Portraying Cicero in Literature, Culture, and Politics: From Ancient to Modern Times

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Open Access Cicero has played a pivotal role in shaping Western culture. His public persona, his self-portrait as model of Roman prose, philosopher, and statesman, has exerted a durable and profound impact on the educational system and the formation of the ruling class over the centuries. Joining up with recent studies on the reception of Cicero, this volume approaches the figure of Cicero from a ‘biographical’, more than ‘philological’, perspective and considers the multiple ways by which different ages reacted to Cicero and created their ‘Ciceros’. From Cicero’s lifetime to our times, it focuses on how the image of Cicero was revisited and reworked by intellectuals and men of culture, who eulogized his outstanding oratorical and political virtues but, not rarely, questioned the role he had in Roman politics and society. An international group of scholars elaborates on the figure of Cicero, shedding fresh light on his reception in late antiquity, Humanism and Renaissance, Enlightenment and modern centuries. Historians, literary scholars and philosophers, as well as graduate students, will certainly profit from this volume, which contributes enormously to our understanding of the influence of Cicero on Western culture over the times. Preface Table of Contents Introduction SECTION I: Portraying (and Defending) Himself Cicero Portraying Cicero Mihi cane et populo: Cicerone e l’autorappresentazione del successo oratorio. La questione del consenso popolare (Cic. Brut. 183–200) A Ciceronian exemplum: Cicero’s Self-Portrait as Provincial Governor through his Letters Cicerone esule: dall’autorappresentazione all’esemplarità letteraria (da Livio a Petrarca e Ortensio Lando) The Difficult Defense of Cicero’s Goodness in Institutio oratoria 12.1 SECTION II: Cicero’s Exemplarity Homo novus and nobilis: Cicero and the formation of the ‘modern’ aristocracy Cicero at the Symposium XII Sapientum Iconografía de Cicerón en manuscritos: Un testimonio de Recepción clásica Il «santissimo» Cicerone. La Quaestura di Sebastiano Corradi (1555) nella tradizione biografica sull’Arpinate Tully the Naïve: John Adams on Cicero Law & Orator: Depicting Cicero through Modern Mystery Fiction SECTION III: The Portrait of the Ideal Orator The reception of Cicero’s speeches in the early empire Quintilian on Cicero’s Deliberative Oratory Quousque tandem: The Reception of a Catchphrase Da iocosus a consularis scurra. Rappresentazioni del Cicerone umorista Reperforming Cicero’s Voice: Constructions and Negotiations of his vox publica SECTION IV: Cicero in Politics Montesquieu on Cicero. Historiographical, political, and philosophical dimensions of a modern portrait Cicero in the Shadow of the Bastille Cicéron face aux dictateurs, 1920–1945 Bibliography Index locorum General Index