Laudator Temporis Acti

James Hankins, Political Meritocracy in Renaissance Italy: The Virtuous Republic of Francesco Patrizi of Siena (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2023), p. 34, with note on p. 354:

Around this time, when he was still living in Tranchedini’s villa, Patrizi wrote a poem expressing his desire for a quiet life and an end to political involvements. The poem, entitled “De vita quieta,” was dedicated to Goro Lolli, now Pius II’s private secretary.

Este procul, miserae ciuilis praelia rixae,
urbibus exitium magnis extremaque labes!
Sit procul ambitio rabidaeque insomnia mentis,
dum studet optatos tribuat plebecula fasces
atque soporiferae per saeua silentia noctis
murmure sollicito repetit discrimina rerum.

Away with the strife of wretched civic quarrels,
The ultimate corruption and ruin of great cities!
Away with ambition and the nightmares of a rabid mind
Scheming for the rabble to give it the power it longs for,
And through the fierce stillness of sleep-bearing night
Seeks crisis after crisis, driven by their agitated cries.⁵⁰

50. Poem. 3.3; the text is in Avesani 1968, 63.

Avesani = Avesani, Rino. 1968. “Epaeneticorum ad Pium II Pont: Max. libri V.” In Enea Silvio Piccolomini, Papa Pio II: Atti del convegno per il quinto centenario della morte, e altri scritti, edited by Domenico Maffei, 15–97. Siena: Accademia Senese degli Intronati.