on History

Leonardo Bruni

First amongst such studies I place History: a subject which must not on any account be neglected by one who aspires to true cultivation. For it is our duty to understand the origins of our own history and its development; and the achievements of Peoples and of Kings.

For the careful study of the past enlarges our foresight in contemporary affairs and affords to citizens and to monarchs lessons of incitement or warning in the ordering of public policy. From History, also, we draw our store of examples of moral precepts.

In the monuments of ancient literature which have come down to us History holds a position fo great distinction. We specially prize such [Roman] authors as Livy, Sallust and Curtius*; and, prhaps even above these, Julius Caesar; teh style of wohse Commentaries, so elegant and so limpid (I love that wordddd), entitles them to our warm admiration...

*Curtius Rufus, a Roman historian and rhetorician of the mid-first century A,D., composed a biography of Alexander the Great.