La figure de l’exilé et la représentation de l’humaniste. Réflexions sur Hans Baron et Leonardo Bruni

• Main Author: Laurent Baggioni
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: École Normale Supérieure de Lyon Editions 2014-11-01
• Series: Laboratoire Italien
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/laboratoireitalien/770

Our understanding of political exile in Renaissance Italy is still largely reliant on a construction of the problem through German historiography and sociology carried out from the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Hans Baron’s works on Leonardo Bruni (1370-1444) reveal a humanist vision modelled on that of the rootless intellectual. Through a rereading of certain texts by Bruni, this article intends to demonstrate that exile is not only a sociological condition but also a subject of political reflection. Bruni, summoning certain natural law motives linked to caritas patriae, invites us to think about exiles’ participation in the political community, and tends to reduce exile to a simple reversible circumstance. Humanist thought is thus distinguished from mere protection of the regime in power or a caste’s interests through its wish to create a pacified political memory.