Agnolo Firenzuola
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Agnolo Firenzuola
(1493–1543). Writer best known for his novelle . He studied at Siena and Perugia before entering the Vallombrosan order in 1517. From 1518to1522 he held the position of procuratore at the papal curia under the Medici Pope Leo X , and was acquainted with literati at court such as Pietro Aretino , Pietro Bembo , Annibale Caro , Giovanni Della Casa , and Francesco Maria Molza . In 1524, in the hope of further Medici patronage , he wrote a treatise defending the Tuscan language and criticizing the spelling proposed by Giangiorgio Trissino . In 1526, after a series of personal disasters, he left the Vallombrosan order. On the death of Clement VII , and the end of Florentine influence in Rome , he returned to Tuscany . He later became abbot of San Salvatore at Prato and founded the Accademia dell'Addiaccio.
Although few of his writings were published during his lifetime, they circulated widely in manuscript. His incomplete collection of novelle, written in 1525 for Costanza Amaretta , looks back to the Decameron , though there is a stronger sense of morality and a refinement of style in accordance with 16th-c. tastes: the setting is in a villa near Florence during April 1523, and the stories are delivered by three women and three men over a period of six days. Firenzuola's preoccupation with rhetoric and the writing of elegant prose led him in the same year to translate the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, with the title Asino d'oro. He wrote two popular prose comedies (both published in 1549), La Trinunzia, which has echoes of Bernardo Dovizi's Calandra, and I lucidi, after Plautus . His La prima parte dei discorsi degli animali (published in 1548) introduced, with strong moral overtones, a series of Indian tales (Panciatantra) which had first appeared in Europe in the 13th c. and had been translated into Spanish in 1493. A contribution to the contemporary debate on the nature of women, his Epistola in lode delle donne (1525) proposes the equality of the sexes, while the Dialogo delle bellezze delle donne (1542) comprises two dialogues on beauty and the ideal woman. His poetry has strong echoes of Poliziano and Lorenzo de' Medici , and includes a collection of Petrarchan lyrics published in 1549; but his importance lies more in his determination to show that a refined prose style could be achieved in the vernacular. [.]
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Agnolo Firenzuola
Agnolo Firenzuola (28 September 1493 - c. 1545) was an Italian poet and litterateur.
Biography
Agnolo Firenzuola was born at Florence. The family name was taken from the town of Firenzuola, situated at the foot of the Apennines, its original home.
The grandfather of Agnolo had obtained the citizenship of Florence and transmitted it to his family. Agnolo was destined for the profession of the law, and pursued his studies first at Siena and afterwards at Perugia. There he became the associate of the notorious Pietro Aretino, whose foul life he was not ashamed to make the model of his own. They met again at Rome, where Agnolo practised for a time the profession of an advocate, but with little success.
It is asserted by all his biographers that while still a young man he assumed the monastic dress at Vallombrosa, and that he afterwards held successively two abbacies. Girolamo Tiraboschi alone ventures to doubt this account, partly on the ground of Firenzuola's licentiousness, and partly on the ground of absence of evidence; but his arguments are not held to be conclusive.
Firenzuola left Rome after the death of Pope Clement VII, and after spending some time at Florence, settled at Prato as abbot of San Salvatore.
His writings, of which a collected edition was published in 1548, are partly in prose and partly in verse, and belong to the lighter classes of literature. Among the prose works are Discorsi degli animali, imitations of Oriental and Aesopian fables, of which there are two French translations; Dialogo delle bellezze delle donne, also translated into French; Ragionamenti amorosi, a series of short tales in the manner of Boccaccio, rivalling him in elegance and in licentiousness; Discacciamento delle nuove lettere, a controversial piece against Giangiorgio Trissino's proposal to introduce new letters into the Italian alphabet; a free version or adaptation of The Golden Ass of Apuleius, which became a favorite book and passed through many editions; and two comedies, I Lucidi, an imitation of the Menaechmi of Plautus, and La Trinuzia, which in some points resembles the Calandria of Cardinal Bibbiena.
His poems are chiefly satirical and burlesque. All his works are esteemed as models of literary excellence, and are cited as authorities in the vocabulary of the Accademia della Crusca. The date of Firenzuola's death is only approximately ascertained. He had been dead several years when the first edition of his writings appeared (1548).
References
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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