Albertino Mussato

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Handwritten corrections and marginal notes by Mussato in a manuscript of the Controversiae Senecas the Elder . Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vaticanus lat. 1769, fol. 73r (13th / 14th century)

Albertino Mussato (* 1261 in Padua , † 1329 in Chioggia ) was an early Italian humanist , poet and historian.

Life

Albertino Mussato came from a humble background. He was sponsored in his early years by Viviano del Musso, who came from an old noble family from Paduan. Initially, Albertino earned money by copying books for students, later he trained as a notary and is occupied in this position at the end of 1282. Albertino, who referred to himself as the son of the crier Giovanni Cavalerio in the documents he issued as a notary, was then to adopt the surname Mussato (in Latin documents Muxatus or Mussatus ).

Albertino was also politically active, on the side of the Guelphs . He received the support of the influential Guglielmo Dente, into whose family he married. In 1296 he became a member of the city council of Padua and was entrusted with various tasks, including as envoy to Pope Boniface VIII. Albertino was finally raised to the nobility . He survived the political turmoil of that time, although he had to leave the city for a short time in 1314. In 1325, however, the power of the Guelphs in Padua was finally broken by the Ghibelline Carraresi, after Giacomo da Carrara had been appointed Signor of the city in 1318 . His assassination in 1324 led to the outbreak of fighting within the commune and the assassination or exile of several opponents of the Carraresi. Albertino also went into exile , where he also died.

Albertino was a friend and student of the early Paduan humanist Lovato de 'Lovati . A small circle of scholars that developed around Lovato, including Albertino, dealt with ancient Latin works and endeavored to maintain the Latin language and poetry. Based on ancient dramas (especially Seneca ), Albertino wrote his most famous work Ecerinis (1314/1315), for which he was crowned Poeta laureatus in 1315 ; Incidentally, following an ancient tradition, this was the first recorded coronation of poets in humanism. The plot revolves around the rise and fall of the Ghibelline leader Ezzelino da Romano , whom Albertino described in the darkest of colors. In addition, he wrote several other works, including a historical work on the Italian expedition of Henry VII. He participated in the Milanese coronation as a member of the Paduan legation, and another work on the following years. However, his prose works do not have the same status as his numerous poems, for which he received a lot of praise and in which he partly processed his own experiences; so, after recovering from an illness, he wrote the poem Somnium ("dream").

expenditure

  • Albertino Mussato. Thesaurus antiquitatum et historiarum italiae . Edited by JG Graevius and P. Burmannus. Vol. 6 (2). Suffering 1722.
  • Rerum italicarum scriptores . Edited by LA Muratori. Vol. 10. Milan 1727.
  • The life of Emperor Henry the Seventh . Edited by Walter Friedensburg. Leipzig 1882 (The Historians of Prehistoric Germany, 14th Century, Vol. 1).
  • Albertino Mussato: Ecerinide . Edited by Luigi Padrin. Bologna 1900.

literature

  • Joseph R. Berrigan: Early Neo-Latin Tragedy in Italy. In: Jozef IJsewijn , Eckhard Kessler (ed.): Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Lovaniensis. Louvain, 23 - 28 Aug. 1971. = Proceedings of the First International Congress of Neo-Latin Studies (= Humanist Library. Series 1: Abhandlungen. Vol. 20, ZDB -ID 515680-4 ). Leuven University Press et al., Leuven et al. 1973, pp. 85-93.
  • Manlio Dazzi: Il Mussato preumanista. 1261-1329. L'ambiente e l'opera (= Collana di varia critica. 22, ZDB -ID 1187461-2 ). Pozza, Vicenza 1964.
  • John K. Hyde: Padua in the Age of Dante. Manchester University Press, Manchester 1966.
  • Guido Martellotti: Mussato, Albertino. In: Umberto Bosco (ed.): Enciclopedia Dantesca. Volume 3: Fr - M. 2nd, revised edition. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1984, p. 1066 ff.
  • Jürgen Miethke : Albertino Mussato's poems to Marsilius of Padua. In: Pensiero politico medievale 6, 2008, ISSN  1825-2338 , pp. 49-65 ( online ).
  • Hubert Müller: Early humanism in Northern Italy. Albertino Mussato: Ecerinis (= Studies in Classical Philology. Vol. 31). Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1987, ISBN 3-8204-9918-0 (also: Freiburg (Breisgau), university, dissertation, 1986).
  • Alberto Mussato, Ecerinis (= Alpha - Omega. Series B: indices, concordances on the Latin and Greek philology of the Middle Ages and the modern age. 14). Edited by Ivana Bosoppi. Olms-Weidmann, Hildesheim et al. 1997, ISBN 3-487-10495-4 .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Albertino may have been an illegitimate son of Viviano. This thesis was already represented in older research, cf. more recently, inter alia, Hyde: Padua in the Age of Dante , p. 166f .; Herbert Jaumann: Handbook of scholarly culture in the early modern period . Vol. 1. Berlin 2004, p. 18.
  2. ↑ General Benjamin Kohl: Padua under the Carrara, 1318-1405 . Baltimore-London 1998.
personal data
SURNAME Mussato, Albertino
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mussatus, Albertinus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian early humanist, poet and historian
DATE OF BIRTH 1261
PLACE OF BIRTH Padua
DATE OF DEATH 1329
Place of death Chioggia