- Gian Giorgio Trissino
Gian Giorgio Trissino (
July 8 ,1478 -December 8 ,1550 ) was an ItalianRenaissance humanist, poet, dramatist, diplomat and grammarian.Biography
Trissino was born of a patrician family at
Vicenza in 1478. He was exiled fromVenice for political reasons, and travelled in Germany andLombardy . He eventually came under the protection ofPope Leo X ,Pope Clement VII andPope Paul III .He had the advantages of a good humanistic training, studying Greek under
Demetrius Chalcondylas atMilan andphilosophy underNiccolò Leoniceno atFerrara . His culture recommended him to the humanist Pope Leo X, who in 1515 sent him toGermany as hisnuncio ; later on Pope Clement VII showed him special favour, and employed him as ambassador.In 1532 the
Emperor Charles V made him acount palatine . In spite of the banishment from Vicenza pronounced upon him in 1509 because his family had favoured the plans ofMaximilian , he was held in honour throughout Italy. Wherever he made his home, it was a center for gatherings of scholars, littérateurs, and the most cultured men of the time. His family life was far from happy, apparently through little fault of his own.In the history of modern
Europe an literature Trissino occupies a prominent place because of histragedy "Sophonisba" (1515; ed.,Bologna , 1884). Based on the life of the Carthaginian ladySophonisba , and inspired by ancient tragedies, it was perhaps the first regular tragedy in early modern times and would serve as an example for European tragedies throughout the 16th century (it was translated into French byMellin de Saint-Gelais , where it was performed with great acclaim in 1556). It was the first tragedy in Italian to show deference to the classic rules.A partisan of Aristotelean regularity, Trissino disapproved of the freedom of the chivalrous epic, as written by
Ariosto . In his own composition the "Italia liberata dai Goti" (1547-1548), dealing with the campaigns ofBelisarius in Italy, he sought to show that it was possible to write in the vernacular an epic in accordance with the classic precepts. The result is a cold and colourless composition.He was one of the many who engaged in the discussion as to what is true literary Italian. Following the lead of
Dante , he advocated the enrichment of the Italian language, and espoused in his "Castellano" (1529) the theory that the language is a courtly one made up of contributions from the refined centers in Italy; instead of being fundamentally of Tuscan origin. For clearness he proposed that in writing Italian certain new characters (derived from the Greek alphabet) abe adopted to show the difference between open and close e and o andvoiced andvoiceless s and z. This proposition was ignored. "I Simillimi" (1548) which is a version of the "Menæchmi" ofPlautus , "I Ritratti" (1524) which is a composite portrait of feminine beauty, and the "Poetica", which contains his summing up of the Aristotelean principles of literary composition, made up the rest of his important writings. He also advocated a reform of spelling ("Epistola a Clemente VII", 1524).In addition Trissino played a prominent role in the early career of
Andrea Palladio , transisitioning into a long and close friendship between the two men. Trissino first taking Palladio under his wing after becoming acquainted with him while building his villa in Cricoli.Trissino died in
Rome in the December of 1550.An edition of his collected works was published at
Verona in 1729.References
*Catholic
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