Bernardo Rucellai

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Bernardo Rucellai (also known as Bernardus Oricellarius) was born in 1448 or 1449 and died on October 7, 1514. An oligarch, banker, ambassador and man-of-letters, his influence was far-reaching. The Palazzo Rucellai, his home, remains a landmark in Florence to this day.

 Family

The son of Giovanni Rucellai, he was a member of the political elite of late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Florence.

In 1466, Bernardo married Nannina de' Medici, the elder sister of Lorenzo de' Medici to whom Bernardo was very close and strongly supported. He and Nannina had four children: Cosimo, Pietro, Palla and Giovanni.

   Political career

In 1478, he served as one of the Officiales Studii under the period of Lorenzo de' Medici's "rule" of Florence.

In 1484, he served as ambassador to Genoa.

From 1497-8, he served as Gonfaloniere di Giustizia under the period of the Savonarolan republic.

Other ambassadorial appointments include Naples and France.

  Intellectual Accomplishments

After the death of Lorenzo de' Medici, he opened his gardens, the Orti Oricellari, to the Academia Platonica in order that they might continue their discussions about literature, classical heritage, rhetoric and Latin grammar. Other famous Florentines in attendance include Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini.

Rucellai was a student of epigraphy, mainly of the city of Rome, and conducted extensive correspondence about historiographic theory with Pontano after his ambassadorial charge at Naples.

His teacher was the famed neo-Platonist, Marsilio Ficino and his pupil Giovanni Rucellai.

 Writings

Bernardo Rucellai wrote mainly in Latin. Although there is considerable correspondence between himself and Lorenzo de'Medici, Marsilio Ficino and Pontano, he wrote five treatises which have yet to be translated (into any other language):

De urbe Roma liber, De magistratibus Romanis, De bello italico commentarius, De bello Pisano, De bello Mediolansi and Oratio de auxilio Tifernatibus adferendo. All but the last are histories.