Matteo Luigi Canonici

Matteo Luigi Canonici (born August 5, 1727 in Venice , † 1805 in Treviso ) was an Italian Jesuit , teacher , bibliophile and art collector .

Life

Matteo Luigi Canonici was born on August 5, 1727 to Andrea and Margherita Rossi. The family came from Bologna, where Canonici received his first education and entered the Jesuit order on October 15, 1743, at the age of sixteen. During the first two years of his novitiate , Canonici was cared for by Antonio Massarini.

In 1746 Canonici began to study rhetoric in Piacenza , where the philosopher Leonardo Cominelli was one of his teachers. Canonici also took his first religious vows in Piacenza and then moved to Ferrara, where he taught grammar at the Jesuit college there (today: Palazzo di Giustizia ) from 1746 to 1748.

Canonici spent the year 1748 in Bologna , where he studied philosophy with Lelio Antonio Arrighi, Cesare Calini and Enrico de Sarego. A few years followed in Parma , where Canonici first taught "Humanistics" from 1751 to 1753 and rhetoric from 1753 to 1755 at the Jesuit College of San Rocco. From 1755 Canonici devoted himself to his studies and attended lectures in general theology and moral theology from recognized scholars of his time.

Canonici was ordained a priest in 1757 at the age of thirty and spent the third probationary year of his novitiate in Busseto from 1759 to 1760 . On his return to Parma, Canonici was appointed director of the Collegio dei Nobili and made his perpetual profession in 1761 .

During his academic activities in Parma, Canonici had made some acquaintances among the city's scholars, including Duke Charles III. , and was finally elected to the Accademia degli Scelti to succeed Saverio Bettinelli . But Canonici's activity in Parma came to an abrupt end when the Jesuits were expelled from the city in 1767 and he had to take a more modest post in Bologna. Canonici also lost this position with the abolition of the Jesuit order in 1773.

When Canonici had become a diocesan priest through the abolition of his order , he moved to Venice and took on various teaching assignments there at irregular intervals.

In 1798 Canonici was invited to return to Parma and take over the management of the Biblioteca Palatina . Reluctantly, he accepted the offer, but gave it back a year later and remained a simple librarian until his retirement in 1803.

Canonici died in the first days of September 1805. He left no will, which is why his property went to his brother Giuseppe.

Library and art collection

During his stay in Parma, Canonici began to compile a collection of historical manuscripts, medals and coins, which Jean-Jacques Barthélemy, antiquarian of the French king, marveled at on his trip to Italy in the 1750s. About ten years later, the collection was confiscated in the course of the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Duchy of Parma and the Kingdom of Naples.

In the course of his teaching activities in Bologna Canonici put on a rich collection of sacred art. At the request of his superior, who viewed the collection of art objects as a contradiction to the vow of poverty, Canonici soon had to return the collection to a Roman prince, probably from the Chigi family . Among the paintings also was Antonio da Correggio s Zingarella .

The dissolution of his order in 1773 released Canonici from his duties towards the community, which meant for him the permission to intensively expand his collection through purchase and exchange with other collectors. In 1780 Canonici managed to acquire a large part of the collection of Jacopo Soranzo (1686–1761), including many manuscripts by Bernardo Trevisan (1652–1720). In total, Canonici's library contained around 2000 printed books and over 4000 handwritten codices , most of which were from the 14th and 15th centuries and were decorated with miniatures.

After Canonici's death, the attempt to acquire the entire collection for the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice failed . The priest's heirs initially sold only the non-Venetian manuscripts to the Bodleian Library for £ 5,500 , where they can still be found today. The purchase of the manuscripts in 1817 is considered one of the greatest merits of the library director at the time, Bulkeley Bandinel .

The remaining manuscripts in the collection were not sold to Rev. Walter Sneyd until 1835, who had some of them auctioned again at Sotheby’s in 1836 .

Works

• Proposizioni storico-critiche intorno alla vita dell'imperatore Costantino sostenute da Vincenzo Cigola bresciano. Parma: Filippo Carmignani 1760.
• Note storico-critiche concernenti all'arte degli antichi negli assedi e nella difesa delle piazze, pubblicate e difese dal conte Francesco Trotti padovano. Parma: Filippo Carmignani 1761.
• Descriptio collectionis iconum aere incisarum D. Comitis I. Durazzo. (First published: 1784 in 4 °)

literature

• Nereo Vianello:  Canonici, Matteo Luigi. In: Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 18:  Canella – Cappello. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1975, pp. 167-170.
• Mary Clapinson: Bandinel, Bulkeley. In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com ), as of 2019-10-10, accessed July 22, 2020.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Nereo Vianello:  Canonici, Matteo Luigi. In: Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 18:  Canella – Cappello. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1975, p. 167.
2. ^ ^{A b} Matteo Luigi Canonici, Jesuit and bibliophile. In: I libri dei Patriarchi / The books of the patriarchs. Istituto Pio Paschini, 2015, accessed April 15, 2020 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Nereo Vianello:  Canonici, Matteo Luigi. In: Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 18:  Canella – Cappello. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1975, p. 168.
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Nereo Vianello:  Canonici, Matteo Luigi. In: Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 18:  Canella – Cappello. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1975, p. 169.
5. ^ ^{A b} Emily Tarrant: Collection: Canonici Manuscripts. In: Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts. Bodleian Library, accessed July 22, 2020 . 
6. ↑ ^{a b c d} Albinia Catherine de la Mare: Canonici, Matteo Luigi . In: Grove Art Online . Oxford University Press, 2003, doi : 10.1093 / gao / 9781884446054.article.T013712 .
7. ↑ Mary Clapinson: Bandinel, Bulkeley (1781-1861), librarian . In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew (Ed.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . September 23, 2004, doi : 10.1093 / ref: odnb / 1275 (English).