Ermolao Barbaro's On Celibacy 1 and 2

<p>This volume offers the first annotated English translation of the first two books of<i> On Celibacy </i>(1473) by the eminent Venetian humanist Ermolao Barbaro (1454-93); Books 3 and 4 of <i>On Celibacy</i> are presented, along with Barbaro’s <i>On the Duty of the Ambassador</i>, in the companion piece to this first volume. Setting out the historical context that crucially conditions Barbaro’s advocacy of the celibate life in Books 1 and 2, the introduction examines how <i>On Celibacy </i>seeks to justify a contemplative existence that rejects the career path expected of a figure of Barbaro’s standing within the Venetian patrician class.<br><br> Beyond setting out the essential facts of Ermolao Barbaro’s life-story, Gareth Williams discusses how <i>On Celibacy</i> is set in counterpoise to the treatise <i>On Marriage</i> (1415) that was composed by Ermolao’s eminent grandfather, Francesco Barbaro. If the latter’s treatise was vitally concerned with the institution of marriage as a key factor in the safeguarding of family succession and the stability of patriciate participation in government at Venice, <i>On Celibacy</i> presents an alternative ideal whereby the celibate can proudly renounce civic life in the name of self-discovery and the pursuit of wisdom, his abilities simply unsuited to the rigors of civic life. <i>On Celibacy </i>is thus implicated in a much wider 15th-century debate about the claims of the contemplative as opposed to the active life – a debate that extends all the way back to Graeco-Roman antiquity.</p>