Tra politica e letteratura: appunti sui «Profugiorum libri» e la cultura di Firenze negli anni ’40

This article examines L. B. Alberti's Profugiorum ab aerumna libri III in the light of their Florentine historical setting. In particular, a reconsideration both of the interlocutors of this dialogue and the severe criticism addressed by the author at the Florentine regime suggests that Profugia could have been written soon after the political repression enacted by the Medici Balìa in the spring of 1444. Furthermore, this paper furnishes new archival evidence on the life and writings of the young humanist Niccolò della Luna, whose family suffered at the hands of the Balìa.