Pietro Perna

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Pietro Perna (also Petrus Perna; * before 1522 in Villa Basilica near Lucca , † August 16, 1582 in Basel ) was an Italian refugee, printer and publisher in Basel.

Printer's mark by Pietro Perna, 1564 (Basel University Library)

Live and act

Pietro Perna was a Dominican monk in San Romano in Lucca and a student of the theologian Peter Martyr Vermigli . He came to Basel in 1542 as a student and perhaps even as a religious refugee. The earliest evidence is his matriculation on February 15, 1543. It is uncertain whether he started studying, but for sure he never completed it. As a supporter of the Reformation , he could not stay in Italy. So he worked for the printer Michael Isengrin in Basel . As a bookseller, he frequented Protestant circles in Venice and distributed Protestant, and therefore forbidden, writings there and elsewhere in Italy. In 1544 he took over the printing company from Thomas Platter , and he apparently took care of the first books from 1549 , but they all appeared without an imprint so that they should be less noticeable in Italy.

In 1557 Perna became a citizen of Basel, he was accepted as a bookkeeper in the saffron guild and married the Locarn emigrant Johanna Verzaska. He became printer owner in 1558, and the first prints under his name began that year. At times he worked with the printers Johannes Oporinus and Heinrich Petri .

Perna published a total of over 400 writings, including many by Italian evangelical emigrants and theologians such as Peter Martyr Vermigli , Pier Paolo Vergerio , Jacopo Aconcio , Bernardino Ochino , Lelio Sozzini , Sebastian Castellio and Celio Secondo Curione . Castellios Dialogi quatuor , which advocated religious tolerance and was published by Fausto Sozzini in 1578, caused him trouble: the theological faculty in Basel condemned the book, Perna was imprisoned and had to pay a fine.

Pietro Perna also printed numerous other Italian authors, including the first Latin translation of Niccolò Machiavelli's Principe , a German translation of the Trionfi of Petrarch , Lodovico Guicciardini , Lodovico Castelvetro , and Paolo Giovio , works by the latter together with Sebastian Henricpetri .

The Greek text of the Enneades of Plotinus appeared for the first time at Perna . He published alchemical literature and works by Paracelsus and various of his students as well as by his critic Thomas Erastus . His authors also included the doctors and scholars Guglielmo Gratorolo and Theodor Zwinger . Are also to be mentioned as Jean Bodin 's collection of historical literature Artis Historicae Penus .

After the death of his first wife in 1580, Perna soon married Aurelia Muralt. He had several children. Pietro Perna died of the plague. His son-in-law Konrad Waldkirch (1549–1616) continued the publishing house.

literature

  • Peter G. Bietenholz: Italian humanism and the heyday of book printing in Basel. The Basel prints by Italian authors from 1530 to the end of the 16th century. Helbing & Lichtenhahn, Basel / Stuttgart 1959.
  • Frank Hieronymus: Pietro Perna. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . November 26, 2009 , accessed March 17, 2020 .
  • Beat Rudolf Jenny (ed.): The Amerbach correspondence . Volume 9. University Library, Basel 1982, pp. 164–166.
  • Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer: Protestant religious refugees in Switzerland (1540–1580). In: Hartmut Laufhütte , Michael Titzmann (ed.): Heterodoxy in the early modern times (= early modern times. Vol. 117). De Gruyter, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-11-092869-3 , pp. 119-160.
  • Leandro Perini: La vita ei tempi di Pietro Perna. Edizioni di storia, Rome 2002 (with catalog of 430 books printed by Perna from 1549 to 1582).
  • Christoph Reske: The book printers of the 16th and 17th centuries in the German-speaking area . 2nd revised and expanded edition. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2015, ISBN 978-3-447-10416-6 , pp. 87f.
  • Antonio Rotondò: Pietro Perna e la vita culturale e religiosa di Basilea fra il 1570 e il 1580 , in Studi e ricerche di storia ereticale italiana del Cinquecento. Giappichelli, Turin 1974.
  • Manfred E. Welti: Brief history of the Italian Reformation (= writings of the Association for Reformation History . Vol. 193). Mohn, Gütersloh 1985, ISBN 3-579-01663-6 , pp. 25-135 ( digitized in the Google book search).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographical data according to the biographical information in Wilhelm Kühlmann , Joachim Telle (Ed.): Der Frühparacelsismus, Tübingen: Niemeyer 2004, p. 729. According to this, the sometimes found information about death on June 16 is incorrect.
  2. ^ Hans Georg Wackernagel (Ed.): The matriculation of the University of Basel . Volume 2. University Library, Basel 1956, p. 32 No. 41.
  3. ^ Sebastian Castellio: Dialogi IIII . Theophilus Philadelphus, Aresdorfii (correct: Pietro Perna, Basel) 1578. Digitized .
  4. ^ Niccolò Machiavelli: Princeps . Pietro Perna, Basel 1560 and again 1580. Digitized . To Werner Kaegi: Machiavelli in Basel . In: Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde . Volume 39, 1940, pp. 5-51.
  5. ↑ Francesco Petrarca: Six Triumphs . Pietro Perna, Basel 1578.
  6. ↑ For example, Paolo Giovio: Opera quotquot extant omnia . Pietro Perna and Heinrich Petri, Basel 1578. Digitized .
  7. ^ Plotini Platonicorum facile coryphaei Operum philosophicorum omnium libri LIV in sex Enneades distributi . Pietro Perna, Basel 1580. Frank Hieronymus: Greek spirit from Basel presses . University Library, Basel 1993, ISBN 3-85953-024-0 , pp. 236–241 No. 155.
  8. ↑ Jean Bodin: Methodus historica . Pietro Perna, Basel 1576. Digitized .
  9. ^ Johann Wolf: Artis historicae penus . Pietro Perna, Basel 1579.
  10. ↑ Frank Hieronymus: Perna, Pietro. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
personal data
SURNAME Perna, Pietro
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Perna, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian printer and publisher in Basel
DATE OF BIRTH before 1522
PLACE OF BIRTH Lucca
DATE OF DEATH August 16, 1582
Place of death Basel