Updated September 2026
About Leonardo Bruni
Leonardo Bruni or Leonardo Aretino 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 the earliest person to write using the three-period view of history: Antiquity, Middle Ages, and Modern. The dates Bruni used to define the periods are not exactly what modern historians use today, but he laid the conceptual groundwork for a tripartite division of history.
Biography from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.
Authors like Leonardo Bruni
Sources: book lists and dates from Wikidata and Open Library, ratings from Open Library readers. Last updated September 2026.