Antonio Ricoboni

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Bust of Riccoboni in the church Chiesa della Beata Vergine del Soccorso in Rovigo

Antonio Riccoboni (* 1541 in Rovigo , † July 27, 1599 in Padua ) was an Italian humanist .

life, achievements and impact

Antonio Riccoboni was the son of Andrea and Marietta Riccoboni and had four brothers and four sisters. Two of the brothers pursued religious careers, Giovanni headed the church of Mardimago near Rovigo, Barnaba was abbot of San Bartolomeo and author. Antonio received his early training from Giovanni Mazzo in Rovigo. He then studied in Venice with Marcantonio Mureto and in Padua with Carlo Sigonio and Paulus Manutius (Paolo Manuzio, 1512-1574). After his return to Rovigo in 1558 he first became a notary. As a member of the Accademia degli Addormentati , closed in 1561, a scholarly society in which, among other things, reformatory ideas were discussed, he became the focus of the Inquisition , but was acquitted in 1562 and became the publicly appointed local teacher in the same year, succeeding Ludovico Ricchieri (Celio Rodigino). In this position he was able to gain a great reputation in his home town, was elected to the town council in 1570 and, together with Andrea Nicolio, was entrusted with revising the town statutes.

In 1571 he left Rovigo and moved to the more liberal Padua for the rest of his life. There Riccoboni earned his doctorate in both laws (secular and canon law ) in the same year. Although he initially planned to pursue a legal career, at the urging of friends, notably Lorenzo Massa , he decided to accept the university's prestigious chair in rhetoric. Here he became the indirect successor to Lodovico Castelvetro , who had to flee as a heretic because of the excommunication in 1557 . Giovanni Fasolo was initially appointed to the chair in 1570 , but after the inaugural lecture he became so ill that he could no longer fill it. After Marcus Antonius Muretus refused the position, it was given to Riccoboni. He held this position until his death. In his three inaugural lectures , De studiis liberalium artium , De studiis humanitatis and De studiis artis rhetoricæ , he emphasized the great importance of humanistic subjects. His house was also the teaching building, in which he also accommodated up to 12 students. Among his students was the later cardinal Guido Bentivoglio , who later spoke very positively about his teacher. He was first buried in the Church of San Bartolomeo in Rovigo, later reburied in San Francesco . His successor in Padua was Paolo Beni .

In the tradition of his chair, Riccoboni placed Aristotle , particularly poetics and rhetoric , at the center of his studies. In 1579 he jointly published both the Rhetoric and a Latin translation of the Poetics . It became a very influential work, which went through six further editions by 1599 alone and was still used by Immanuel Bekker in the 19th century . In 1585 he published a commentary on the Poetics , which is considered the last of the great poetic commentaries of the 16th century. The commentary was still used in the 17th century by Francesco Fulvio Frugoni and described as essential. Riccoboni pursued two central goals in his work. On the one hand, he wanted to give his students a text that was easy to read, which is why he based his Latin translations on the word order of the Italian language and tried to keep the terminology of the Greek words simple and consistent. Therefore, his translation was partly criticized as too free. On the other hand, he wanted to refute the views of his predecessor, Castelvetro. The translation of the Poetics was accompanied by an essay in which Riccoboni tried to reconstruct the second book of the Poetics on comedy. Although rhetoric and poetics were his central themes, Riccoboni also researched other parts of Aristotelian work, translating the Nicomachean Ethics into Latin, for example.

Frontispiece of the writing In obitu Iacobi Zabarellae (1590)

In addition to Aristotle, he also dealt with Horace , among other things . Shortly before his death he published a treatise in which he compared Horace 's Ars poetica with Aristotle's Poetics . Riccoboni was also one of the first scholars to engage in the debate surrounding the structure of the Ars poetica . From 1591 there was a bitter dispute about this with the Bergamian priest Nicolò Cologno (1512–1602), who thought he had found a plan behind Horace's poem. Riccoboni, however, considered the Ars poetica a purely informal account. About 40 papers were published as part of this scientific dispute. When Cologno was to receive the chair of moral ethics in 1591, succeeding Giason Denores , on which Riccoboni had also speculated because of the even greater prestige, he thwarted Cologno's appointment with his publications. Cologno nevertheless received the chair, but occupied it for only one year, until it was finally given to the cleric Giovanni Belloni in 1594.

Next he worked on Cicero . With his letter De consolatione, edita sub nomine Ciceronis, Epistola ad Hieronymum Mercurialem he proved the falsification of large parts of Cicero's work De Consolatione by Carlo Sigonio . In the mid-1590s he supported Caspar Schoppe in his harsh criticism of Joseph Justus Scaliger 's Epistola de vetustate et splendore gentis Scaligerae et JC Scaligeri vita and thus above all of the work of Julius Caesar Scaliger , in which the family genealogy of the Scaligers was largely falsified was. The Scaliger, injured in his honor, therefore referred to him as Porcus Riccobonus . In 1568 he was the first to attempt to collect the surviving fragments of the Elder Cato 's Origines .

Dealing with Aristotle's rhetoric also had practical effects. Riccoboni himself developed into an extremely capable speaker, who often appeared at official university events and enjoyed a high reputation in Padua. His interest in history was reflected, among other things, in a history of the University of Padua, De Gymnasio Patavino , published in 1599. This writing is not only of inestimable value for the history of the university, but also for the biography of Riccoboni. He also published his public speeches in two volumes: the first contained 14 prayers, the second 20 speeches, mostly obituaries. The correspondence has hardly been published to date, but among them there is a letter to Galileo Galilei and another to the Bolognese Greek scholar Ascanio Persio .

Publications (selection)

  • Commentarius in quo per locorum collationem explicatur doctrina librorum Ciceronis rhetoricorum. Venice 1567.
  • De historia liber cum fragmentis historicorum veterum latinorum summa fide collectis. Venice 1568.
  • Aristotelis Artis rhetoricæ libri tres, græce et latine. Venice 1579.
  • Aristotelis liber de poetica latine conversus. Venice 1579.
  • De consolatione edita sub nomine Ciceronis judicium secundum. Venice 1585.
  • Practice rhetorica, sive De usu rhetoricæ. Cologne 1588.
  • Defensor, sive pro ejus opinione de Epistola Horatii ad Pisones, in Nicolaum Colonium. Ferrara 1591.
  • Orationum volume duo. Padua 1592.
  • Aristotelis Ethica latine versa. Padua 1593.
  • De Gymnasio Patavino commentariorum libri sex. Padua 1598.

literature

web links

Commons : Antonio Riccoboni  - Collection of images

Remarks

  1. ↑ The Poetica Aristotelis latine conversa/Compendium artis poeticae Aristotelis was reprinted in 1970 in a series of classic Italian commentaries of the 16th century ( Poetiken des Cinquecento Vol. 22) by the Wilhelm Fink publishing house ; DNB 730051072
  2. ↑ M. Tullii Ciceronis Consolatio, liber quo se ipsum de filiæ Mort Consolatus est, nunc primum repertus et in lucem editus a Francisco Viannello, Veneto. Venice 1583.
personal data
SURNAME Ricoboni, Antonio
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Riccobonus, Anthonius; Riccobono, Antonio; Riccobonus, Antonius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian humanist
BIRTH DATE 1541
PLACE OF BIRTH Rovigo
DATE OF DEATH July 27, 1599
PLACE OF DEATH Padova