Leonardo Bruni was the titan of Renaissance historians and a prolific humanist. In a long letter to an aristocratic Italian woman, Battista Malatesta, he lays out his philosophy of humanistic education, which is meant to help the student achieve glory. But laziness or ineptitude, he says, threatens the student always, and will drag her down to crawl alongside other mediocrities. Bruni insists on deep reading of the greatest orators, poets, and historians, alongside biblical and theological study.
Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO
I Tatti Renaissance Library's Humanist Educational Treatises (containing Bruni's entire letter in Latin and English): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674007598
Leonardo Bruni's History of the Florentine People (Volume I): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674005068
Donald Phillip Verene's The Art of Humane Education: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780801440397
C.S. Lewis's On Stories (includes The Parthenon and The Optative): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780062643605
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