ABSTRACT
The Laudatio Florentinae Urbis (Panegyric to Florence) was written in 1404, by the, then, humanist and historian, and later Florentine chancellor Leonardo Bruni. Conceived shortly after the death of the Duke of Milan, Gian Galeazzo Visconti, in 1402, and the consequent threats that Milan tyranny represented to the survival of Florentine city, Laudatio has been interpreted over the last decades basically in two ways: first as the founder text of the civil humanism, as proposed by Hans Baron (1968), and, secondly, as an exclusively rhetorical work, as postulate his opponents (Hankins, 1995, pp. 309-338). Based on these two opposing currents, several interpretations of this controversial text have been discussed. This short article aims to develop a hypothesis so far scarcely approached by researchers: the association between the Laudatio and the projects of ideal cities in the early Renaissance.
