Patrician Sages and the Humanist Cynic: Francesco Filelfo and the Ethics of World Citizenship*
Abstract The fifteenth-century humanist Francesco Filelfo (1398–1481) spent much of the period from 1429 to 1444 involved with Florentine politics, becoming a strong advocate on behalf of the patrician oligarchs, many of whom were exiled in 1434 at the return of Cosimo de’ Medici from eleven months of exile. Filelfo’s works from the period, including his satires, the Oratio ad exules, and the consolatory treatise entitled Commentationes Florentinae de exilio, were a response to the Florentine political crisis. Filelfo demonstrates in these works not only a rhetorical and political purpose on behalf of his patrons, but also takes the opportunity to reflect on the notion of world citizenship, a philosophical concept derived largely from Stoic and Cynic sources.