Giovanni Bernardino Bonifacio

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Giovanni Bernardino Bonifacio marchese d'Oria (born April 25, 1517 in Naples , † March 24, 1597 in Danzig ) was an Italian count, humanist and book collector. As a supporter of the Reformation , he went into exile in Basel at the time of the Counter- Reformation in 1556 , later traveled around Europe and came to Danzig, where he founded the local library from 1591 to 1596, poor, blind and with few books left.

Life

Bonifacio was a son of the noble Roberto Bonifacio and the noble Napoletan Lucrezia Cicara. He became the only family heir because his two brothers died and his sisters turned down the inheritance. In 1500 the father received the feudal lordship over Oria in Apulia from the King of Aragon, in 1522 with the purchase of Francavilla and Casalnuovo Charles V gave him the title of Marchesen. Bonifacio's father was well educated and traveled with him to Rome , France and Spain and raised him to be a Catholic.

In 1536 his father died and he was able to inherit and take over the management of the land and buildings contained therein. As early as 1538 a dispute broke out between him and the citizens of Oria because they felt their rights had been violated and went to court. From 1549 to 1552 an old inheritance conflict smoldered with a sister who would have given up her inheritance only under pressure. For these reasons Bonifacio withdrew to the Terra d'Otranto , on his land in Apulia, and left the rule of Orias to a local family and Casalnuovo was headed by his wife Beatrice della Marra.

He used his retreat to build up a large library, for contacts with humanists and writers from all over Italy and for the formation of an evangelical group whose mastermind was Juan de Valdés . He partly supported writers financially, in return Lodovico Dolce dedicated his tragedy Ifigenia to him in 1550 , Lelio Carani his translation of Sallustio in 1551 and Paolo Manuzio the publication of Petrarch's rhymes in 1553 .

The increasingly restrictive climate of the Counter-Reformation gave rise to a plan to flee in Bonifacio, because his wife had probably died in the meantime, or she no longer appears in the sources. In 1557 the rich man traveled to Venice and from there to Basel with two of his Berber servants and a French fellow traveler. As soon as he was in Basel, the dispute over his great inheritance began between Count Federico Borromeo , representatives of the Catholic Church and the Benedictine monastery of S. Severino e Sosio in Naples.

A number of Italian religious refugees lived in Basel at that time, many of them gathered around the humanist scholar Bonifacius Amerbach . From Amerbach Bonifacio received writings by the humanist Erasmus von Rotterdam . The conflict and the condemnation of the anti-Trinitarian Michael Servetus by Jean Calvin and his Geneva environment preoccupied the Italian community, Celio Secondo Curione and Pier Paolo Vergerio embodied the opposing opinions. Bonifacio made friends mainly with the French Sebastian Castellio and the Italian Mino Celsi . It is possible that he financially supported Castellio's book de haereticis (German: Von den Ketzern ), in any case he gave Amerbach a copy with a dedication. He also had some brochures by the southern Italian philosopher Antonio De Ferrariis published in Basel .

Bonifacio also went to Zurich and Worms , where he met Philipp Melanchton , whom he valued and who gave him an Augsburg Confession with a dedication. Probably because as a free spirit he detested the rigid practice of religion in Basel, he moved to Venice in 1558 via Graubünden and Lecco on Lake Como. There he was reported to the Inquisition on July 8th for possession of illegal books and contact with evangelicals. His confidants and defenders included the Countess Francesco Porto and the Countess Renata d'Este . After a brief stay in Trieste , he returned to Venice and then left Italy for good in 1560.

At the beginning of 1561 Bonifacio settled in Kazimierz near Cracow , where he came into contact with the Italian doctor Giorgio Biandrata and the Polish Calvinist Jan Boner . He wrote to Castellio and invited him to Poland and suggested that he travel with Lelio Sozzini . But in 1562 he traveled on and lived in Brno , Moravia , and in 1565 he went to Lyon , Paris and London . Shortly afterwards he settled in Urach near Basel from 1565 to 1575 , where Bonifacio Amerbach bought him a residence. He then emigrated to Nuremberg , Vienna , Denmark , Sweden , England and Constantinople , which, however, also included new dangers.

In 1584 he returned to Poland impoverished, probably first visiting Buccella; after that he settled in Vilna . On his last trip to England he developed an eye disease that made him blind. In 1591 he definitely donated his library to the Senate of Danzig, which originally consisted of 1,043 works with 1,161 books, but has become smaller as a result of losses over the years. Of these, 242 titles were in the areas of language, poetry, mathematics and astrology; 239 were by Latin and Greek theologians, 199 by philosophers, 141 medical subjects, 129 historical books, 72 Italian authors, and 21 legal questions. The library was opened in 1596. He maintained contacts with scholars and patricians until his death on March 24, 1597. He was also connected to the Italian refugees Giacomo Aconcio , Vincenzo Maggi , Silvestro Teglio and Michele Bruto in writing . Bonifacio was buried in the Trinity Church of Danzig.

Fonts

  • Edizioni: Antonii Galatei Liber de situ elementorum, Liber de situ Iapigiae , Peter Perna , Basel 1558.
  • Lettera sullo studio della storia a F. Camerario , in: Philippi Camerarii Operae horarum subcisivarum sive meditationes historicae auctiores quam antea editae , Frankfurt 1658.
  • Miscellanea hymnorum, epigrammatum et paradoxorum quorundam Domini Iohannis Bernhardini Bonifacii , dedicated to A. Welsius, Danzig 1599.
  • Violae inferae (lamento in morte del suo cane) , Danzig, Bibl. Polksiej Akademii Nauk.

literature

Web links


personal data
SURNAME Bonifacio, Giovanni Bernardino
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Giovanni Bernardino Bonifacio marchese d'Oria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian humanist, book collector and library founder in Gdansk
DATE OF BIRTH April 25, 1517
PLACE OF BIRTH Naples
DATE OF DEATH March 24, 1597
Place of death Danzig