Mariangelo Accursio

Marinus Angelus Accursius, wood engraving from 1589

Mariangelo Accursio (also Mariangelo Accorso, Latinized Mariangelus Accursius ; born 1489 in L'Aquila ; died on August 4, 1546 ibid) was an Italian Renaissance humanist who distinguished himself primarily as a philologist and epigraphist , but also as a poet. He is known for his philological studies and the publication of the works of Ammianus Marcellinus and Cassiodorus .

Life

Little is known about Mariangelo Accursio's youth and education. His father Giovan Francesco Accursio may have come from Norcia and served as clerk in the community of L'Aquila. He probably taught his son himself for the first few years. From 1513, Accursio's stay in Rome can be proven.

Rome

Accursio was present at the granting of Roman citizenship to Giuliano and Lorenzo de 'Medici , brother and nephew of the newly elected Pope Leo X , on September 13 and 14, 1513. On the occasion of the associated theater performances on Capitol Square, he wrote and published his first work within three days: Osci et Volsci dialogus ludis Romanis actus - a satire that follows the Latin style of the humanist Giovan Battista Pio (1460-1540), dedicated his archaisms and linguistic recourse to Apuleius . Giovan Battista Pio was appointed to the school of Rome by Pope Julius II in 1512 , where he was up to mischief. The piece, reprinted several times - for example by Philipp Melanchthon around 1517 - presents itself as a dialogue between the protagonists Oscus and Volscus and is one of the most important testimonies to humanist polemics about questions of an appropriate Latin style.

Dedications and mentions, for example by Hieronymus Aleander , prove that Accursio belonged to the literary circles of Rome for some years. In the Johannes Goritz (around 1455-1527, better known as Ianus Corycius) under the title Coryciana and compiled by Blosio Palladio dedicated collection of Latin poems, his Carmen Protrepticon ad Corycium and an epigram were published. The revision of the anonymously published Epigrammata antiquae Urbis , which was published by Giacomo Mazzocchi in 1521, but which, according to the privilege granted in 1517, had probably already been tackled earlier, is possibly associated with the name Accursio . To date, it is one of the most extensive publications on the inscriptions of Rome , the compilation of which is attributed to the Florentine priest Francesco Albertini , who wrote the first art guide to Rome in 1510. The reviser, who could not be clearly identified, checked the original inscriptions as critically as possible; the result was added to the work on the last eight folia as an extensive errata apparatus. The list of abbreviations attached to the work, which he had obtained after Valerius Probus , and which he edited De notis antiquarum litterarum as an introduction to the work, is certainly to be connected with Accursio .

In the service of the Hohenzollern

Title page of the Ammianus Marcellinus edition by Mariangelo Accursio (1533)

When the young princes Gumpert and Johann Albrecht von Brandenburg from the house of the Hohenzollern came to Rome around 1520 to put the finishing touches to their upbringing, Accursio entered their service. With the title of majordomo , he ran their household in Rome. Around the year 1522 he undertook an extensive journey through Hungary, Germany, Poland and Lithuania with both of them. Returning to Rome, he published one of his major philological works, the Diatribae , in 1524 - a study of the works of Ausonius , Solinus and Ovid's Metamorphoses . The text-critical investigation, in which he proved his extensive knowledge of Greek and Latin literature, he dedicated to the two princes. He had also dedicated a polemical pamphlet Testudo , in which he defended himself against a plagiarism allegation raised by an unknown source and the oldest version of which dates from 1520, to the two of them.

Accursio remained in the service of the Brandenburg Hohenzollerns until 1532, constantly traveling. In 1525 he was in Germany and France, from 1525 to 1529 in Spain at the court of Charles V , in Northern Italy and Germany in 1529 and 1530, in Rome in 1530 and again in Germany until 1532. He continued his epigraphic studies in all places whose fruits are listed in two codes of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana under the symbols D 420 inf. and O 125 sup. be kept. They are particularly important with regard to the Spanish material and also include early Christian inscriptions. In the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum , which is organized by region, the inscriptions Accursios taken into account are distributed over seven different volumes.

It is not known why Accursio left the Hohenzollern service. In 1533 he was in contact with Anton Fugger and stayed in Augsburg . In 1533 he published the first complete edition of the surviving work by Ammianus Marcellinus , which he increased by five books to eighteen . Books XXVII – XXXI of the work beginning with Book 14 had not been published until then. He dedicated the work to Anton Fugger. In the same year Heinrich Steiner (Henricus Siliceus) published the first edition of the Variae Cassiodors in Augsburg , to which Accursio also added his De anima . From the Variae only excerpts were published by Johannes Cochläus in 1529 , Accursio presented the entire text for the first time and dedicated the book to Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg .

Return to Italy

In June 1533 Accursio traveled back to L'Aquila, but kept in contact with both the Fuggers and the Hohenzollerns. When Friedrich von Brandenburg died in Genoa in 1536, he wrote the epitaph . In L'Aquila he married Caterina Lucentini Piccolomini, with whom he had a son Casimiro, who died in 1563. In 1538 he received full citizenship of the city, and the following year he became the city's treasurer. He also traveled to Rome, Naples and Germany to the imperial court until 1545. L'Aquila was conquered in 1528 by Charles V for the Spanish crown and provided with a powerful fortress against the dissatisfied residents. In addition, the city has been under the principality of Orange since then . Since his embassy trips, despite his contacts with Charles V, did not bring any improvement to the city's situation, Accursio was withdrawn from further negotiations. He died on August 4, 1546 and was buried in the Basilica di San Bernardino in L'Aquila.

Works

• Osco, Volsco, Romanaque eloquentia interlocutoribus, dialogus, ludis Romanis actus. Guillery, Rome 1513 ( digitized version ).
• Diatribae. Marcellus Argenteus, Rome 1524 ( digitized version ).
• Ammianus Marcellinus a Mariangelo Accursio mendis quinque millibus purgatus, atque libris quinque auctus ultimis, nunc primum ab eodem inuentis. Silvanus Otmar, Augsburg 1533 ( digitized version ).
• Magni Aurelii Cassiodori Variarum Libri XII. Item De anima liber unus. Recens inventi, & in lucem dati a Mariangelo Accursio. Henricus Siliceus, Augsburg 1533 ( digitized version ).

literature

• Augusto Campana:  Accursio, Mariangelo. In: Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 1:  Aaron – Albertucci. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1960.

Web links

Commons : Mariangelo Accursio  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

1. ↑ Tobias Stimmer , Nikolaus Reusner : Icones sive imagines vivae, literis cl. Virorum, Italiae, Graeciae, Germaniae, Galliae, Angliae, Ungariae. Konrad Waldkirch, Basel 1589 ( digitized version ).
2. ↑ Philipp Melanchthon (Ed.): Osci et Volsci dialogus, ludis Romanis actus. [Tübingen] [1517] ( digitized version ).
3. ↑ Blosio Palladio (ed.): Coryciana. Ludovico Arrighi, Rome 1521 ( digitized version ).
4. ↑ Iacobus Mazochius (ed.): Epigrammata antiquae Urbis. Rome 1521 ( digitized ).
5. ↑ Iacobus Mazochius (ed.): Epigrammata antiquae Urbis. Rome 1521 ( digitized ).