JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. The University of Chicago Press and Renaissance Society of America are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Renaissance Quarterly. HE Italian humanists of the fourteenth century did -W; ) more than reintegrate the pursuit of eloquence with the concern for ethics, two interests united in the dis-~~' 'X6& cipline of rhetoric since the time of Cicero but separated in practice by thirteenth-century specialists of ars dictaminis in Italy.1 Rather their achievement lay in nothing less than Christianizing the European medieval rhetorical tradition. They accomplished this by expressing in terms of those central fields of rhetoric, ethics, and history an appreciation of the distinction between the culture of the ancient world based on human reason and Christian society founded on revealed truth.2 While not denying the ultimate influence of God upon human history, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Salutati (at least in his later life) tended to emphasize the natural character of ancient society and thus to secularize its history and achievements. Such an understanding of the break in continuity encouraged these humanists to construct an ethic which was consciously Christian while utilizing the works of pagan writers as building blocks.Crucial to this effort at distinction was proper understanding of the conception of the poeta theologus. As this study intends to show, all three fourteenth-century writers eventually succeeded in defending the sacral character of ancient poetry, which in their own eyes gave it nobility, without having to resort to medieval arguments for a direct divine influence acting on the poet or for a secret tradition of divine truth initially derived from God's Revelation. Although the ancient * I would like to express my appreciation to Hans Baron and Marcel Tetel who read this article in its early drafts.1 Helene Wieruszowski, Politics and Culture in Medieval Spain and Italy, Storia e letteratura, 12 (Rome, 1971), p. 373.2 What Aquinas accomplished for philosophy by defining the limits of natural reason and working out the implications, Petrarch in effect did for rhetoric. Twelfth-century rhetoricians likeJohn of Salisbury and Pierre de Blois were apparently unable to integrate pagan ethical doctrines into a Christian framework. Thus Christian and pagan ideas lay side by side in their writings.[ 538 ] SALUTATI AND THE POETA THEOLOGUS poets frequently expressed theological truths, these were truths accessible to natural reason. Whereas the validity of this characterization of Petrarch and Boccaccio can easily be demonstrated by reference to their work, Salutati's thoughts on the subject are more difficult to define because he changed his mind in ...
