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Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

It has been believed that patria was an inherently civic or political concept, being interpreted as indicating citizenship or the state in which citizenship was held. Thus, it has been regarded by some as synonymous with res publica. This thesis revaluates our understanding of patria in the Roman world by examining its conceptualisation, function and nature in Latin literature and inscriptions. This thesis reveals how patria was a complex and multifaceted conceptual embodiment of collective identity; that its membership was broad, pertaining to men and women, free and freed, as well as evidence that suggests it even may have extended to slaves; that it was territorially ambiguous, being interpreted contemporaneously as corresponding to urban or regional geographical spaces; that it commanded a significant degree of affection and loyalty from its members; that it was prominent in the presentation of individual moral and political character, and in the presentation of imperial regimes; and finally how there was no single, all-embracing concept for the Roman Empire as a whole. This thesis also shows how patria was not a static concept. Instead, its conceptualisation shifted according to changes in the wider political or cultural context. In Chapter One, I consider how patria was understood, defined and recognised. In Chapter Two, I look at the function of patria in the writings of Cicero and its relationship to Roman republican politics. In Chapter Three, I examine the role of patria within the cultural context of the Augustan principate as a medium of Roman unity post-civil war. In Chapter Four, I consider how patria was used to define and understand the Augustan principate and the regime of Septimius Severus. Finally, in Chapter Five, I assess the truth behind the idea that there was a single all-embracing concept of patria for the peoples of the Roman Empire.

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This thesis focusses on three compilations, extant in three manuscripts ―Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS 92; Milan, Venerabile Biblioteca Ambrosiana, MS F 19 sup.; Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Borgianus graecus 22― These three manuscripts were produced by one of the most important representatives of the Italian Renaissance: Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499). The Florentine scholar was largely responsible for the revival of Platonism in Western Europe during the Renaissance and beyond. MS Ricc. 92 contains an anthology of Greek and Latin texts on the theme of love, which Ficino presumably compiled with a view to writing his commentary on Plato’s Symposium. MS Ambr. F 19 sup. is a collection of excerpts from Plato, Plotinus and Proclus on the theme of the soul, which Ficino produced before starting writing his major philosophical work: the Platonic Theology. Finally, MS Borg. Gr. 22 was likely used by Ficino as a textual basis for his translation of Dionysius the Areopagite’s De divinis nominibus. These three notebooks have been hitherto largely ignored or only partially studied by modern scholars. Through a contextualized analysis of these manuscripts, this work aims to give insight into Ficino’s reading practices and methodology, and show that they are crucial to reconstruct his scholarly activity. By using an interdisciplinary approach, it will provide a more nuanced view and more exhaustive reconstruction of the ways in which Ficino actually read, selected and used ancient and medieval authors and also of the ways in which he quoted, codified their doctrines and appropriated them in his own work. More broadly, it will offer insight into Renaissance reading practices and some important aspects of Early Modern culture.

The Villa Imperiale at Pesaro remains one of the few grand Italian Renaissance villas to have escaped exploitation for the tourist industry. Curiously enough, it has also been long neglected in the field of modern art historical scholarship. The only major study is Bernhard Patzak's Die Villa Imperiale bei Pesaro, published in 1908. Before, and since then, the majority of accounts dealing with it have been of a purely local Pesarese character—either brief guide-book references to it, or redundant versions of Pompeo Mancini's literary blueprint, written for the Esercitazioni dell'Accademia Agraria of Pesaro in 1844. More recently, Giuseppe Marchini, former Superintendent of Galleries in the Marches, published an attractive and well-illustrated book on the Villa Imperiale, to coincide with the completion of the villa's restoration. Although Marchini's book is extremely valuable for its visual material, it does not contribute to the scholarship on the villa's history. Craig Hugh Smyth, who had been a consultant for the restoration of the Villa Imperiale's frescoes, is concentrating his efforts on determining the authorship of the eight-room decorative cycle. With the exception of one enlightening essay, also by Smyth, the architecture of the Villa Imperiale has not yet inspired any major revaluation. Although Patzak’s monograph, the standard reference work for more than sixty years, is an informative study, many of its arguments appear unsatisfactory in the light of modern scholarship. In such a case, it is undoubtedly the art history student’s responsibility to reinterpret the evidence, employing the methods which have been developed in the interim. The Villa Imperiale, on Monte S. Bartolo outside of Pesaro, consists of two separate structures from different periods. In the sixteenth century, the buildings become interrelated— physically, by a connecting wing; and functionally, in terms of an iconographic programme devised to serve a common purpose. The earlier structure was built by Alessandro Sforza in 1469. Emperor Frederick III, on a post-coronation journey to Italy, passed through Pesaro, and performed the office of laying the foundation stone. A plaque hangs above the main entrance to commemorate the event. As a mid-fifteenth century structure, the villa is designed with the idea of versatility in mind. The concept of villegia-tura, as it was being promoted in contemporary Florence, was not yet popular or expedient in Pesaro. Alessandro Sforza was principally a soldier, and his buildings reflect his tastes and requirements. Because of its site on top of a hill, the villa could play both defensive and offensive roles in battles. When war was not the momentary occupation of Alessandro, the Imperiale worked well as an economic unit. The land on which it stands was fertile and well cultivated; a forest surrounding the villa on three sides provided adequate game for hunting, whether for sport or necessity. It was built with expansive subterranean rooms which served as storage, and food conversion, areas. Patzak noted that the architectural motifs and proportions of the Sforza villa, particularly in the cortile, must date from a period before 1469. He suggests 1452, when Frederick came to Italy the first time, to be coronated Emperor. However, the difficult political relationship between Frederick and Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, would seem to exclude the probability of a visit by the Emperor to Francesco's brother, Alessandro, Lord of Pesaro, at that time. What Patzak has overlooked is the display of similar architectural proportions in the Palazzo Prefettizio of Pesaro, a structure built cl450, when Alessandro assumed control of the city. The transposition of a system of architectural proportions from one building to another is not unprecedented. Indeed, the physical proximity, and the common patron, of the Palazzo Prefettizio and the Villa Imperiale, underline the suitability of the theory. In 1512, Pesaro and the Villa Imperiale were expropriated from the Sforza family by Julius II, for his nephew, Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino. Political and dynastic intrigues on the part of the Medici Pope, Leo X, prevented Francesco Maria from finally securing his Dukedom, and with it the Villa Imperiale, until 1522. Subsequent to his reoccupation, the Duke initiated a restoration and renovation programme for his various estates. The Villa Imperiale, damaged in a battle of 1517, required extensive repairs. Girolamo Genga, a native of Urbino, was called from Rome to become court architect to Francesco Maria. Along with the restoration, a programme was conceived for the decoration of several grand apartments in the Sforza villa. Only two ceilings exist from this earliest project. The next plan, which remains today, involved the painting, with a fresco cycle, of eight apartments. The programme was carefully devised to ensure the proper procession through the rooms of the old villa, over a connecting bridge, into an entirely new structure, built behind the Sforza villa. The architectural experiences of Francesco Maria's new villa are cleverly and subtly anticipated in the frescoes of the Sforza villa. This second project, involving the frescoes and the new villa, was conceived and begun between 1524 and 1527. Before he turned to architecture, Genga had been a designer of stage sets. The frescoes, and the architecture of Francesco Maria's villa, show his indebtedness to the theatre. In fact, the Villa Imperiale was to function as the stage for the activities of the Duke of Urbino's court, so the conceit is, paradoxically, entirely suitable. In the della Rovere villa, entrances and exits, means of access from one space to another, are as disguised to the visitor's eye, as they would be in a real theatre. Participation and exploration solve the problems encountered in trying to move through the complex. When the visitor finally arrives at the far end of the last terrace, a giardino secreto, he is confronted by the only independent entrance into the new villa (the other is by way of the Sforza villa, and over the connecting wing). Regarding the villa from this position, the sight confronting him is a negation of the architectural spaces experienced only moments before. As it is, he can see no architectural spaces at all—only what appears to be a solid building with four towers. The architectural setting has changed as quickly and completely as the painted backdrop of a stage might be exchanged. The guest is delighted and confused; the illusion is complete. / Arts, Faculty of / Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Department of / Graduate

In questo lavoro ho trattato alcune forme di poesia dialettale sarda quali il "muttu o muttettu," i "canti della culla," le "cantilene infantili," e i "canti funebri." Del muttu, forma caratteristica della poesia popolare sarda, al quale ho dedicato il primo cpitolo, ho analizzato per lo più quei problemi connessi con la sua struttura, forma, origine e quindi i suoi rapporti con componimenti di altre regioni italiane, e anche non italiane, portando esempi di muttus di varie parti della Sardegna per farne notare, più che il contenuto, che molto spesso in tali canti è simile, la diversità ortografica delle composizioni, diversità dovuta al gran numero di dialetti esistenti nell' isola. Nel secondo capitolo tratto invece i canti della culla e quelli della tomba. Dei canti della culla, che suddivido in ninnenanne e cantilene infantili, faccio notare il contenuto, ricco di espressioni vocative e di epiteti ispirati in gran parte alla natura: fiori, piante, frutta che offrono a questi canti, talvolta lenti e monotoni, talvolta allegri, un inesauribile repertorio. Dei canti della tomba, che in Sardegna vengono chiamati "attittidos," perchè erano spesso cantati dalle "attittadoras" o prefiche, porto soltanto esempi, interessanti e molto spesso inediti, da me raccolti in varie località dell'isola e pazientemente trascritti. L'importanza di questi canti e cantilene non è da ricercarsi nel loro valore letterario che è senz'altro minimo bensì nel loro grande valore folkloristico in quanto sono le ultime testimonianze di un folklore che pian piano ma inesorabilmente sta scomparendo. / Arts, Faculty of / Central Eastern Northern European Studies, Department of / Graduate

The reputation of the Venetian Republic as a model regime provided substance for a number of sixteenth century political writers. Moreover, the diffuse nature of this reputation, which has more recently been characterized as the 'myth of Venice', made it possible for these men to utilize the Venetian model for three wholly disparate conceptions of the nature of politics. Although the writers under investigation all employed the model of Venice to address the issues of 'polities', we find that, in fact, they portray three separate and alternative conceptions of politics--of the purpose of the civil society and of the nature of political action. Gasparo Contarini drew upon the reputation of Venice to portray a conception of politics as the lessons of history. The heritage of the Republic contained within it the traditions which not only provided the individual with a sense of civic identity, but also a number of patterns for political action which the founding fathers of Venice had wisely fashioned after those patterns infused by God into nature. The task of the political man, then, was to discover (or re-discover) those patterns and infuse them into positive law. Paolo Paruta and Paolo Sarpi portrayed politics as a moral endeavour, and drew upon the Venetian experience to bolster their notions of the sanctity of the individual and the importance of individual action. For these men the civil society was of value in that it was properly an institution for the ennoblement of men and an aide in their quest for perfection. Political man is portrayed here as a participant in the affairs of the civil society, and the value of that participation derives from the fact that it allows him to exercise his moral potential. Lastly, Franceso Patrizi and Ludovico Agostini drew upon the reputation of the Republic for the efficient provision of goods and service to her inhabitants and upon the bureaucratic nature of her government' to portray political man as an artificer who relies upon reason and expertise to construct and maintain a government whose task it is to co-ordinate the various functions of society. Government here is dedicated to ensuring the material goods of life, and its value is as a tool to achieve those goods. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

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