REFORMING THE CHIVALRIC ELITE IN THIRTEENTH-CENTURY FLORENCE: THE EVIDENCE OF BRUNETTO LATINI'S IL TESORETTO

Chivalric ideas exercised an important influence on the lay elite of medieval Europe, encouraging knights to pursue and defend honor with violence. Recent scholarship has stressed the explicit connection between chivalry and the violence of elite society in northwestern Europe, but little attention has been given to this reality in medieval Italy, especially Florence. Indeed, the chivalric elite of thirteenth-century Florence were also animated by chivalric ideas, which encouraged their violence. While many of the efforts made by contemporaries to control these excesses are familiar to scholars, the unique reform emphasized by the Florentine Brunetto Latini in his II Tesoretto is much less familiar. By combining virtues grounded in both chivalry and the revival of classical works, Latini constructed a multifaceted reform message that sought to temper chivalric violence by promoting restraint and prudence, while still respecting the traditional chivalric lifestyle.