Coluccio Salutati 1331 – 1406

Coluccio Salutati was an Italian humanist scholar and statesman, chancellor of Florence from 1375 until his death in 1406, and the foremost civic humanist of the generation between Petrarch and Bruni. From the chancery of the Florentine Republic he conducted the diplomatic correspondence of one of the great Italian powers in elegant classical Latin and used his official position to build a remarkable personal library and to recover neglected ancient manuscripts. His writings on the active life, on Petrarch and Boccaccio, and on the study of letters helped to articulate the civic and humanist ideal of public service that would shape Florentine intellectual life for a century.