One thing that I found interesting about chapter 9 is how Poggio worded what he had written to Niccoli in order to get On the Nature of Things back. In the text it states “You have now kept the Lucretius for fourteen years and Asconius Pedianus too … .Does it seem just to you that, if I sometimes want to read one of these authors, I cannot on account of your carelessness?” (Page 208). This was interesting to me because while I understand he wanted to read these himself and how he believed the best place for them were on his own shelf, he worded the note in such a way that it seemed he had so much hatred towards him. Another thing that I found interesting was how after Poggio died his recognition for things practically vanished. “Much of the recognition by now has vanished. His tomb in Santa Croce has disappeared, displaced by those of other celebrities”(Page 218). I found this interesting because for a person who gave the world many ancient texts by dedicating all of his life to finding them, gets no recognition for any of it anymore. If we never ended up reading this book in our class I would have never known who Poggio was or had learned about the texts he had discovered that led to the society we live in today.
One text to world connection I made after reading this chapter was from the last quote I used above. With Poggio, a man who helped shape the way we are today, got pushed aside and forgotten because they had to make room for the new celebrities. In Hollywood today, there are thousands of celebrities that impacted people whether it was through music, acting or even nobel prize winners, that get forgotten in order to make room for the new random celebrities coming in. I realized his when I was on social media and I saw that there was a video about a TikTok influencer talking about a song sung by the artist 2Pac, and there were a lot of people who had no idea who he was. 2Pac was a staple artist for a lot of people, and because of all of these new celebrities coming in he is forgotten and a lot of younger people have no idea who he is.
One question I still have after reading this chapter is, when and how did On the Nature of Things make its way back to people after it was completely missing for a thousand years?
