The Correspondence of Coluccio Salutati (Vol. 1)

you will see finally, unless I am mistaken, in such a most happy course of your successes and in the governance of such great power, how much moderation must be applied to the height of your loftiness: which indeed, once you have read them, you will perhaps not despise the devotion and faith of my lowliness. For I know that you are so occupied among arduous and lofty things that you do not neglect lesser matters, you who see that the Neapolitan commoners and men unknown in origin and most base in profession were of no small benefit in the beginning of your elevation. Nor should you think that I, moved by the wondrous happiness of your fortune, contemplate your gifts or your benefits with this so familiar kind of writing. For God, the governor and ruler of all things, has provided for me sufficiently and more than sufficiently by His kindness, who transferred me, born from a very small but sunny town, into such a famous city, and having attained, beyond my merits, the goodwill of so glorious a people, has placed me next to my lords in the duty of so honorable an office. For indeed that saying of the Satirist is in my prayers:

to whom fortune has taught that the help of the humble is not to be despised.

Nor does the hope of profit or ambition spur him to speak thus; he holds himself content with his honored office,

May I have what I have now, or even less; that I may live for myself
What remains of my life, if the gods wish anything to remain.
May there be a good supply of books and of grain provided
For the year (1).

Indeed, if God shall grant these things, no one among mortals can be more blessed than I, provided that the tranquility of this city be added. What

nor does he desire anything, except the prosperity of the fatherland.

Critical apparatus for the Latin text above
6. qui] T quum 8. M praefuisse 9. M promotum 12. T vilissimo nat. ex oppido intra 13. T circa 14. T omits in 17. M quid - et 18. M quid - eius - dii

...that it was never brought to a conclusion. Indeed, it would not otherwise be understood why, in the only two codices in which it is now found, it appears to us abruptly cut off toward the end. Nor are arguments lacking to support this opinion. The murder of Joanna, the devastation of Arezzo, the violent usurpation of the property of the Florentines dwelling in Naples, the disagreements soon degenerated into fierce and scandalous discord between Urban VI and Charles; all these things and more besides must have given rise in the mind of Salutati to feelings quite different from those which had placed the pen in his

hands. To what end send wise counsels to one who had already tarnished his reputation in a hundred ways, and knew not how to be anything more than a common tyrant? It seems to me credible, therefore, that Coluccio, disillusioned, set the letter aside, and that it remained for a long time forgotten among his papers. This is why, among other things, it is not found in any of the codices containing those letters of Salutati which passed into the public domain, but reaches us from sources whose origin we do not well know.

(1) HORAT. Ep. I, XVIII, 107-10.