Maffeo Vegio

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search
File:Sant'Agostino Grabplatte Maffeo Vegio.jpg
Maffeo Vegio tomb relief (Rome, Basilica of Saint Augustine)

Maffeo Vegio (Latin: Maphaeus Vegius; 1407 – 1458) was an Italian poet who wrote in Latin; he is regarded by many as the finest Latin poet of the fifteenth century.

Biography

Maffeo Vegio was born near Lodi, Duchy of Milan, the son of Belloria Vegio and Caterina de Lanteri. He completed his first studies in rhetoric in Milan where he attended a sermon by Bernardino of Siena in 1418, being struck by the saint's grandiose eloquence and evangelical simplicity.

Between 1421 and 1423 Vegio undertook his law studies at the Studium of Pavia and came into contact with the protagonists of early 15th-century Humanism, including Antonio Beccadelli, known as the Panormite, Pier Candido Decembrio and Lorenzo Valla; the latter chose him as the protagonist of his dialogue De vero bono.

In 1435, he found himself in the service of the Bishop of Trogir Ludovico Trevisan, through whom he approached Pope Eugene IV. Following the Roman Curia, Vegio attended the events of the Council of Florence (1439) and, with the pontiff's favour, began his curial cursus honorum: apostolic abbreviator and datary (1441), from 1443 he obtained the canonry at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.

In Rome, Vegio's literary stance was renewed through contact with personalities such as Enea Silvio Piccolomini and then declined in a religious key thanks to a renewal of faith that would bring him ever closer to the thought of Saint Augustine, towards whom he showed a profound devotion even though he never wore the habit of the order.

Vegio had a particular devotion to Saint Monica, mother of Saint Augustine. Her relics were transferred from Ostia to Rome on 9 April 1430, and were deposited in the church of St. Tryphon. In 1455, they were transferred to the Basilica of Saint Augustine in the Papal States, and Vegio had a marble tomb built in a chapel to house them, attributed to the sculptor Isaia da Pisa (1410–1464). It was in this chapel that he was buried in 1458.[1]

Works

File:Vegio, Maffeo – Vocabula ex iure civili excerpta, 1477 – BEIC 12480906.jpg
Vocabula ex iure civili excerpta, 1477

With the Pompeiana (1423) and the Rusticalia (1431), Vegio gives space to the literary topos of the satire against the villain by imagining himself, a man of the city, as a prisoner of the countryside and its peasant peasants.

His greatest reputation came as the writer of brief epics, the most famous of which was his Libri XIII Aeneidos Supplementum (1428), a continuation and last book of the Aeneid (the poem had in fact remained unfinished at Virgil's death) and which was at the centre of a plagiarism controversy with the humanist Pier Candido Decembrio. Completed in 1428, this book recounts the funeral of Turnus, the marriage of Aeneas and Lavinia, the founding of Lavinium, the death of Latinus, then that of Aeneas and his divinisation. This text was the subject of commentaries by Jodocus Badius in 1501 and then by Nicolaus Erythraeus in 1538–1539. The work was so successful that it circulated in the Renaissance with Virgil's genuine text: in 1513, Bishop Gavin Douglas included the 13th book of Vegio in his Scottish version of the Aeneid, the first translation of the poem into a Germanic language.

Perhaps the discovery in 1423 of Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica by Giovanni Aurispa lies at the basis of Velleris Aurei Libri IV (1431), a work centred on the events of the expedition in search of the Golden Fleece.

Lastly, the De verborum significatione (1433), a transcription of 850 headwords from the Digest and an expression, rather than of Vegio's legal culture, of the linguistic reflection that the humanists were conducting in those years in the wake of the renewal instances promoted by Lorenzo Valla, should also be ascribed to the Pavia period. The Antoniados libri (1437) are a synthesis of the Christian hagiographic tradition and the epic poem in the style of Virgil: an account of the visit of St. Anthony the Abbot to the anchorite Paul of Thebes, the work inaugurates the season of the sacred poem in the Renaissance and preludes the religious turning point of the Roman period.

The prose writer Vegio is well represented by De Educatione liberorum et eorum claris moribus (1441), a pedagogical work in which an educational model is elaborated that combines respect for Christian moral prescriptions with the necessary aspiration for a paideia of humanistic imprint.[lower-alpha 1]

A historiographical and antiquarian work is instead De rebus antiquis memorabilibus Basilicae S. Petri Romae (1452–1458), written on the eve of the radical renovation of the ancient St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican during the pontificate of Nicholas V: like the works of Giovanni Dondi (Iter Romanum) and Poggio Bracciolini (De fortunae varietate urbis Romae), the small treatise in four books shows the burgeoning interest in Christian archaeology in Italy.[2] Other works by Vegio are the Elegiarum libri duo (1437); the Libri distichorum duo ad Carolum Aretinum (1439–1443); the Epigrammatum libri duo ad Leonardum Aretinum (1439–1443).

Works in the style of Lucian of Samosata[3] are the Dialogus Veritatis et Philaletis (1443–1448) and the De felicitate et miseria (1443–1447); finally, there are several hagiographic works by Vegio, including De vita et obitu beati Coelestini quinti papae (1445).

Some of Vegio's poems were later set as motets by renaissance composers – an example being Huc me sidereo, set by Josquin, Jacobus Vaet, Orlando Di Lasso and the first motet of Adrian Willaert's 1559 Musica Nova collection.[4]

Major ancient editions

  • Vocabula ex iure civili excerpta (1477)
  • Opera, quae hactenus haberi potuerunt, in duas partes distincta, quarum prior De educatione liberorum lib. VI. Aliaque soluta oratione conscripta, posterior poemata et epigrammata complectitur. Omnium elenchus sequenti pagella continetur (1613)
  • Marguerin de la Bigne, ed., Maxima Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum et antiquorum scriptorum ecclesiasticorum. Continens scriptores ab ann. Christi 1300. ad ann. 1600, Vol. XXVI (1677, contains: Libri XII Aeneidos Supplementum; De perseverantia religionis, p. 689; Astyanax, p. 764; Vellum Aureum, p. 766; Antonias, p. 773; and Dialogus veritatis et Philalethis ad Eustachium fratrem; Disceptatio inter Terram Solem et Aurum)
  • Giovanni Gaetano Bottari, ed., Carmina illustrium poetarum italorum, Vol. X (1724, contains: Astyanax, pp. 288–96; Rusticalia, pp. 315–22; Salutatio b. Monicae, pp. 323–4)

Major modern editions

Notes

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The first three books are devoted to the responsibilities of parents and teachers in the education of children, the other three to children's duties, good manners, etc. Vegio clearly affirms the compatibility between the Christian spirit and the study of pagan classics. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, this treatise was reprinted in France and attributed to Francesco Filelfo, frenchised as Philelphe. In 1513, Jean Lode translated it into French, still attributing it to Philelphe, and published it in Paris with Gilles de Gourmont under the title Le Guidon des parens en instruction et direction de leurs enfans. Aultrement appelé François Philelphe de la manière de nourrir, instruire et conduire jeunes enfans. It is one of the oldest educational treatises in French.

Citations

  1. ↑ Sénéchal, Philippe (1999). "Le tombeau de Melchiorre Baldassini retrouvé à Chaalis," Revue de l'Art, Vol. CXXIV, No. 124, p. 59.
  2. ↑ Stinger, Charles L. (1985). The Renaissance in Rome. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 179–83.
  3. ↑ Hemeryck, Pascale (1972). "Les traductions latines du Charon de Lucien au quinzième siècle," Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome. Moyen Age, Temps modernes, Vol. LXXXIV, No. 84/1, pp. 129–200.
  4. ↑ Orlando Di Lasso, Complete Motets, Vol. 6. Peter Bergquist (1997), p. xix: ""Huc me sidéreo": Gustave Reese ascribes the poem to Maffeo Vegio (or Veggio, 1407–58). [...] The poem was set several times before Lasso, including settings by Josquin, Willaert, and Jacobus Vaet."

References

Corvi, Socrate (1959). Studi su Maffeo Vegio. Lodi: Archivio Storico Lodigiano.
Cremascoli, Giuseppe (2014). "Su Maffeo Vegio agiografo dei santi Antonio abate e Monica," Hagiographica, No. 21, pp. 155–78.
Cristóbal López, Vicente (1993). "Maffeo Vegio y su libro XIII de la Eneida," Cuadernos de filología clásica. Estudios latinos, No. 5, pp. 189–210.
Della Schiava, Fabio (2010). "Alcune vicende di un sodalizio umanistico pavese: Lorenzo Valla e Maffeo Vegio." In: L. C. Rossi, ed., Le strade di Ercole. Itinerari umanistici e altri percorsi. Firenze: Edizioni del Galluzzo, pp. 299–341.
Della Schiava, Fabio (2010). "Sicuti traditum est a maioribus»: Maffeo Vegio antiquario tra fonti classiche e medievali," Aevum, Vol. LXXXIV, pp. 617–39.
Della Schiava, Fabio (2011). "Le fabellae esopiche di Maffeo Vegio. Spigolature da un codice lodigiano poco noto." In: Perrine Galand, Gino Ruozzi, Sabine Verhulst & Jean Vignes, eds., Tradition et créativité dans les formes gnomiques en Italie et en Europe du Nord (XIVe-XVIIe siècles). Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 133–64.
Della Schiava, Fabio (2011). "Il De rebus antiquis memorabilibus di Maffeo Vegio tra i secoli XV-XVII: la ricezione e i testimoni," Italia medioevale e umanistica, Vol. LII, pp. 139–96.
Della Schiava, Fabio (2014). "Roma pagana e Roma cristiana nel primo libro del «De rebus antiquis memorabilibus» di Maffeo Vegio (1407-58)." In; Luisa Rotondi Secchi Tarugi, ed., Roma pagana e Roma cristiana nel Rinascimento. Atti del XXIV Convegno internazionale (Chianciano Terme-Pienza, 19 - 21 luglio 2012). Firenze, pp. 39–50.
Della Schiava, Fabio (2014). "Biondo Flavio, il Digesto e il "De verborum significatione" di Maffeo Vegio," Studi e problemi di critica testuale, No. 89, pp. 163–84.
Díaz Gito, Manuel Antonio (2001). "Interpretaciones humanísticas de un tópico clásico: el poema a la muerte de un ave (I): el "Epitaphium Parrochini sturni" de Maffeo Vegio," Calamus Renascens, No. 2, pp. 181–98.
Foffano, Tino (2002). "Il ‘De rebus antiquis memorabilibus Basilicae S. Petri Romae' e i primordi dell'archeologia cristiana." In: Il Sacro nel Rinascimento, Atti del XII Convegno Internazionale di Studi (Chianciano-Pienza 17-20 luglio 2000). Firenze: F. Cesati, pp. 719–29.
Franzoni, Andrea (1907). L'opera pedagogica di Maffeo Vegio. Lodi: Società tip. succ. Wilmant.
Gervais, Kyle (2021). "Textual and Interpretive Notes on the Epic Poems of Maffeo Vegio," Humanistica lovaniensia, Vol. LXX, No. 1, pp. 7–21.
Gervais, Kyle (2022). "Virgil's hero, Turnus: Maffeo Vegio and Pier Candido Decembrio’s Supplements to the Aeneid (with a new edition and translation of Decembrio)," Renaissance and Reformation, Vol. XLV, No. 3, pp. 9–41.
Horkan, Vincent Joseph (1953). Educational Theories and Principles of Maffeo Vegio. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.
Kallendorf, Craig; Virginia Brown (1990). "Maffeo Vegio's Book XIII to Virgil's Aeneid : A Checklist of Manuscripts," Scriptorium, Vol. XLIV, No. 1, pp. 107–25.
Minoia, Mario (1896). La vita di Maffeo Vegio, umanista lodigiano. Lodi: Quirico e Camagni.
Navarro López, Joaquín Luis (1997). "Ovidio virgilianizado: el final del Supplementum ad Aeneidos librum XII de Maffeo Vegio." In: José María Maestre, Luis Charlo Brea, Joaquín Pascual Barea & Luis Gil Fernández, eds., Humanismo y pervivencia del mundo clásico: homenaje al profesor Luis Gil. Ayuntamiento de Alcañiz: Servicio de Publicaciones/Universidad de Cádiz, pp. 277–86.
Lopomo, Nicolle (2014). "Maffeo Vegio, il Poliziano e la Dea Febris," Medioevo e rinascimento, Vol. XXVIII, No. 25, pp. 127–47.
Pedrocchi, Anna Maria (2011). "La cappella di Santa Monica in Sant'Agostino a Roma: da Maffeo Vegio al cardinale Montelparo," Bollettino d'arte, Vol. XCVI, No. 11, pp. 107–22.
Raffaele, Luigi (1909). Maffeo Vegio: elenco delle opere, scritti inediti. Bologna: Zanichelli.
Scafoglio, Giampiero (2014). "Il nuovo Astianatte," Exemplaria classica, No. 18, pp. 175–84.
Shumilin, Mikhail (2018). "Two Textual Notes on Maffeo Vegio's Antonias," Humanistica lovaniensia, Vol. LXVII, No. 2, 2018, pp. 469–72.
Solana Pujalte, Julián (1997). "El hexámetro del "Aneidos Liber XIII " de Maffeo Vegio y sus modelos clásicos (I)," Latomus: revue d'études latines, Vol. LVI, No. 2, págs. 382–95.
Solana Pujalte, Julián (2000). "El hexámetro del "Aeneidos Liber XIII" de Maffeo Vegio y sus modelos clásicos (II)," Latomus: revue d'études latines, Vol. LIX, No. 3, pp. 652–70.
Speroni, Mario (1976). "Il primo vocabolario giuridico umanistico: il ‘De verborum significatione’ di Maffeo Vegio," Studi Senesi, Vol. LXXXVIII, pp. 7–43.
Vega Ramos, María José (2017). "El "Palinurus" de Maffeo Vegio y la literatura "de miseria hominis" en el Renacimiento." In: Pierre Darnis, Elvezio Canonica de Rochemonteix, Pedro Ruiz Pérez & Ana Vian Herrero, eds., Sátira menipea y renovación narrativa en España: del lucianismo a Don Quijote (Homenaje a Michel Cavillac). Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux/Editorial Universidad de Córdoba, pp. 117–44.

External links

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

Retrieved from "https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=Maffeo_Vegio&oldid=727703373"