Martyr Peter of Anghiera

Frontispiece from De orbe novo

Map of the New World by Petrus Martyr, 1511; Facsimile after Justin Winsor: Narrative and critical history of America, Volume 2 , 1889

Petrus Martyr von Anghiera , Italian Pietro (Martire) d'Anghiera or Pietro d'Anghera , Latin Petrus Martyr Anglerius (born February 2, 1457 in Arona , across from Anghiera , on southern Lake Maggiore , † 1526 in Granada ), was an Italian Monk, prior of Granada Cathedral and historian , friend and chronicler of Columbus. He published the first account of the discovery of America with a description of the customs of the inhabitants there, as well as the flora and fauna, as he had taken from the reports of the explorers returning from there. It is also possible that he was the first to report on the curare arrow poison .

Pietro, baptized with the name Petrus Martyr , came from the family of the Margraves of Anghiera, today's Angera in northwestern Italy. After spending a few years at the ducal court of Milan, he went to Rome from the age of 20 to acquire the education, patronage and friendship of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza , where he had worked as secretary to the Roman governor Francisco Negro and is known for his erudition , 1487 to the Spanish court , where he soon won the favor of Ferdinand and Isabella as a scholar .

In 1492 he was ordained and was canon at the Cathedral of Granada, soon afterwards he was entrusted at the court of Isabella by the Cardinal Pedro González de Mendoza with the direction of the court school for the young grandees and appointed royal chaplain .

A first diplomatic mission took him to Rome in 1497 and in 1501 he traveled as Spanish ambassador via Venice to Alexandria to the court of the Sultan of Egypt, where he also visited Cairo. He then became prior of the cathedral chapter in Granada, papal protonotary and member of the high council of India . In 1520 Petrus Martyr was appointed historiographer by Charles V. In 1524 he was designated Bishop of Jamaica as abbot of "Santiago" . He died of liver disease at the end of 1526 in Granada, where the Spanish court had moved in in June of the same year.

Works

• De Orbe Novo Decades is a comprehensive description of the Spaniards' discovery of America . The first decade was printed in Seville as early as 1511 without Petrus Martyr's consent , whereas the first authorized version ( De Rebus Oceanicis et Novo Orbe ) did not appear in Alcalá until 1516. An early Italian translation of the first three decades appeared as early as 1504 under the title Libretto de tutta la navigatione de Re de Spagna de le Isole et terreni novamente trovati by Albertino da Lessona in Venice, it was also included in the anthology Paesi novamente edited by Fracanzano da Montalboddo retrovati (Vicenza, 1507). The translation goes back to Angelo Trevisan , the secretary of the Venetian ambassador at the Spanish court.
• Opus epistolarum (Alcalá 1530, Amsterdam 1670) provides the most valuable materials as a work for contemporary Romance history from 1488–1525 .
• De legatione babylonica libri III (1516) describes Martyr's adventures in Egypt.

expenditure

• Eight Decades on the New World , ed. by Hans Klingelhöfer, 2 volumes, Darmstadt 1972–1976, ISBN 3-534-05703-1 .
• De orbe novo decades I-VIII , ed. by Rosanna Mazzacane, 2 volumes, Genoa 2005.
• De Orbe Novo. Translated from the Latin, with notes and introduction by Francis Augustus MacNutt. GP Putnam′s Sons, New York 1912.
• Geoffrey Eatough (Ed.): Selections from Peter Martyr (= Repertorium Columbianum , Vol. 5). Brepols, Turnhout 1998, ISBN 2-503-50790-5 (critical partial edition of De orbe novo with English translation and commentary; some letters in the appendix)

literature

• Norbert Ankenbauer: "that i wanted to experience meer newer dyng". The language of the new in the Paesi novamente retrovati (Vicenza, 1507) and in its German translation (Nuremberg, 1508). Frank & Timme, Berlin 2010.
• Martin Biersack: Mediterranean culture transfer at the beginning of the modern age. The reception of the Italian Renaissance in Castile at the time of the Catholic Kings. Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-89975-196-3 .
• Albert Faulconer, Thomas Edward Keys: Pietro Martire d'Anghiera. In: Foundations of Anesthesiology. Charles C Thomas, Springfield (Illinois) 1965, pp. 1133 and 1135 f.
• Ursula Hecht: The "Pluto furens" by Petrus Martyr Anglerius. Poetry as documentation (= studies on classical philology , vol. 70). Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-631-44938-0 (contains edition and translation of Pluto furens ).

Remarks

1. ↑ Peter of Anghiera: De Orbe Novo. Translated from the Latin, with notes and introduction by Francis Augustus MacNutt. GP Putnam′s Sons, New York 1912, Volume 2, p. 385 f.
2. ^ Albert Faulconer, Thomas Edward Keys: Pietro Martire d'Anghiera. 1965, p. 1136 ( Curare ).
3. ^ Albert Faulconer, Thomas Edward Keys: Pietro Martire d'Anghiera. In: Foundations of Anesthesiology. Charles C Thomas, Springfield (Illinois) 1965, p. 1135 ( Pietro Martire d'Anghiera ).
4. ↑ See Ankenbauer (2010), pp. 94–97.

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