Picturing the ideal patron: Francesco Filelfo and Francesco Sforza

In various of his many writings, the Italian humanist Francesco Filelfo (1398-1481) portrayed rules who were often also (to be) his patrons. His (allegedly) historiographical and at any rate often idealized biographical works span numerous genres, from biography to epic poem to eulogy and essay letter. In this paper, I will explore how Filelfo fashioned his patron Francesco Sforza (1401-1466), both in two works of which he is the protagonist, that is the epic poem Sphortias, which relates Sforza’s rise to power in Milan, and the Oratio parentalis de divi Francisci Sphortiae Mediolanensium ducis felicitate, the eulogy Filelfo delivered in March 1467 in the Duomo of Milan, one year after the Duke’s demise, and in his vast correspondence. Filelfo’s numerous letters indeed contain many explicit statements about the ideal ruler, praising exemplary leadership as well as blaming counterexamples. Filelfo’s interest for picturing ideal leadership was also illustrated by his translation of several Plutarchan vitae and not least of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, a Fürstenspiegel he dedicated to Pope Paul the Second. In Filelfo’s case life-writing and the narration of historical events was not only blurred when it came to fashioning his patron’s lives, but also intertwined with his account of his own life and achievements. Filelfo’s prolific oeuvre was a deliberate attempt to cover as many literary genres as possible, yet the biographical and autobiographical components are a most prominent thread common to all of them.status: publishe