AEVUM - 2017 - 3

Giuliano de Anzolis, who lived in Cremona in the XVth Century, is well known as the owner of manuscript Firenze, Bibl. Naz. Centrale, Pal. 556. New documents found in the State Archive of Cremona prove that he was a cloth merchant. An inventory of his books, written on 28th April 1478, includes some books in French and Italian.

The Latin translation of Hesiod’s Opera et Dies by the Roman humanist Nicolas Valla (Nicolaus de Valle, ca. 1444-1473) was the first to be printed in Renaissance Europe. This article analyses the edition established by the Flemish printer Jodocus Badius Ascensius (Paris, 1503). This study focuses on the tradition of the Ascensiana editio in the post-incunable period and throughout the 16th century. A list of marginalia Ascensiana to Valla’s Opera et Dies is offered in the Appendix.

Ludovico Beccadelli (1501-1572) was a protagonist of the political and religious events of his time: secretary to cardinal Contarini, nuncio in Venice and archbishop of Ragusa in Dalmazia, he took part in the last sessions of the Tridentine Council and spent his life at the service of the Church. Moreover, he actively participated in cultural life since he studied at the Universities of Bologna and Padova. His epistles are important to understand his personality and to study the cultural and social context in which he worked, with particular reference to the environment of the Roman curia during the sixteenth century. At the same time the epistles offer a ‘self-portrait’ of the author.

At the end of 1582 Pietro Ponzio, maestro di cappella of Milan’s cathedral (Duomo), left his position: he would be replaced by Giulio Cesare Gabussi, a young musician found by archbishop Carlo Borromeo himself after an epistolary exchange with Costanzo Porta. During the period of researching, however, Ottaviano Abbiato de’ Forieri, a member of Capitolo, wrote to Borromeo suggesting as maestro di cappella Gian Giacomo Gastoldi and Luca Marenzio, two of the most important musicians of the late 16th century. This paper presents Ottaviano’s letter: an important document previously unknown.

The paper focuses on the Roman stays of the Florentine man of letters Giovan Battista Strozzi “il Giovane”, also known as “il Cieco”. The essay deals with the time span between the first Roman stay (1590-1595) and his return to Rome in 1624. In the first period, at the Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, he became friend with Antonio Gallonio, the Paduan man of letters Antonio Querenghi and Federico Borromeo. In his second Roman stay, Strozzi was officially invited to the papal court by Urban VIII. Between these two extremes, throughout the first two decades of the seventeenth century, there were several residential periods during which Strozzi came in contact with the Academy of Umoristi and that of the Ordinati. During the assembly of the latter academy on April 6th, 1611, he pronounced (in the presence of illustrious listeners, including Galileo Galilei) a Lezione in biasmo della superbia: the last part of the paper is devoted to a detailed exegesis of this text.

ln 1642 Fabio Chigi (at that time nuncio in Colonia and some years later Pope as Alexander VII) underwent surgery to resolve his medical problems due to kidney stones (then named «mal di pietra»). Throughout some inedited epistolary documents (stored in the Vatican Library) and the report written by his friend Sforza Pallavicino in Vita di Alessandro VII, we can follow the ethical doubts of the prelate when faced the possibility of new medical practices. The essay provides an accurate account of the events as well as punctual remarks on moral and religious questions raised by the scientific progress, just few years after the Galilean revolution in cosmography and astronomy.

This contribution gathers the correspondence between the writer Caterina Percoto and the chaplain Giovanni Lotti in the period 1863-1875. The central theme of their epistle exchange is the education of Percoto’s grandson, who becomes a teacher thanks to the support of his friend Gino Capponi and of the Florentine intellectual group, headed by Ippolito Nievo and Nicolò Tommaseo, in a friendly relationship with Percoto. The correspondence is full of ideas able to outline the historical, cultural and educational environment in the period following the Unification of Italy.

This paper provides the identification of 200 Italian manuscripts damaged in the fire of the National Library of Turin in 1904. Most of the fragments identified concern manuscripts hitherto considered completely lost; others are parts which fill lacunae left, particularly at the beginning or end, in manuscripts that were identified immediately after the fire and later restored.

Portraying the Prince in the Renaissance. The Humanist Depiction of Rulers in Historiographical and Biographical Texts, ed. by P. Baker, R. Kaiser, M. Prieste rjahn, J. Helmrath (S. Iaria), p. 867 – A Companion to Vittoria Colonna, edited by A. Brundin, T. Crivelli and M.S. Sapeg no (M.T. Girardi), p. 870 – G. Mongini, Maschere dell’identità. Alle origini della Compagnia di Gesù (F. Villa), p. 873 – «Senza te son nulla». Studi sulla poesia sacra di Torquato Tasso, a cura di M. Corradini, O. Ghidini (F. Ferretti), p. 875 – Archilet. Per uno studio delle corrispondenze letterarie di età moderna, “Atti del seminario internazionale di Bergamo, 11-12 dicembre 2014”, a cura di C. Carminati, P. PProcaccioli, E. Russo, C. Viola (V. Villa), p. 878 – R. Antonioli, Il mito di Armidoro. Giovanni Soranzo e il suo poema milanese (1611) (R. Ferro), p. 880 – I Servi di Maria tra giurisdizionalismo e rivoluzioni (1623-1848), “Atti del convegno, Roma, 4-6 ottobre 2012”, tomo I (M.C. Giannini), p. 883 – Registrum scripturarum della Procura generale dell’Ordine cappuccino 1650-1688, a cura di G. Avarucc i (M.C. Giannini), p. 885.