Book Notes - The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (Chapters 6-9)

20 Mar 2013

Chapter 6: In the Lie Factory

  • Rome had powerful families
  • Poggio wanted to be apostolic scriptor
  • Pope ruled many spiritually but had unstable physical kingdom
  • Lots of cases in the papal court (the Roman Curia)
  • He didn’t want to join the Church for fear of moral bankruptcy
  • Roman Curia was perilous
  • Lapo’s On the Excellence and Dignity of the Roman Court
    • Commentary on bribery and corruption
    • Wanted position in Curia
  • Poggio was papal secretary in 1430s
  • Poggio called the Cura the Lie Factory
    • Lots of slander, gossip, backstabbing
  • He wrote a successful work called Facetiae
    • A collection of stories and jokes
  • Intense compeition and backbiting
    • Said all kinds of shit about each other, attacking skills, family, hygiene
  • Poggio hated the way things were. He wrote other works about the subject.
  • He wanted to change his life
    • Some escapism provided by book-mania

Chapter 7: A Pit to Catch Foxes

  • Poggio worked under Baldassare Cossa, Pope John XXIII.
    • From a family of pirates.
    • Very skilled writer and politician, cunning
    • Suspected of poisoning previous Pope
    • Made money by throwing jubilees
  • Papal throne contested by two others
    • How to reconcile?
    • Way of Council, Constance, Germany
    • Christians from all over came
  • Jan Hus humiliated and imprisoned
  • Jerome of Prague put on trial months later
    • Poggio questions his crimes (heresy)
  • Cossa flees when things start to turn (he’s the fox)
  • Poggio decides to stay around and go book hunting
  • Without stability in his life, Poggio throws himself more deeply into humanities
  • He likened saving books with saving people, anthropomorphized books

Chapter 8: The Way Things Are {dir=”ltr”}

  • You might call Lucretius’ idea atheist, but he may have believed in gods
    • If gods exist, it doesn’t matter
  • Ideas
    • Atoms
    • Eternal atoms
    • Infinite atoms of set shape and size
    • Particles in motion in infinite void
    • Creation comes as the result of a swerve
    • Swerve is source of free will
    • Universe not created for humans
    • Humans not unique
    • Human society began as primitive battle for survival
    • The soul dies
    • There is no afterlife
    • Death is nothing
    • All organized religions are superstitious delusions
    • Religions are invariable curled
    • No agen;s, demons, ghosts
    • The highest goal of human life is the enhancement of pleasure and the reduction of pain
    • The greatest obstacle to pleasure is not pain; it is delusion
    • Understanding hte nature of things generates deep wonder
  • The work is also very poetic
  • Used Venus metaphore

Chapter 9: The Return

  • Poggio waited years to get access to Niccolo’s copy of On the Nature of Things.
  • When the new pope was installed, many of his colleagues returned to Curia
  • Poggio went to work for the Bishop of Winchester.
  • He didn’t find any great works in the English monasteries.
  • He returned in 1422 to a new secretarial post.
  • He resumed his work in the Curia
  • Had many children with Lucia Pannelli his mistress
  • Accumulated money and collected antiquities
  • He married into the Buondelmonti familly, Vaggia di Gino Buondelmonti. “Should an Old man Marry?”
  • He worked for several other popes, 8 in total.
  • Served as chancelor of Florence for 5 years. Resigned and died 18 months later in 1459.
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