‘Maniacal Ciceronianism’? Costanzo Felici’s De coniuratione Catilinae and Historical Writing in the Early Cinquecento

Journal article

This article recovers Costanzo Felici’s De coniuratione Catilinae (1518) as a major source for studies of Sallust’s reception, Ciceronianism, and historical writing in the Renaissance. Focusing chiefly on Felici’s revisions to the text, it argues that Felici’s Ciceronianism sometimes competes with his interests in good historical writing, which for Felici meant an idiosyncratic blend of verisimilitude, factual truth, and historical criticism. The De coniuratione therefore complicates distinctions that have recently been drawn between these elements of Renaissance historical writing. More broadly, literary and philological methods are foregrounded as effective tools for analyzing developments in Renaissance historical thought

Authors: Colley, J

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Brill Academic Publishers
• Journal: Erudition and the Republic of Letters
• Volume: 10
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 115-144
• Publication date: 2025-05-28
• DOI: 10.1163/24055069-10020003
• EISSN: 2405-5069
• ISSN: 2405-5050
• Language: English
• Keywords: early sixteenth century; Sallust; verisimilitude; historical criticism; Catilinarian conspiracy; Ciceronianism; Renaissance historiography; reception of classical history; textual revision