Traversari, Ambrogio

Abstract

Ambrogio Traversari was a Camaldolese monk and humanist who lived in Florence during the first part of the fifteenth century. At the age of 14, he entered the monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli, where he devoted his time to studying and translating Greek literature. The distinctive feature of Traversari was his ability to choose texts coherent with his Christian vocation, beginning with the works of the Church Fathers, and to plan Latin versions of these texts aimed to a didactic and ideological purpose. In 1431, when Traversari became prior general of his Order and could no longer devote himself entirely to the patristic translations, he had the opportunity of putting into practice what he had theorized ealier. During the few years of his public life (he died in 1439), three fundamental moments can be recognized. From 1431 to 1434, he traveled through the Camaldolese and Vallombrosian monasteries, and made every effort to restore the original monastic rule. In 1435, he was sent as ambassador to the Council of Basel to avoid a new schism. Finally, from 1438, he took part in the Council in Ferrara and Florence, where he worked to support the union of the Eastern and Western Churches. The consequences of Traversari’s diplomacy vanished after a few years, but his translations had a different fortune. Read, copied, and later printed, his translations offered readers of his time who did not understand Greek, the opportunity to read a huge variety of patristic texts in Latin.