The Afterlife of Petrarch’s Liber sine nomine in Catholic and Protestant Contexts: The Case of Bernhard von Kraiburg’s Epistle on the Fall of Constantinople (1453)

Abstract

Petrarch’s Liber sine nomine is a collection of satirical letters against the Avignon Curia, remarkable for its stylistic refinement. It offered later readers multiple possibilities of interpretation and reuse, serving both as a rhetorical model and as a resource for anti-papal argumentation. While literary application predominated in the fifteenth century, the collection was later repurposed in religious debates between Protestants and Catholics. This paper examines a little-known episode in its afterlife, namely the epistle on the fall of Constantinople in 1453 by Bernhard von Kraiburg, chancellor of the Archbishop of Salzburg and later Bishop of Chiemsee. Close philological analysis shows that Bernhard adapted extensive passages from the Liber sine nomine and, along with a few other authors, established a distinct line of reception by reinterpreting selected letters as prayers. In the second half of the seventeenth century, however, Bernhard’s work met an analogous fate to that of its model. It was read and reframed from a Lutheran perspective by Johann Konrad Dieterich, professor of Greek and history at the University of Gießen, and was subsequently subjected to indirect censorship in the Index librorum prohibitorum.

1. Introduction: A ‘Dangerous’ Work

On 14 December 1352, Petrarch sent a brief letter to Philippe Cabassole, Bishop of Cavaillon, as an accompaniment to several gifts. One of these was a newly composed epistle, the subject of which was so delicate that Petrarch asked Philippe to read it in strict secrecy and return it without delay (Fam. XV 12). In another letter, addressed on 29 April 1357 to Arnošt z Pardubic, Archbishop of Prague, he wrote that he had refrained from sending certain writings, since he considered them to be too outspoken and therefore best kept concealed (Fam. XXI 1).1

In both instances, these references point to the texts that would later form the Liber sine nomine, a concise collection of nineteen letters condemning the ‘anti-Roman’ policies and moral corruption of the papal Curia at Avignon. Its Preface, likely composed between 1359 and 1361, begins with an allusion to the Terentian maxim “veritas odium parit”,2 which Petrarch uses as the starting point to highlight the epistles’ uncompromising frankness. To protect both himself and his readers from potential reprisals by the “enemies of truth” (SN Pref. 5), he employed several precautions. He excluded the ‘compromised’ pieces from the main body of his correspondence, omitted the names of the addressees, and disguised the identities of contemporary figures using mythological and biblical pseudonyms. The collection was also reserved for posthumous circulation.

Centuries later, it is challenging to ascertain whether this extreme caution was genuinely warranted or primarily a literary strategy. This ambiguity becomes particularly evident when one considers the Liber sine nomine alongside Petrarch’s broader oeuvre, the nature of his criticisms, and the genre conventions he employs.

First, the themes treated with notable emphasis in the Sine nomine epistles are by no means unfamiliar to Petrarch’s other writings, which he did not conceal, such as Fam. VI 1, the “Babylonian Sonnets” (Rvf 136–138), Seniles VII 1 and IX 1, or Contra eum qui maledixit Italie.3 Most of these circulated during his lifetime and, in certain passages, exhibit a similarly trenchant tone.4 Furthermore, Petrarch’s criticisms were primarily moral in nature and intended to remain fully within orthodoxy, rather than to propose doctrinal or institutional reform (cf. Gilli 2004, pp. 65–66).5 As such, they were largely “forgiven”, particularly because the elite of the Avignon Curia regarded the poet as “one of their own, albeit of a particular character” (Suitner 2008, pp. 252–53). Finally, the emphasis on danger also functions as a literary device, linking the collection to the tradition of classical and medieval satire (see Petrarca 1974, pp. XXXIV–XXXV; Suitner 1985, pp. 201–3; Martinez 2009, pp. 295–99). In the Liber sine nomine, the Petrarchan narrator adopts the typical role of the satirical persona: the sincere chronicler. Driven by a love of truth and moral indignation, he exposes the corruption and wrongdoing of his contemporaries (cf. Kernan 1959, pp. 1–30; Kindermann 1978, pp. 36–81). Consequently, the threat posed by the “enemies of truth” can be understood primarily as a rhetorical convention, with only minimal real risk.

Taken together, these literary and historical dimensions frame an important question of the work’s reception: whether the Liber sine nomine was regarded as a literary exercise, admired and emulated for its stylistic value, or viewed with suspicion as if it were an anti-ecclesiastical work, potentially bordering on heresy. The following sections will explore this question in detail. First, a very schematic account of the Liber’s subsequent history will be presented, highlighting key points of its reception in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with particular attention to both Catholic and Protestant contexts. The discussion then turns to a little-known episode from the Liber’s afterlife: Bernhard von Kraiburg’s epistle, which laments the fall of Constantinople in 1453 as well as other calamities of his time. This section aims to further the philological study of the Bavarian humanist’s letter, including its extensive incorporation of excerpts from the Liber sine nomine. Finally, it demonstrates how the reception of Bernhard’s epistle mirrors the afterlife of Petrarch’s work: initially, both were recognised primarily for their literary merits, yet later, during the religious controversies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they faced indirect censure. In the sections devoted to Bernhard, extended quotations from the Latin primary sources will be presented to demonstrate the evolution of textual borrowing. The accompanying English translations will likewise seek to reflect this intertextuality.

2. From a Literary Model to a Precursor of the Reformation

The Liber sine nomine began to circulate in the years immediately following the poet’s death, eventually enjoying a substantial manuscript tradition.6 Its first readers and disseminators were Petrarch’s friends and admirers (Cascio 2020, p. 11), but, somewhat unexpectedly, it also attracted interest in the very circles it had targeted.

A few weeks after Petrarch’s death, on 11 August 1374, Pope Gregory XI instructed his vicar general in Italy, Guillaume de Noellet, to have the poet’s works transcribed by skilled scribes for the papal library, specifically the Africa, the Bucolicum carmen, the epistles, the invectives, and the De vita solitaria. It would seem that this order was carried out without delay. Towards the end of that year, in fact, Raimondo Ganimberti, Bishop of Padua and collector responsible for managing the revenues of the Apostolic Camera in Lombardia,7 recorded an expenditure of forty-three ducats for the copying of “certain books” by Petrarch. The precise works in question remain uncertain, but it is plausible that some of the Petrarchan items recorded in the inventories of the (anti-)papal library in Avignon at the beginning of the fifteenth century entered the collection at this point. In these catalogues, the Liber sine nomine appears in at least three copies;8 notably, the list compiled between 1405 and 1407 details the books kept in the (anti-)pope’s study for his personal use and includes all three manuscripts of the work (Frasso and Tilatti 2007). This presence might suggest either an appreciation, within the Avignon Curia, of the literary qualities of these texts; more generally, it is indicative of a desire to secure Petrarch’s works for the prestige their possession conferred—particularly in the context of the Schism, in which “the library was a relevant sign of intellectual, religious, and political legitimacy” (Fleck 2009, p. 301).

Not unlike Petrarch’s other works, the Liber sine nomine went on to enjoy considerable esteem among the intellectual elite of the fifteenth century. Its owners and readers included high-ranking clerics such as Nicholas of Cusa and Domenico Capranica, as well as prominent figures of secular humanism, notably Giannozzo Manetti. Its circulation, however, was not confined to this select milieu: copies are attested, inter alia, in episcopal, monastic and university libraries (cf. Sottili 1967, pp. 455–56, no. 9; Sottili 1970, pp. 355–60, no. 121; Pellegrin 1975, pp. 118–20, no. 56; Vattasso 1908, pp. 81–82, no. 90; Mann 1975, pp. 174–75, no. 19).

The Liber’s increasingly widespread dissemination was already well underway in the first decades of the century and was undoubtedly facilitated by the networks among those who participated in the proceedings of the Council of Constance, some of whom incorporated it into their own writings or interventions during the council. Previous scholarship has identified two specific instances of such usage. In an anonymous sermon dated 5 September 1417, a dictum from SN Pref. 1 is explicitly cited, with both the author’s name and the title of the work provided.9 A more sophisticated case is presented by the letter that the Franciscan friar Diego de Moxena addressed to Frederick I of Aragon on 9 July 1415. This missive was modelled on the Preface and the first two letters of the collection, from which Moxena tacitly drew several passages, reworking them deliberately (Ruiz Arzalluz 2015). To these two instances can now be added a further case that has previously escaped scholarly attention. An otherwise unknown curialist, probably German, who had attended Sigismund of Luxembourg’s meeting with John XXIII in Lodi in the final months of 1413 (cf. Brandmüller 1991, p. 63), addressed a sermon to Sigismund in mid-January 1415, in which he tacitly incorporated almost the entirety of the seventh epistle (Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 5097, f. 129v, cf. Finke et al. 1926, pp. 71–72).

In Catholic circles of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the fate of the Liber sine nomine, which Petrarch treated with caution, was therefore broadly analogous to that of his other works that he did not consider ‘dangerous’. Possessing the texts of the celebrated poet conferred prestige on their owners, while their use was primarily literary and rhetorical. They served as a source of sententiae and aphorisms, or, at most, as a model for intellectuals—both ecclesiastics and laymen—who appreciated their style (cf. Cascio 2020, pp. 12–16).

From the early sixteenth century onwards, first in the Czech lands and then in the German-speaking regions, the Liber sine nomine was nevertheless drawn into the doctrinal conflicts between Catholics and various reforming groups. In the hands of the Hussites, Moravian Brethren, Lutherans, and other movements of the Reformation, Petrarch’s vehement criticisms of the Avignon Curia became, in fact, a powerful “historiographical weapon” (Feo 2007, p. 41) against Rome and the papal institution, since exponents of these groups frequently cited, translated, and commented on the text in support of their theses (cf. Špička 2019, pp. 98–101; Cascio 2020, esp. pp. 18–29).

It is sufficient to recall two exponents of Protestantism who were particularly active in this field. Pier Paolo Vergerio the Younger (1498–1565), who in his ‘counter-catalogues’ and other polemical pamphlets freely employed various extracts from the Liber sine nomine in an anti-Roman vein, in 1557 published a vernacular translation of passages drawn from several letters, together with the three “Babylonian Sonnets” and eighteen stanzas attributed to Francesco Berni. With his publications, Vergerio openly sought to provoke the Catholic censors, so that by including the pre-eminent Petrarch in the Indexes they would be compelled to acknowledge that he had espoused ‘heretical’ principles analogous to those of contemporary critics of the Church (see, at least, Cascio 2020, pp. 31–67).

Around the same period, in his Catalogus testium veritatis, first published in 1556 and with a new, updated edition in 1562, Matthias Flacius Illyricus (1520–1575) included Petrarch among the ‘witnesses of the truth’ who had opposed the papacy in the past. In the chapter dedicated to him, Flacius drew on the “Babylonian Sonnets” (Rvf 136–138), the sonnet “De l’empia Babilonia, ond’è fuggita…” (Rvf 114), and the eighteenth letter of the Liber sine nomine. He arrived at the conclusion—tendentious and not fully consistent with the historical context and the aims of Petrarchan polemic—that the poet had regarded the pope as the Antichrist. The same, forced interpretation is reiterated in the commentary with which Flacius accompanied his German translation of SN XVIII, published under the title Das der Babst mit seinem hoffe die rechte Babilon vnd Babilonische Hure sey (‘That the Pope with his Court is the True Babylon and Babylonian Whore’) without indication of place, publisher, and date, but probably in Magdeburg at the printing house of Christian Rödinger, and chronologically situated between the two editions of the Catalogus:

From these and similar writings, dear Christian reader, you can clearly see that there have always been pious and sensible Christians who recognised the disgraceful Pope as the true Antichrist and the Babylonian whore, and fled from and cursed him. Therefore, woe, woe, and again woe to all those who, in any way, serve or assist the Antichrist and his clergy in confirming and defending their abominations, tyranny, and fornication. The angel cries out in Revelation: “Flee, flee from Babylon, that ye receive not of her plagues; for her sins have reached unto heaven” [cf. Rev 18:4–5, KJV]. Therefore, whoever does not wish to receive or heed the faithful and heartfelt admonition of the beloved heavenly Father, but wilfully and knowingly joins himself to the Antichrist and his followers, and makes himself a partaker in their sins, will surely have to feel and bear the stern wrath of God with them, here and hereafter, eternally. May the eternal, merciful God graciously preserve His own from these and other sins and punishments. Amen.10

For the Catholic authorities, devising an effective defence against the blows of such a ‘weapon’ was far from easy. Had they prohibited the reading of the compromised work of the celebrated author—whom they nonetheless considered doctrinally irreproachable—they would have provided further arguments to their adversaries, who presented Petrarch as a forerunner of the Reformation (cf. Coogan 1983, p. 8). In accordance with the principles of the Index librorum prohibitorum, the solution ultimately adopted, beginning with the 1559 edition, was a condemnation limited to editions and translations of the Liber prepared and commented on by “heretics” or published anonymously and without editorial details, whenever judged contrary to the Catholic faith or the integrity of morals (cf. De Bujanda et al. 1990, pp. 38, 150–53).

With this compromise, Catholic censors were not compelled to broach the question of Petrarch’s heterodoxy; nevertheless, they could not prevent his establishment among the (alleged) precursors of Protestantism. This had consequences for the reception of some of his works, including the Liber sine nomine, in Catholic circles: from the sixteenth century onwards, they began to be regarded with suspicion and distrust for several centuries (Cascio 2020, pp. 61–62).

3. The Case of Bernhard von Kraiburg’s Letter

A particularly noteworthy episode in the changing reception of the Liber sine nomine is a letter on the fall of Constantinople and other contemporary misfortunes, sent on 23 July 1453 by Bernhard von Kraiburg—a Bavarian humanist who at the time was serving in the archiepiscopal chancery of Salzburg—to Silvester Pflieger, his predecessor as Bishop of Chiemsee. The letter was composed through the unrestrained assembly of pre-existing works, notably including long passages from Petrarch’s anti-Avignon collection. Detached from their original context and stripped of their anti-curial character, these Petrarchan excerpts were recycled primarily for their literary and rhetorical value—as was common in the fifteenth century. The missive, innocent from a doctrinal standpoint, achieved some success in the following decades, as evidenced by manuscript copies and its subsequent reuse (though the latter remained limited). In the seventeenth century, however, like one of its main hypotexts, the Liber sine nomine, it became embroiled in disputes between Protestants and Catholics, and was indirectly included in the Index.

3.1. Biographical Notes

Born in Kraiburg am Inn, probably into a bourgeois family in the second decade of the fifteenth century, Bernhard matriculated in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Vienna in 1437, where he obtained the title of magister in 1441 or 1442. Although he also enrolled in the Faculty of Law at Vienna in 1444, he obtained his doctorate in canon law only much later, in 1460, at the University of Padua.

Around 1447 he began working in the archiepiscopal chancery of Salzburg, holding the offices of protonotary, secretary, and, finally, chancellor. Between the late 1450s and early 1460s, he was entrusted with important diplomatic and administrative missions by Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, Bishop of Brixen, and by Pope Pius II.

Having obtained various benefices over the years, he reached the peak of his career in 1467, when he was appointed bishop of Chiemsee by Pope Paul II, a diocese he governed until his death on 17 October 1477.

In addition to his ecclesiastical, chancery, and diplomatic duties, Bernhard was also active in the cultural sphere. He owned a distinguished library, from which around one hundred manuscripts and incunabula survive. At the same time, he was an author of some standing, though not particularly prolific; his literary output was essentially connected with his functions as chancellor and churchman and consists chiefly of letters and sermons.11

3.2. Structure and Main Sources of the Constantinople Letter

Bernhard’s most successful work, both in terms of surviving manuscripts and its reception, is the aforementioned letter on the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and other contemporary misfortunes. Since no modern critical edition exists, his complete text remains available in print today only in the 1729 source collection published by the Benedictine monks Bernard Pez and Philibert Hueber, which offers an imperfect transcription of a manuscript preserved in the library of the monastery of Melk.12

In 1971, Werner M. Bauer drew attention to the significance of a manuscript from Mondsee, now in the Austrian National Library, in which he believed Bernhard’s hand could be identified (Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 3704, ff. 243r–247v; cf. Bauer 1971, p. 157). Although the hypothesis of autograph authorship does not hold,13 the manuscript, on first inspection, appears to distinguish itself from the other witnesses for two reasons. On the one hand, alongside the Constantinople letter, the codex contains several sermons by Bernhard that seem to be faithful copies of the texts preserved in manuscript M I 398 of the University Library of Salzburg, some of which are autograph, others of which bear autograph corrections. On the other hand, the text of the letter in the Vienna codex seems to reflect the orthographic features of Bernhard’s autograph writings. As the only witness in the surviving tradition to do so, it deserves particular attention, as it is likely that the scribe made use of the autograph itself or of a very close copy. Consequently, in the present study this manuscript—hereinafter referred to as W²—will serve as the basis for a provisionally established text of the cited passages.

Bauer provided an analysis of the epistle, examining it within the historical and cultural context of the time (Bauer 1971, pp. 158–63). The German scholar highlighted its rigorous, almost symmetrical structure, which presents the corruption of the age on two fronts: the moral and social collapse of humanity is matched by the disruption of the order of nature. The most striking sign of total decline, however, is the fall of Constantinople to the Turks, which resulted in the massacre of a large number of Christians. The lament for this catastrophe is followed by a prayer addressed to Christ which, in Bauer’s interpretation, develops into a twofold invocation: Jesus appears both as a man among men, characterised by mercy, and as God, in his role as righteous judge. These two aspects would ultimately converge in the final supplication before the throne of God, where justice is tempered by mercy. Such a structured invocation would bind the entire discourse to the theme of sin and divine punishment, placing the historical event within a metaphysical perspective. Bernhard’s standpoint would thus be set apart from the “official humanist” reactions to the fall of Constantinople, which, led by Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, lamented the loss of the treasures of Greek culture, polemicised against Islam, and urged the European powers to fight the common enemy. In place of political and military action, Bernhard would have regarded the reform of spiritual and political life as the conditio sine qua non for any improvement; and with this approach he would have aligned himself with his “master”, Nicholas of Cusa.

While certain aspects of Bauer’s reconstruction may be accepted, a philological analysis aimed primarily at identifying the sources used by Bernhard permits a partially different interpretation. Before turning to the details, it should nevertheless be noted that Bernhard, from a structural point of view, broadly follows the conventions of the ars dictaminis, reproducing the traditional divisions of the medieval epistle. In the salutatio (from Bernhardus de Kreyburg to memorare, W2, f. 243r; cf. Pez and Hueber 1729, p. 362b), he emphasises his humble condition and the bond of respect and familiarity that links him to the addressee. In the exordium (from Nudiustercius to mi pater, W2, f. 243r; cf. Pez and Hueber 1729, pp. 362b–63a), designed to secure the reader’s goodwill, he alludes to his concern over the decline of the human world, which prompts him to write the letter, and—apologising for his simple and unadorned style—he appeals for the attention of his “benign father”. In the narratio (from Dum intueor to exclamo, W2, ff. 243r–245r; cf. Pez and Hueber 1729, pp. 363a–65a), he then develops the theme of universal decline along two lines, as Bauer has also aptly observed. On the one hand, he laments the lack of faith, peace, and humanity, and above all the disappearance of justice, which leads to the moral and political dissolution of society. On the other hand, to this general crisis of human values he links disturbances in nature: epidemics and plagues, storms and floods, droughts and other climatic anomalies devastate the crops and decimate the population. Yet all these calamities serve to foreshadow an even more disastrous event: the fall of Constantinople into the hands of that “impious tyrant”, “the emperor of the Turks”, responsible for the massacre of countless Christians. After enumerating the misfortunes of the age, the narratio is followed by a particular petitio (from O Ihesu bone to precamur, W2, ff. 245r–247v; cf. Pez and Hueber 1729, pp. 365a–67a), which does not consist in a request addressed to the recipient of the letter but in a lengthy prayer directed to Jesus Christ. In this, Bernhard laments the passivity of God and implores him to intervene on behalf of his people, allowing mercy to prevail over justice. Finally, in the conclusio (from Usque in presens to Vale, W2, f. 247v; cf. Pez and Hueber 1729, p. 367a), he apologises for his verbosity and closes the work by appending the date.

Previous scholarship has failed to note that Bernhard’s entire letter was composed through a compilatory procedure, tacitly adapting passages drawn from earlier works.14 Among these, two are particularly noteworthy, not only forming the backbone of the letter but also playing a significant role in its interpretation: Lactantius’ Divinae institutiones and Petrarch’s Liber sine nomine.

The presence of Lactantius is already evident in the exordium, where Bernhard justifies the simplicity of style and the absence of weighty matters by invoking the limitations of his intellect: “quia enim intellectus meus tenebroso carnis domicilio includitur, ignorans est scienciamque non habet” (W2, f. 243r; cf. Pez and Hueber 1729, p. 363b; ‘For since my intellect is shut up in the dark home of the flesh, it is ignorant and does not have knowledge’). This passage constitutes a clear allusion to Div. inst. VII 12, 11: “deinde, quod anima quamuis a deo sit inspirata, tamen quia tenebroso domicilio terrenae carnis inclusa est, scientiam non habet, quae est diuinitatis” (‘Next: though the soul receives its breath from God, nevertheless, shut up as it is in a dark home of earthly flesh, it does not have the knowledge that belongs to divinity’).15

However, it is in the narratio that the intertextual connections between Bernhard’s letter and the seventh book of the Divinae institutiones are most evident. The disruption of the social and natural order, which culminates in the catastrophe of the fall of Constantinople, is modelled on those chapters in which the “Christian Cicero” speaks of the last times and the signs foreshadowing the end of the world. It will be enough to cite three examples, relating, respectively, to society, to nature, and to the fall of the Empire.

In the fifteenth chapter, Lactantius foretells the general decline of res humanae. As the end of the world draws near, justice will vanish, while wickedness, greed, and covetousness will flourish. Each person will possess only what they can seize and defend with their own hands, and tyranny and brute force will hold sway. Humanity will live deprived of faith, peace, compassion, modesty, and truth; there will be no security, order, or respite from the wicked:

Nihil quisquam tunc habebit nisi aut quaesitum aut defensum manu, audacia et uis omnia possidebunt. Non fides in hominibus, non pax, non humanitas, non pudor, non ueritas erit atque ita neque securitas neque regimen neque requies a malis ulla.

(Lact. Div. inst. VII 15, 9)

(No one will hold on to anything unless he seeks or defends it with force; violence and outrage will be in control of everything. There will be no faith among men, no peace, no generosity, no shame, no truth: and thus there will be no security, no order and no respite from evil.)

Bernhard takes up this prophecy almost verbatim, applying it to his own present time as if it had already been fulfilled:

Optime pater, angulos orbis circumspice, eius metire habitatores, et videbis quod nichil aut parum quisque habet, nisi id aut male defensum aut peius sit quesitum, audacia et vis, non ius, omnia possident. Sed si id tibi commune et in tuis oculis non magnum videtur, maius isto animadverte: nempe deficit in hominibus fides, pax et humanitas, passimque securitas atque cuiuslibet status regimen omne, non est bonis requies a sediciosis ulla.

(W2, f. 243v; cf. Pez and Hueber 1729, p. 363a–b)

(Excellent Father, survey the corners of the world, measure its inhabitants, and you will see that each holds on to nothing, or at least very little, unless it is defended improperly or sought in an even worse way; violence and outrage, not justice, are in control of everything. Yet if this seems ordinary and insignificant to you, note an even greater fact: faith, peace, and humanity are indeed lacking among men, as well as security and the order of every rank throughout the world; the righteous find no respite from the seditious.)

In the case of disturbances in nature, the procedure is repeated: the prophecies concerning pestilential air, the failure of the harvest after a promising blossom, and the mortality of quadrupeds, birds, and fish are borrowed from Lactantius, adapted, and presented as phenomena occurring in the present and perceptible to all:

Aer enim uitiabitur et corruptus ac pestilens fiet […], nec terra homini dabit fructum; non seges quidquam, non arbor, non uitis feret, sed cum in flore spem maximam dederint, in fruge decipient. […] deficient et in terra quadrupedes et in aere uolucres et in mari pisces.

(Lact. Div. inst. VII 16, 6 and 8)

(The air will grow foul and will become corrupt and pestilent, […] and men will have no fruits of the earth: cornfield, orchard and vineyard will bear nothing; they will offer great hope in the flower and betray it in the bud. […] there will be no cattle on earth, no birds in the sky and no fish in the sea.)

Aer iam viciatus pestilens et corruptus factus est […] Preterea vidisti quantam annus presens et plures preteriti vernali tempore agricolis spem in flore maximam posuere, sed per aeris intemperiem quomodo in fructu deceperint senciunt omnes qui in messe iam sua falce sata metunt aut arbustorum legerint partus. Vidisti insuper quomodo paucis in annis terra pestilenti morbo defecit in quadrupedibus, aer in avibus, ripe lacus et stagna in piscibus.

(W2, ff. 243v–244r; cf. Pez and Hueber 1729, p. 363b)

(The air has already become foul, pestilent, and corrupt […] Moreover, you have seen how this year and many of the past, in the spring, held out great hope to the farmers in the flower; but all who now reap their sown fields with the sickle or have gathered the yield of their orchards perceive how they have betrayed them in the fruit through the intemperance of the air. You have also seen how, in just a few years, due to a pestilential disease, the earth has been lacking in cattle, the air in birds, the rivers, lakes, and ponds in fish.)

Bernhard’s letter also closely echoes that passage of Lactantius in which the latter foretells the fall of Rome, the transfer of rule to Asia, and the supremacy of the East over the West, explaining these sombre events through the transience of human works:

Cuius uastitatis et confusionis haec erit causa, quod Romanum nomen, quo nunc regitur orbis […] tolletur e terra et imperium in Asiam reuertetur ac rursus oriens dominabitur atque occidens seruiet. Nec mirum cuiquam debet uideri, si regnum tanta mole fundatum ac tamdiu per tot et tales uiros auctum, tantis denique opibus confirmatum aliquando tamen corruet. Nihil est enim humanis uiribus laboratum quod non humanis aeque uiribus destrui possit, quoniam mortalia sunt opera mortalium.

(Lact. Div. inst. VII 15, 11–12)

(the cause of the devastation and confusion will be this: the name of Rome, by which the world is presently ruled, […] will be razed from the earth, power will return to Asia, and once again East will be master and West will be servant. It should be no surprise to anyone if an empire founded on such a base, expanded so long and so widely and buttressed by such great resources should eventually collapse. There is nothing constructed by human effort which cannot also be felled by human effort, because the achievements of mortals are mortal.)

Bernhard repeats this reflection in nearly identical terms, replacing the empire of Rome with the city of Constantinople, which had just fallen under the rule of an Asiatic power, that of the Turks:

O mi pater, quid spei superest? Si constantinopolitana civitas tanta mole fundata ac tamdiu per multos celebres imperatores adaucta, tantis denique opibus confirmata tam brevi termino corruit, video nichil humanis viribus laboratum quod non, Deo permittente, viribus humanis destruatur; mortalia enim nil aliud sunt quam opera mortalium.

(W2, f. 244v; cf. Pez and Hueber 1729, p. 364b)

(O my father, what hope remains? If the city of Constantinople, founded on such a base, expanded so long by many illustrious rulers, and buttressed by such great resources, has collapsed in so brief a span, I see that there is nothing constructed by human effort which, God permitting, is not felled by human effort; for mortal things are nothing but the achievements of mortals.)

Immediately after this consideration of the frailty of human creations, in the final part of the narratio, Bernhard proceeds to outline his emotional reactions to the dismal news, resorting to biblical expressions:

Crede michi, ab eodem die quo hec primum michi auribus inciderunt usque in presens numquam vere letum vultum habui, tristicia enim me absorbuit intravitque usque ad animam meam.

(W2, f. 244v; cf. Pez and Hueber 1729, p. 364b)

(Believe me, from the very day when this first reached my ears until now, I have never truly had a cheerful countenance, for sorrow has swallowed me up and entered even unto my soul.)16

He then explains in greater detail how he experiences his grief: thinking back on the siege and worrying about the future, tears well up in his eyes; he oscillates between despair and hope and, shut away in his room, he prays before the crucifix. This description, while somewhat rhetorical, strikes the unsuspecting reader as sincere and personal; yet it is not entirely self-devised, for Bernhard draws it from the seventh letter of Petrarch’s Liber sine nomine, shaping it deliberately to his own ends.

The addressee of SN VII was probably one of the four cardinals appointed by Pope Clement VI in 1351 to reform the government of Rome, who had spoken confidentially with Petrarch about the situation in the City.17 While the first part of the epistle (para. 1–4) alludes rather enigmatically to this conversation, the second part (para. 5–16) constitutes a desperate plea for Christ’s assistance. At the opening of his text, the poet notes that the memory of his interlocutor’s words always moves him to tears, and that in his disturbed state of mind he vacillates between despair and hope:

quotiens verborum tuorum sonus ad memoriam meam redit, totiens dolor ad animum, meror ad oculos revertatur; et cor meum, quod dum loquebaris ardebat, nunc dum meminit, dum cogitat, dum providet, resolvatur in lacrimas, non quidem femineas sed viriles, sed masculas et, si detur, pium aliquid ausuras, proque virili portione usque ad iustitie patrocinium erupturas. Cum sepe igitur antea, tum precipue post eum diem solito sepius tecum sum: sepe subit desperatio, sepe spes, sepe autem inter utranque fluctuante animo mecum dico: «o, si unquam… o, si in diebus meis accidat! O, si tam clari operis et tante glorie sim particeps!». Dehinc crebro ad eum, quem in deliciis habeo, crucifixum versus, mesta voce atque oculis humentibus exclamo…

(SN VII, 2–5)

(every time I recall the sound of your voice my soul grows heavy, my eyes become moist; and my heart, which burned while then you spoke, now dissolves into tears when I think back and reflect on what you said, and then ponder the future—not womanly tears, but strong, virile tears which will venture some act of honour if the chance arise, and leap forth in manly fashion in the defence of justice. As often, therefore, as I may have been in the past, I am now more than ever with you in spirit, especially since that day. Often despair comes over me, often hope; often my spirit wavers between the two, and I cry: Oh, if ever… oh, if it might only happen in my lifetime! Oh, if I could take part in such a bright and glorious venture! Then turning again and again to the crucified one who is my delight, with mournful voice and tearful eyes I cry out…)

Bernhard did not hesitate to replace “verborum tuorum sonus” with “hec obsidio”, and the vague rhetorical exclamations with more concrete expressions, so as to employ Petrarch’s deliberately general words to voice his own grief over a specific historical event, the fall of Constantinople:

quociens hec obsidio ad meam hodie redit memoriam, tociens semper dolor ad animum et meror ad oculos revertitur; nempe cum in corde meo prevideo que deinceps mala, nisi Deus aufferat, sequi et contingere possunt, totus resolvor in lacrimas, non certe femineas sed viriles. […] Et dum hinc inde multis volvor argumentis, interdum de civitate reobtinenda vacillans subit desperatio, verum aliquando aliquid spei venit ad animum, sepe autem inter utrumque fluitante animo et elevatis oculis mecum dico: «O, si umquam in diebus meis civitas illa recuperabitur! O, si umquam ad societatem iterum redibit fidei cristiane! O, si umquam videbo vindictam in caput factiosi et turgidi istius tyranni!». Sicque in lacrimis titubans susurransque crebro ad eum, ad quem pro ope recurro, crucifixum, clauso super me ostio, dum aliquod ocii tempus occurrit, mesta voce atque humentibus oculis exclamo…

(W2, ff. 244v–245r; cf. Pez and Hueber 1729, pp. 364b–65a)

(now, whenever I recall this siege, my soul always grows heavy and my eyes become moist; indeed, when I foresee in my heart the evils that may follow and happen, unless God avert them, I am wholly dissolved into tears—not, certainly, womanly tears, but virile ones. […] And when I reflect on this, at times despair arises within me as I doubt the recapture of the city. At other times, however, a degree of hope enters my mind. Yet my spirit often wavers between the two, and raising my eyes I cry: “Oh, if ever in my lifetime that city might be recovered! Oh, if it might ever again return to the fellowship of the Christian faith! Oh, if I might ever witness justice inflicted upon the head of that treacherous and haughty tyrant!” And thus, whenever a quiet moment presents itself, with the door closed upon me, staggering in tears, I whisper again and again to the crucified one to whom I turn for aid, and, with mournful voice and tearful eyes, I cry out…)18

These words introduce the petitio, which Bernhard composed by merging the invocation to Christ from the second part of SN VII with extensive passages from SN XII and a few sentences from SN XVII. The twelfth epistle, addressed at the end of 1352 or the beginning of 1353 to Philippe Cabassole, is a lamentation directed to Jesus Christ, woven through biblical verses. The seventeenth, written for Francesco Nelli in the final months of 1357 but probably never sent,19 instead delivers the customary critique of Avignon, identified with Babylon, in which a central anecdote (para 31–48) serves to demonstrate the hatred of the French prelates toward Rome and Italy. From this lengthy epistle, Bernhard employs only that brief passage (para. 24–26) in which Petrarch addresses Christ, imploring Him to grant his prayer. The method of the Bavarian humanist is a kind of patchwork technique, insofar as he cuts Petrarch’s texts into pieces of varying length and sews them together, incorporating, in addition to “patches” drawn from other sources, also something of his own, the latter primarily to renew and actualise the preexisting material.

To illustrate this method, only a few examples are presented. At the beginning of the prayer in SN VII, Petrarch, utilising verses from Psalms 43 and 83, implores Christ to protect those who suffer injuries at the hands of His enemies, who hide themselves beneath the shield of His name. Then, in SN XII, citing Psalm 70, he recalls the pain and shame experienced by the people of Christ at being mocked by unspecified enemies:

…mesta voce atque oculis humentibus exclamo: «Iesu bone et nimium mansuete, quid hoc est? Exurge! Quare obdormis? Exurge et ne repellas in finem! Quare faciem tuam avertis? Oblivisceris inopie nostre et tribulationis nostre? Protector noster, aspice, Deus! Vide quid patimur et unde, que ve sub clipeo tui nominis ab hostibus tuis fiunt […]»

(SN VII, 5–6).20

(…with mournful voice and tearful eyes I cry out: Oh good Jesus, you are too indulgent. What can this be? Arise! why do you sleep? Arise! Do not cast us off forever! Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and our oppression? Oh God our protector, look down upon us. See what we suffer, and whence it comes, and what your enemies do under cover of your name.)

Statum vero populi tui non modo tu, qui omnia conspicis, sed, unde graviter dolemus atque erubescimus, hostes etiam nostri vident et insultantes dicunt: «Deus dereliquit eos, persequimini et comprehendite eos, quia non est qui eripiat».

(SN XII, 4, quoting Ps 70:11)

(Not only do you see the condition of your people, you who see all things; but what we find even more grievous and shameful, so do our enemies. And in their insolence they say: “God has left them; pursue and seize them, for there is no one to deliver them”.)

In Bernhard’s “patchwork”, this enemy is identified with the infidel, impious, and haughty emperor of the Turks, at whose hands Christians suffer martyrdom under cover of the Lord’s name:

Exclamo ergo ad te: quid hoc est? Cur permisisti ut procax ille vastator et infidelis adversus fidei tue professos tantam sortitus sit fortunam, tantam in sua pernicie sit victoriam consecutus? Cur iacture fidei tue non subvenisti? Cur non obstitisti? Ecce vociferat post nos cornutus hostis et draco ille insultans Turcorum imperator clamat in superbia sua: «Deus eorum dereliquit eos, persequimini et comprehendite, quia non est qui eripiat». Non audis tumidam eius hanc vocem, non audis insolens ipsius obprobrium? Cur ita oblivisceris inopie et tribulationis nostre? Protector noster, aspice, Deus! Vide quid patimur, quidque nos et posteri nostri, fidei tamen tue baptizati, passuri sumus. Vide quid ab hostibus tuis eis illatum sit inferrique, nisi subveneris, timeatur. Vide quid in eis actum sit qui sub clipeo nominis tui in sanguine martirii sui ab impio ceciderunt.

(W2, f. 245r–v; cf. Pez and Hueber 1729, p. 365a)

(And so I cry out to you: What is this? Why have you permitted that impudent and infidel destroyer to gain such great fortune and to achieve such a great and evil victory over those who profess your faith? Why did you not prevent the collapse of your faith? Why did you not resist? Behold, the horned enemy cries out against us, and that insolent dragon, the emperor of the Turks, shouts out in his arrogance: “Their God has left them; pursue and seize them, for there is no one to deliver them”. Do you not hear this haughty voice of his, do you not hear his brazen taunt? Why, then, do you forget our affliction and our oppression? Oh God our protector, look down upon us. See what we suffer, and what we, together with our descendants—though baptized in your faith—shall suffer. See what has been inflicted upon us by your enemies, and what is to be feared still, unless you come to our aid. See what has been done to those who, under cover of your name, have fallen in the blood of their martyrdom at the hand of that impious.)

In another passage of the twelfth letter, incorporating psalm verses and thus not tied to precise historical events, Petrarch petitions God’s mercy for the souls who trust in Him, for He, in His wrath, has cast out and destroyed His people, making the earth tremble and throwing it into confusion:

Oramus flentes ne tradas bestiis animas confitentes tibi et animas pauperum tuorum ne obliviscaris in finem. Repulisti nos et destruxisti nos, iratus es: miserere nobis; commovisti terram et conturbasti eam: sana contritiones eius, quia vere graviterque commota est […].

(SN XII, 24–25; cf. Ps 73:19 and 59:3–4)

(In tears we pray, do not deliver up the souls of those who confess your name to the beasts; do not forget forever the souls of the congregation of your poor. You have cast us out and destroyed us. You are angry. Have mercy upon us. You have made the earth tremble and have thrown it into confusion. Heal its griefs, for it has been badly shaken indeed.)

Bernhard rewrites and inserts this discourse into the context of the Ottoman conquest: in his version, the souls are threatened by the infidels, while it is the empire’s legacy that is cast out and destroyed, Greece that is made to tremble, and Europe that is thrown into confusion by God through the agency of the impious tyrant:

Oramus flentes ne tradas bestiis infidelibus animas confitentes tibi, animasque pauperum tuorum ne obliviscaris in finem. Et si per manum impii tyranni repulisti et destruxisti gloriosam sacri imperii hereditatem, si commovisti Greciam, si conturbasti Europam, sana contritiones eius, quia hec solus omnia potes

(W2, f. 247r; cf. Pez and Hueber 1729, p. 366b).21

(In tears we pray, do not deliver up the souls of those who confess your name to the infidel beasts, and do not forget forever the souls of the congregation of your poor. And if, by the hand of the impious tyrant, you have cast out and destroyed the glorious inheritance of the sacred empire, if you have made Greece tremble, if you have thrown Europe into confusion, heal its griefs, for you alone can do all this.)

Bauer was therefore correct to stress the metaphysical character of Bernhard’s letter; yet this character derives not only from Bernhard’s recognition of the inescapable transience of human works, from his treatment of the themes of sin and punishment, or from his implicit call for reform of ecclesiastical and political life, but above all from the eschatological perspective conferred upon the letter by the sources tacitly employed. By rewriting Lactantius’ prophecies about the end of the world as already fulfilled, and by addressing God with a desperate prayer, inspired by Petrarch’s letters, to seek heavenly aid—just as the righteous besieged by the wicked do in the seventh book of the Divinae institutiones (VII 17, 11)—, Bernhard presents the fall of Constantinople as an apocalyptic event. And while his adherence to the tolerant approach of Nicholas of Cusa seems less certain than Bauer supposed (cf. Fiamma 2023, pp. 170–72), neither does his distance from the “official” humanist reactions to the Turkish advance appear so clear-cut. Although more restrained and refined, the polemic against Islam is by no means absent from his epistle. The elements added to the passages drawn from the Liber sine nomine highlight the conflict between Christians and “infidels”, while the sultan deserves the typical derogatory attributes of a cruel, impious, and insolent tyrant. Indeed, although he is not explicitly identified with the Antichrist or with one of his servants, as happens in several writings of the later fifteenth century (cf. Schnapp 2010), the use of biblical vocabulary in his description—horned enemy, dragon (cf. Rev 12:3)—suggests that he is an apocalyptic monster. Moreover, it is true that Bernhard does not call the European powers to arms against the common enemy, yet his desire to see the city of Constantinople recovered is openly declared.

3.3. The Afterlife of Bernhard’s Letter in the Second Half of the Fifteenth Century

Bernhard’s epistle began to circulate in the months immediately following its composition, and one of the first to disseminate it was the author himself. In a letter dated 25 September 1453, addressed to the Salzburg citizen Leonhard Fröschelmoser, who had already shown interest in his writings, the chancellor gave notice of his new work, promising to send him a copy and, at the same time, authorising him to make a transcript of it (Budapest, Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, Cod. Lat. 211, f. 30r–v, published in Joachimsohn 1901, p. 26).

Over time, it became Bernhard’s best-known work, of which fifteen manuscripts have survived. Below is their list, which I still consider a work in progress, and in which the codices unknown to Werner M. Bauer, who was aware of only ten (Bauer 1971, p. 157), are marked with an asterisk. The sigla have been introduced by me:

• A = Augsburg, Staats- und Stadtbibliothek, 2° Cod. 516, ff. 221r–225r*;
• B = Budapest, Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, Cod. Lat. 211, ff. 25v–30r*;
• E = Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, 328 (608), ff. 315–321*;
• Me = Melk, Stiftsbibliothek, 1799 (olim 736; N 13), ff. 190r–194r;
• Mu = München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 3586, ff. 193r–197r;
• Mu¹ = München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4143, ff. 94v–99r;
• Mu² = München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4149, ff. 312r–317r;
• Mu³ = München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 5141, ff. 126r–129v;
• Mu⁴ = München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 14185, ff. 371v–374r;
• Mu⁵ = München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 14610, ff. 195r–198v;
• Mu⁶ = München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 27063, ff. 99v–102r;
• S = Straubing, Bibliothek des Johannes-Turmair-Gymnasiums, Y 213, ff. 143r–149r*;
• W = Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 3332, ff. Ir–IIr*;
• W¹ = Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 3520, ff. 34r–38v;
• W² = Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 3704, ff. 243r–247v.

All the witnesses are of German or Austrian origin; thirteen date from the second half of the fifteenth century, while two (A and Mu¹) are seventeenth-century copies. In almost the entire tradition, Bernhard’s epistle is transmitted together with various documents on “Turkish” subjects, including accounts of the fall of Constantinople, papal bulls, orations, and letters relating to contemporary crusades and military campaigns, as well as fictitious exchanges between the sultan and the pope. Thus, the initial circulation of the work appears to have been motivated by personal reasons, within the circle of Bernhard’s friends and correspondents who, like Leonhard Fröschelmoser, probably appreciated his style. Over the following years and decades its diffusion was further encouraged by a historical factor: the mounting Ottoman threat, which in the second half of the century aroused a keen interest in writings on “Turkish” themes, particularly in the German-speaking territories most directly affected by the crusades proclaimed against the Ottomans (cf. Portnykh 2023; Mixson 2024).

The first reuse of the epistle’s text can be situated within the same historical and cultural context. In the second half of the fifteenth century, an anonymous compiler created a new prayer by combining passages from Bernhard’s petitio with verses from the Book of Sirach (36:1–10) and the Book of Esther (13:9–17). These verses were likely mediated through a liturgical book, as they closely match the lessons for Ember Saturday in Lent and the Wednesday of the second week of Lent.22 To date, I have identified two manuscripts that preserve this prayer: Clm 5141 of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, datable to the second half of the fifteenth century (henceforth Mu⁷, ff. 133v–134r), and Clm 4143 of the same library, a seventeenth-century witness that also contains Bernhard’s letter (Mu¹ in the list above, ff. 113v–114r). In the former, it received the generic title Oratio devota tempore persecutionis Turcorum seu paganorum (‘Devout Prayer in the Time of Persecution by the Turks or Pagans’). In the latter, it was erroneously attributed to Pope Callixtus III: Oratio devota tempore huius cruciatae singulis diebus iussu Calisti papae a Christi fidelibus recitanda (‘Devout Prayer to be Recited Every Day in the Time of This Crusade by the Faithful of Christ at the Order of Pope Callixtus’). Below are cited the opening sentences, which adapt the corresponding passages of Bernhard’s letter with minor yet meaningful alterations:

O, bone Ihesu et nimium mansuete, fons misericordiarum, patere nos coram te presentes flere miserias; audi hanc nostram publicam querelam! Ecce vociferat post nos cornutus hostis et draco ille insultans Turcorum imperator clamat in superbia sua: «Deus eorum dereliquit eos, persequimini et comprehendite, quia non est qui eripiat». Non audis tumidam hanc eius vocem, non audis insolens eius obprobrium? Cur ita oblivisceris inopie [et] tribulationis nostre? Protector noster, aspice, Deus, et vide quid patimur, quidque nos et posteri nostri, fidei tamen tue baptizati, passuri sumus. Vide quid ab hostibus tuis ecclesie tue sancte illatum sit. Exurge! Quare obdormis, Domine? Exurge et ne repellas in finem! Quare faciem tuam avertis?23

(Oh good and most mild Jesus, fount of mercies, suffer us to lament our misfortunes before you; hear this public complaint of ours! Behold, the horned enemy cries out against us, and that insolent dragon, the emperor of the Turks, shouts out in his arrogance: “Their God has left them; pursue and seize them, for there is no one to deliver them”. Do you not hear this haughty voice of his? Do you not hear his brazen taunt? Why, then, do you forget our affliction and our oppression? Oh God our protector, look down upon us and see what we suffer, and what we, together with our descendants—though baptized in your faith—shall suffer. See what has been inflicted upon your holy Church by your enemies. Arise! Why do you sleep, oh Lord? Arise! Do not cast us off forever! Why do you hide your face?)

It has been noted above that Bernhard, in his reworking of the Sine nomine letters, primarily sought to actualise Petrarch’s texts, adapting the poet’s almost timeless laments and invocations to a specific historical event: the fall of Constantinople. By contrast, the anonymous author of the subsequent prayer took the opposite approach. While remaining within the context of the Ottoman threat, he removed from Bernhard’s letter those references to the siege of 1453 that he deemed overly specific, simultaneously transforming its embedded private prayer into an independent, public one directed against the Turks.

In practice, singular grammatical elements were replaced by plural forms,24 and there are also deliberate omissions of passages that, even tangentially, refer to Bernhard or to the episode recounted. Thus, for example, the segment immediately preceding the sentence that presents the Turkish emperor as an apocalyptic monster was omitted. In it, Bernhard’s thoughts are mentioned as known to Christ before they are uttered, along with a reference to the sultan’s devastating victory.25 Similarly, the Christians who fell as martyrs during the siege are absent;26 indeed, after portraying the Church as under attack, the text immediately invokes the Lord’s intervention. Thanks to these modifications, the invocation to Christ, inspired by Petrarch, which Bernhard included in his letter lamenting the fall of Constantinople, became a prayer applicable to any moment of the Ottoman–European conflict.

3.4. The Reception of Bernhard’s Letter in the Context of Religious Debates

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Petrarch’s Liber sine nomine, as has been noted, began to be employed in the context of doctrinal and political conflicts between Protestants and Catholics. Bernhard’s epistle met a similar fate in the second half of the following century: Johann Konrad Dieterich (also Johann Conrad, 1612–1667),27 a Lutheran professor of Greek and history and librarian at the University of Gießen (cf. Strieder 1783, pp. 45–55; Gundlach 1927, p. 308, no. 535), included it in his Auctarium to Matthias Flacius Illyricus’s Catalogus testium veritatis, published anonymously in Gießen in 1667 and posthumously in Frankfurt am Main in 1672 under the names of both authors (Dieterich 1667; Flacius Illyricus and Dieterich 1672; cf. Schüling 1982, p. 16).28 The letter’s text was, according to his own account, made available to him by the librarian of Augsburg, Matthias Wilhelm (1596–1677), from a copy belonging to the library’s rich holdings:

Viri [scil. Bernhardi de Krayburg] integritatem et candorem et in ipsa veritatis momenta proclinantem nobis exhibet epistola hactenus inedita de perverso sui seculi statu, quam pro amore boni publici communicavit clarissimus dominus Matthias Wilhelmi rector et bibliothecarius Augustanus ex instructissima bibliotheca Augustana, e qua, quantum instituti ratio permittit, quaedam afferemus.

(Dieterich 1667, p. 247)

(The integrity and candour of this man [i.e., Bernhard von Kraiburg], as well as his inclination toward the very essentials of truth, are revealed in a previously unpublished letter on the corrupt state of his age. It was shared for the sake of the common good by the most illustrious Matthias Wilhelmi, rector and librarian of Augsburg, from Augsburg’s richly endowed library. From it, we will present selected passages, as far as the scope of our undertaking allows.)

The inscriptio, paraphrased by Dieterich—“Initium eius epistolae, quam invectivam et declamatoriam exhibet inscriptio…” (‘The beginning of his letter, which the inscriptio presents as invective and declamatory…’)—as well as certain specific readings in the citations, link the copy he received to Clm 3586 of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich (Mu in the list above), the only surviving manuscript in which the spurious title Invectiva et declamatoria epistola Bernhardi de Krayburg appears (f. 193r). This codex, compiled in the 1470s by the Carmelite monk Matthias Farinatoris,29 belonged precisely to the Augsburg library, of which Matthias Wilhelm was librarian from 1649 to 1673 (cf. Sottili 1970, pp. 281–467, no. 112; Rauner 2007, pp. 378–96; Schmidbauer 1963, pp. 135–43).30

Dieterich selectively cites and paraphrases the first sections of the letter, from the salutatio to the narratio, showing marked interest in the passages on the general decline of the moral sphere and the breakdown of the bonds that hold society together, caused by the disappearance of justice. In contrast, he limits himself to a vague reference to the fall of Constantinople, which was in fact the primum movens of Bernhard’s writing (Dieterich 1667, pp. 247–48).

This is, as far as I know, the only occasion on which the Constantinople letter was included in a single volume together with one of its main hypotexts, the Liber sine nomine. Dieterich indeed followed Flacius in dedicating a chapter to Petrarch, though markedly different from that of his predecessor, in which he cited and paraphrased SN X (via Bzovius 1618, cols. 1242–1243), XVII, 16–18 and XVIII, 25–27, as well as Rvf 114; 136; 138, 1–8 and 105, 24–45, with accompanying Latin translations (Dieterich 1667, pp. 50–55).

Compared with Dieterich, Flacius made a more measured selection. He focused on Petrarch’s most vehement writings, such as SN XVIII and Rvf 114, 136, and 138, which he nevertheless sought to decontextualize. His aim was to argue that the poet’s criticisms were directed at the pope and Rome, thereby presenting to his readers a Petrarch who was, in certain respects, a Protestant ante litteram: “Quo modo cum de curia Papae locutus sit, plane videtur sensisse Papam esse Antichristum […] Talia propemodum infinita in eius opusculis, de Papa ac Roma, dicta extant” (Flacius Illyricus 1556, pp. 871–72; ‘In the way in which he spoke of the papal Curia, he clearly seems to have held that the pope was the Antichrist […] Almost countless statements of this kind about the pope and about Rome are to be found in his works’).

Despite including a broader selection of passages from the Liber sine nomine, Dieterich’s approach appears, from this perspective, less effective—at least for the modern reader. He in fact offers an interpretation more closely aligned with the historical-biographical context, asserting that the poet was a most ferocious critic of the papal Curia (“explosor aulae pontificiae acerrimus”, Dieterich 1667, p. 51) which at that time was based in Avignon.31 By further adding to the ‘Babylonian’ texts a stanza and a half from Rvf 105, only marginally relevant to the theme, he depicts, rather than an anti-Roman and anti-papal Petrarch, one who, faced with the hated Avignon—undoubtedly chaotic and corrupt—preferred the quiet of his solitude at Vaucluse, as indeed he actually did.

Similarly, from an impartial standpoint, Bernhard’s letter seems ill-suited to be counted among the ‘witnesses of the truth’ who opposed the papacy, even though, according to Dieterich, such opposition could manifest not only in matters of faith and doctrine but also in morals and discipline (cf. ibid., p. 1). In the passages cited, there is in fact only a single reference to a departure from the footsteps of the early Fathers, which could readily be interpreted in a Protestant vein (“a priorum patrum vestigiis sanctae fidei verique firmitate totum mundum oberrare video”, ibid., p. 247); nevertheless, Dieterich accords it no weight. It is a missed opportunity, since Bernhard’s laments over the miseries of the age are far too general to be regarded as a truly antipapal critique—even less so than Petrarch’s writings.

However, contemporary readers assessed it differently. The second, posthumous edition demonstrates a certain interest in the Catalogus as thus expanded and updated; whether this was due to Flacius’s fame or to Dieterich’s work remains unclear. Nevertheless, the latter’s activities did not escape the attention of Catholic censors, albeit in relation to another of his writings: his Breviarium pontificum Romanorum of 1663 was included in the Index librorum prohibitorum by a decree of 1696 (cf. Schüling 1982, p. 16; De Bujanda and Richter 2002, p. 290). The Auctarium, in turn, did not require the same measure for several reasons. Although the 1667 edition was published anonymously, it was accompanied by three treatises of Flacius, who was subsequently acknowledged as the author on the title page of the 1672 second edition. As he was listed among the authors of the first class (prima classis) since the Roman Index of 1559 and the Tridentine one of 1564 (cf. De Bujanda et al. 1990, p. 607, no. 721), all his works, whether already published or yet to appear, were prohibited to Catholic readers under pain of excommunication (cf. Index 1564, pp. 10, 21–22). Moreover, the “Catalogus testium veritatis ex sanctis patribus” itself was included in the third class (tertia classis) of the Index (cf. De Bujanda et al. 1990, pp. 401–402, no. 146) as an anonymous work32 deemed contrary to the Catholic faith and therefore to be rejected in all its printings (cf. Index 1564, p. 11). Consequently, the versions updated and expanded by Dieterich automatically became prohibited reading, without needing to be specified in later issues of the Index librorum prohibitorum. Petrarch’s Liber sine nomine, cited and interpreted first by Flacius and subsequently by Dieterich, as well as Bernhard’s letter included in the Auctarium, were thus subjected to indirect censorship.

4. Conclusions

Petrarch presented the Liber sine nomine as a collection of particularly audacious letters, whose frankness, if made public, might have incurred the hostility of the “enemies of truth”—including men of high rank—with potentially harmful consequences for both the author and the addressees. For this reason, he meticulously removed from the letters any references that might have identified specific persons or places. The result of this process of “onomastic expurgation” was an almost timeless critique, articulated in the name of enduring moral values, whose concrete targets remained hidden from later readers, who could repurpose Petrarch’s invective to suit new historical and cultural contexts (cf. Cascio 2017, pp. 264–66; 2018, pp. 16–18). From the perspective of this outcome, it mattered little whether Petrarch’s concerns were in fact well founded, and thus whether the Liber had truly been a dangerous work in his own time, or whether, on the contrary, the motif of persecuted truth served primarily as a rhetorical device intended to align the collection with classical and medieval satire. Subsequent readers proved receptive to both interpretations, depending not only on their erudition and the political, cultural, and religious milieu in which they lived, but also, not least, on their individual aims.

Until the early sixteenth century, within a Catholic context, the Liber sine nomine enjoyed primarily literary prestige. It was used as a repertoire from which to draw both aphoristic sayings and longer passages, or, in some cases, as a model on which to construct one’s own discourse. It lent itself readily to reuse in works differing in genre, length, content, and style, not only because of the “quasi-metaphysical reality” it delineated (Cascio 2018, p. 18) but also due to another characteristic it shares with Latin satire: the variety of genres evoked within it, which Petrarch deliberately played with—from comedy to eclogue, from tragedy to historiographical works, from meditations on the Passion of Christ to scholastic disputations, and from novella to prayer (cf. Martinez 2009, pp. 295–97).

Among this miscellany of genres, the latter appears particularly prone to modification, adaptation, and rewriting (cf. Fera 2012, p. 15 and n. 1). The letters and passages of the Liber that could be read as prayers—SN VII and XII, in particular—were indeed treated as prayers, thus initiating a distinct line of reception. This includes episodes partly independent, such as the conciliar sermon of the unknown curialist to Sigismund of Luxembourg in 1415, and partly closely connected, such as Bernhard von Kraiburg’s letter on the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the anonymous anti-Ottoman prayer that derives from it. It is difficult to assess whether one can discern a deliberately considered choice on the part of these Catholic readers of Petrarch, who may have preferred the texts within the collection that constitute the mildest attack on the papal Curia (cf. Cascio 2020, p. 41, on SN XII), or whether they were rather attracted by the poet’s ingenious solutions in weaving together biblical verses to compose his plaintive supplications. These, in turn, they reused in a similar fashion to shape new prayers.

There is, however, no doubt that, from the sixteenth century onwards, the representatives of Protestantism, such as Pier Paolo Vergerio the Younger and Matthias Flacius Illyricus, made a deliberate choice, favouring the most vehement invectives of Petrarch, in particular SN XVIII with its apocalyptic tone, as well as the ‘Babylonian Sonnets’ of the Canzoniere. They decontextualised and tendentiously reinterpreted Petrarch’s writings, transposing them from the literary-cultural to the doctrinal sphere, with the intention of forging them into a powerful weapon against Rome and the papacy.

The reaction of Catholic authorities was cautious. Since they did not wish to endorse the position of the Protestants, who sought to present the famous poet as one of their precursors, they did not include the Liber sine nomine itself in the Index librorum prohibitorum, but rather its adaptations produced by the ‘heretics’.

In the second half of the seventeenth century, a similar fate befell Bernhard von Kraiburg’s epistle on the fall of Constantinople, which was strongly influenced by the Sine nomine letters. Interpreted by Johann Konrad Dieterich from a Lutheran perspective in his Auctarium to Flacius’ Catalogus testium veritatis, it automatically incurred an indirect censure by Catholic authorities. In this sense, and not by themselves, the Liber sine nomine and Bernhard’s letter ultimately became genuinely dangerous reading for Catholics amid the religious conflicts.