Benedetto Varchi

Benedetto Varchi, illustration of the 19th century

Benedetto Varchi (* 1502 ; † 1565 ) was a Florentine poet and historian .

Benedetto Varchi was the son of a notary and studied law in Pisa. Out of Republican convictions, he fought in the defense of Florence during the siege by the Medici and imperial troops in 1530. After the city surrendered, he was exiled. In 1536 he took part in Piero Strozzi's unsuccessful campaign against the Medici rule. Due to his desperate economic situation, he asked Cosimo I de 'Medici to return to Florence seven years later . Cosimo gave him a pension and asked him to write a history of the city. The work covers the period between 1527 and 1538.

He was a friend of mine Pietro Bembo , whose prose works he edited and corresponded with Annibale Caro and Lodovico Castelvetro . At the Questione della lingua (the Italian language question) he took part with his extensive dialogue L'Ercolano (1560-1565). Varchi also wrote a number of plays, poems, dialogues in Italian and Latin, and translations of classical works (including Boethius and Seneca ). He was ordained a priest in 1565, the year he died. His History of the City of Florence in sixteen volumes was first published in Florence in 1721.

His lectures at the Florentine Academy on the dispute over the primacy of the arts ( Paragone ) in 1547 are significant in terms of art history. First, he reflects on the relative value and hierarchy of the sciences and the arts. Then he turns to the virulent dispute between painting and sculpture as to which genre can claim priority, and summarizes the most important arguments on both sides. Finally, he deals with the comparison made in antiquity between painting and poetry. At the same time he initiated a survey among well-known artists - Michelangelo , Bronzino , Cellini , Vasari and others - on this subject, whose feedback he published together with his own lectures in Florence in 1549.

Works

• L'Ercolano. Dialogo di M. Benedetto Varchi nel quale si ragiona delle Lingue, ed in particolare della Toscana e della Fiorentina. Colla Correzione ad esso fatta da Messer Lodovico Castelvetro; e colla Varchina di Messer Girolamo Muzio. Impressione accuratissima, come si può vedere nella seguente prefazione , Giuseppe Comino, 1744 - 2 vol.
• Paragons. Dispute of rank of the arts . Italian and German. Translated and commented by Oskar Bätschmann and Tristan Weddigen , WBG, Darmstadt 2013, ISBN 978-3-534-21637-6 .

literature

• Salvatore Lo Re, La crisi della libertà fiorentina: all origini della formazione politica e intellettuale di Benedetto Varchi e Piero Vettori , Rome, Ed. di storia e letteratura, 2006 (Istituto nazionale di studi sul Rinascimento).