On Leaders and Tyrants

"Poggio Bracciolini was a prominent scholar-official of the early Renaissance and a leading representative of Florentine humanism. He was employed as a secretary to seven popes and ended his career as Chancellor of the Republic of Florence. The present volume contains texts relating to a key controversy of the time on the relative merits of Scipio Africanus and Julius Caesar. Poggio's opponent in the controversy was the educator Guarino of Verona, a humanist in the service of the duke of Ferrara. The controversy addressed the nature of tyranny and military glory, and discussed the qualities necessary for republican leaders such as Stoic virtue, lawfulness, and good citizenship. The volume contains a fresh edition of the Latin texts and the first complete translation of the controversy into English"--