Roberto de' Rossi was an early

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humanism" ha ...

in Florence, a follower of

Coluccio Salutati Coluccio Salutati (16 February 1331 – 4 May 1406) was an Italian Renaissance humanist and notary, and one of the most important political and cultural leaders of Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history ...

and, as the first pupil of

Manuel Chrysoloras Manuel (or Emmanuel) Chrysoloras (; c. 1350 – 15 April 1415) was a Byzantine Greeks, Byzantine Greek classical scholar, Renaissance humanist, humanist, philosopher, professor, and translator of ancient Greek texts during the Renaissance. Serv ...

, one of the first Florentines to read Greek. Roberto de' Rossi was a wealthy patrician who never married and avoided public office but devoted his life to books and his studies in his house and garden in the Oltr'Arno district of

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

.Charles Garfield Nauert, ''Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe'', 1995:29 His translations of

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

and other classical Greek writers made them widely available to the Latin-reading public, but his modern claim to fame is as the tutor of

Cosimo de' Medici Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici (27 September 1389 – 1 August 1464) was an Italian banker and politician who established the House of Medici, Medici family as effective rulers of Florence during much of the Italian Renaissance. His power derive ...

, a role for which he was selected by Giovanni di Bicci. Roberto's friends

Leonardo Bruni Leonardo Bruni or Leonardo Aretino ( – March 9, 1444) was an Italian humanist, historian and statesman, often recognized as the most important humanist historian of the early Renaissance. He has been called the first modern historian. He was t ...

and Niccolo Niccoli were inherited by Cosimo and formed part of his circle.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosse, Roberto de Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Italian Renaissance humanists 14th-century Italian jurists 14th-century people from the Republic of Florence