Juan Latino (Latinist)

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Juan Latino (* 1518 in Baena as Juan de Sessa ; † 1596 in Granada ) was a Spanish Latinist at the University of Granada . He was the first black man of the modern age to achieve literary success in Latin .

Life

He came to Granada as the son of black slaves and was brought up together with the son of his master and Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba y Aguilar . He particularly stood out in classical languages ​​and music. He then studied at the University of Granada and graduated as a Bachiller in 1545 at the age of 28 .

He was released and given the chair of grammar and Latin in Granada, which he held for 20 years. Between 1547 and 1548 he married one of his students, Ana Carleval. The marriage of a freed black slave with a white upper class woman was extremely unusual at the time and would hardly have been possible without the support of his former master.

Works

Latino published three volumes of poetry between 1573 and 1585. With his extensive poem Austrias Carmen he glorified Juan de Austria after his victories over the Moriscus uprising of Alpujarras (1570) and over the Ottoman fleet in the sea ​​battle of Lepanto (October 7, 1571). The publication was approved on October 30, 1572 and took place in Granada in 1573. The work comprises 1837 hexameters . It contains militant Catholic propaganda against the Muslims, but Juan Latino also pays tribute to the performance of the Turkish fleet and its commander-in-chief Ali Pasha at Lepanto.

Editions and translations

  • Juan Latino: Austrias Carmen. In: Elizabeth R. Wright, Sarah Spence, Andrew Lemons (Eds.): The Battle of Lepanto (= The I Tatti Renaissance Library , Volume 61). Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Massachusetts) 2014, ISBN 978-0-674-72542-3 , pp. 288-405 (Latin text and English translation)

literature

  • Chukwuma Azuonye: Latino, Juan (ca.1516–1606). In: Carole Boyce Davies (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora: Origins, Experiences, and Culture. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, Calif. 2008, p. 622 f. ( Google Books ).
  • Thomas F. Earle, Kate JP Lowe (Eds.): Black Africans in Renaissance Europe. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2005 ( review ).
  • Keith Albert Sandiford: Measuring the Moment: Strategies of Protest in Eighteenth-Century Afro-English Writing. Associated University Presses, London 1988, pp. 17-43 ( Google Books ).
  • Elizabeth R. Wright: The epic of Juan Latino: dilemmas of race and religion in Renaissance Spain , Toronto; Buffalo; London: University of Toronto Press, [2016], ISBN 978-1-4426-3752-8

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Henry Louis Gates Jr .: The Signifying Monkey. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1988, p. 90.
personal data
SURNAME Latino, Juan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sessa, Juan de (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish Latin teacher and poet
DATE OF BIRTH 1518
PLACE OF BIRTH Baena
DATE OF DEATH 1596
Place of death Granada