The Stories of Fortune's Vicissitudes

"The Stories of Fortune's Vicissitudes" is the first complete English translation of Poggio Bracciolini's book "Historiae de Varietate Fortunae". The book is bilingual providing the parallel English and Latin texts. The first chapter contains the description of Rome's ruins as seen by Poggio in 1448 AD, five years before the beginning of Modern Times (1453). This report was so important that Edward Gibbon decided to finish his six-volume "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by citing the first chapter of Poggio's book. The second and third chapters bring the historical examples of Fortune's volatility. The fourth chapter contains the account of the first travel to India by Niccolo de Conti (1419-1439 AD), brought as an example of a favorable Fortune. "In the last days of Pope Eugenius the Fourth, two of his servants, the learned Poggius and a friend, ascended the Capitoline hill; reposed themselves among the ruins of columns and temples; and viewed from that commanding spot the wide and various prospect of desolation. The place and the object gave ample scope for moralizing on the vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave; and it was agreed, that in proportion to her former greatness, the fall of Rome was the more awful and deplorable." Edward Gibbon. "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". Volume 6 Chapter LXXI