Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini.Europe (c. 1400–1458). Ed. Nancy Bisaha. Trans. Robert Brown. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2013. xx + 356 pp. $65. ISBN: 978-0-8132-2182-3.
This translation is a notable contribution to an ever-expanding number of works by Aeneas Silvius (Enea Silvio) Piccolomini (1405–64) recently published in new editions, new translations, or first-time English translations such as this one. Part of the reason for such fascination is not only because Piccolomini was a remarkably versatile and prolific writer, but also because his life reads like one of his literary compositions. His youth and maturity were bifurcated by a dramatic turning point when he took holy orders in 1446, the libertine humanist reinvented as a dutiful prelate. Piccolomini’s De Europa (variously called De gestis sub Friderico III) was completed in1458, a few months before he ascended the papal throne as Pius II. This edition is a lucid rendering of Piccolomini’s elegant, if somewhat uneven, Latin, based on the text established by Adrian van Heck in 2001 but greatly supplemented by readings from the two main stemmata of manuscripts —Urbinus Latinus 885 and Vaticanus Latinus 3888 — from which van Heck constructed his text. This volume is also enhanced by precise and extensive annotations that correct some problematic readings from van Heck and explain the many classical, medieval, and contemporary references in Piccolomini’s work. There is also a very helpful introduction, an appendix listing reigning monarchs region by region, a bibliography of primary and secondary works, and a useful index. Although Piccolomini notes in his opening sentence, ‘‘As briefly as I can, I wish to record for posterity what, to my knowledge, were the most memorable deeds accomplished . . . during the reign of Emperor Frederick III’’ (51), De Europa is more than just history; it is a chorography or geographical narrative that attempts to underscore the everyday human participation in national, political, and cultural affairs and to illuminate them by recalling their classical and medieval origins. The organizational plan is simple: Piccolomini moves effortlessly across Europe without a road map and without adhering to a strict chronology, unifying his narrative through his focus on Frederick III, on whose behalf Piccolomini visited many of the regions he describes. In fact, his own personal experience and anecdotal comments are often the most engaging parts of the narrative, but Brown and Bisaha are assiduous in identifying Piccolomini’s many sources. Of great interest is their discovery that Piccolomini relied heavily on an unnamed contemporary source, Bartolomeo Facio, whose history of Alfonso I of Naples, Rerum gestarum Alfonsi regis libri (1457), appears extensively in De Europa. The campaigns of Alfonso, in fact, form the conclusion of the entire work as Piccolomini praises him as ‘‘the keeper of peace in Italy’’ (307).