Poggio's secular political philosophy” gives a new survey of Poggio's reflection on exercise of the power and the law.As a study of culture and intellectual history,the dissertation claims that secular features that rooted in Poggio's moral philosophy are a response to the movement of the secularization of ideas in early Quattrocento Florentine.As a result,the new,secular ideas that differ from Christian tradition in the middle age is being created in this process.Methodologically,based on textual analysis of dialogues,this study attempt to find out the innovation and the profound implication in Poggio's moral philosophy.