Gasparino Barzizza

Gasparino Barzizza (Latin Gasparinus Barzizius Bergamensis ; * around 1360 in or near Bergamo , † around 1431 in Milan ) was one of the first Italian humanists .

Gasparino was a grammar teacher who was particularly significant because he taught a letter style based on Cicero's letters. Together with Pier Paolo Vergerio , he had a great influence on the development of humanism in Padua. As one of the first Italian humanists, he taught rhetoric , grammar and moral philosophy with the aim of reviving Latin literature .

He was born Gasparino di Pietrobuono, probably in the village of Barzizza near Bergamo. In Pavia he studied grammar and rhetoric, where he also taught from 1403 to 1407. He then went to Venice to serve as tutor for the Barbaro family there . There he found no support for founding a school. 1407-1421 he then taught in Padua . It was here that he had his most productive period of writing, which established his reputation as a teacher and scholar. He lectured on rhetoric and the authors Seneca , Cicero, Virgil and Terenz . Here he also founded a public school that offered a humanistic curriculum. Vittorino da Feltre and Leon Battista Alberti owe their education in their childhood to him. He then taught in Ferrara . In 1418 he opened a public school in Milan at the invitation of Filippo Maria Visconti , which was organized in the same way as his school in Padua. From 1421 he taught in Milan. There he also served the Visconti as a judicial orator . He also served Pope Martin V as secretary. In this capacity he attended the Council of Constance .

Gasparinus died in Milan around 1431.

From his marriage to Lucrezia Alliardi he had a son named Guimforte (Guiniforto) Barzizza (~ 1406–1463), who became a respected teacher and writer and around 1440 in Milan on behalf of Filippo Maria Visconti a commentary on Dante's Inferno from the Divine Comedy composed. Guimforte married Giovannina Malabarba.

Works

• Epistolae (this title was the first book printed in France, published by Johannes Heynlin in 1470 ).
• Tractatus de Compositione (ca.1420): a treatise on rhetoric and literary expression. In this treatise he argues for a return to the expressive elements of the ancient rhetoricians.
• Orthographia: a manual of Latin spelling

literature

• Lucia Gualdo Rosa (ed.): Gasparino Barzizza e la rinascita degli studi classici: fra continuità e rinnovamento. Atti del Seminario di studi Napoli - Palazzo Sforza, April 11, 1997. Istituto Universitario Orientale, Napoli 1999.
• Guido Martellotti:  Barzizza, Gasparino. In: Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 7:  Bartolucci – Bellotto. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1965.