Jacopo Sannazaro (28 July 1458 – 6 August 1530) was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
poet,
humanistRenaissance humanism was an activity of cultural and educational reform engaged by scholars, writers, and civic leaders who are today known as Renaissance humanists. It developed during the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, and was a response to the challenge of Mediæval...
and
epigramAn epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....
mist from
NaplesThe Kingdom of Naples, comprising the southern part of the Italian peninsula, was the remainder of the old Kingdom of Sicily after secession of the island of Sicily as a result of the Sicilian Vespers rebellion of 1282. Known to contemporaries as the Kingdom of Sicily, it is dubbed Kingdom of...
.
He wrote easily in Latin, in Italian and in
NeapolitanNeapolitan is the language of the city and region of Naples , and Campania. On October 14, 2008 a law by the Region of Campania stated that the Neapolitan language had to be protected....
, but is best remembered for his humanist classic
Arcadia, a masterwork that illustrated the possibilities of poetical prose in Italian, and instituted the theme of
ArcadiaArcadia refers to a vision of pastoralism and harmony with nature. The term is derived from the Greek province of the same name which dates to antiquity; the province's mountainous topography and sparse population of pastoralists later caused the word Arcadia to develop into a poetic byword for an...
, representing an idyllic land, in European literature. Sannazaro's elegant style was the inspiration for much courtly literature of the 16th century, including Sir Philip Sydney's
Arcadia.
Biography
He was born in 1458 at Naples of a noble family of the
LomellinaThe Lomellina is a geographical and historical area in the Pianura Padana of northern Italy, located in south-western Lombardy between the Sesia, Po and Ticino rivers....
, that claimed to derive its name from a seat in Lombard territory, at San Nazaro near
PaviaPavia , the ancient Ticinum, is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 35 km south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It is the capital of the province of Pavia. It has a population of c. 71,000...
. His father died
ca 1462, during the boyhood of Jacopo, who was brought up at
Nocera InferioreNocera Inferiore, formerly Nocera dei Pagani, is a town and comune in Campania, Italy, in the province of Salerno, at the foot of Monte Albino, 20 km east-south-east of Naples by rail.-History:...
and at San Cipriano Piacentino, whose rural atmosphere colored his poetry. In 1483-85 he campaigned twice with Alfonso against papal forces near Rome.
In the
Accademia pontaniana that collected about the figure of
Giovanni Pontano (Jovianus Pontanus)Iovianus Pontanus was an Italian humanist and poet.-Biography:Pontanus was born at Cerreto in the Duchy of Spoleto, where his father was murdered in one of the frequent civil brawls which then disturbed the peace of Italian towns.His mother escaped with the boy to Perugia, and it was here that...
, he took the classicizing
nom de plume of
Actius Syncerus. His withdrawal from Naples as a young man, sometimes treated as biographical, is apparently a purely literary
trope. He speedily achieved fame as a poet and a place as a courtier. Following the death of his major patron, Alfonso (1495), in 1499 he received his villa "Mergellina" near Naples from
Frederick IVFrederick IV , sometimes known as Frederick I or Federico d'Aragona, was the last King of Naples of the House of Trastámara, ruling from 1496 to 1501...
, but when Frederick capitulated to France and Aragon, he followed him into exile in France in 1501, whence he returned to Mergellina after Frederick's death at Tours (1504). The later years of the poet seem to have been spent at Naples. In 1525 he succeeded the humanist
Pietro SummontePietro Summonte was an Italian Renaissance humanist of Naples, a member of the learned circle of friends in the Ciceronian manner that constituted Pontano's Accademia Pontaniana. Summonte's care in preserving his correspondence on artistic matters with the Venetian Marcantonio Michiel resulted in...
as head of the Pontanian academy.
Works
The
Arcadia of Sannazaro was written in the 1480s, completed about 1489 and circulated in manuscript before its initial publication. Begun in early life and published in
NaplesNaples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
in 1504, the
Arcadia is a
pastoral RomanceAs a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
, in which Sincero, the
persona of the poet, disappointed in love, withdraws from the city (Naples in this case) to pursue in
ArcadiaArcadia refers to a vision of pastoralism and harmony with nature. The term is derived from the Greek province of the same name which dates to antiquity; the province's mountainous topography and sparse population of pastoralists later caused the word Arcadia to develop into a poetic byword for an...
an idealized pastoral existence among the shepherd-poets, in the manner of the Idylls of
TheocritusTheocritus , the creator of ancient Greek bucolic poetry, flourished in the 3rd century BC.-Life:Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from his writings. We must, however, handle these with some caution, since some of the poems commonly attributed to him have little claim to...
. But a frightful dream induces him to return to the city, traversing a dark tunnel to his native Naples, where he learns of the death of his beloved. The events are amplified by extensive imagery drawn from classic sources, by the poet's languid melancholy and by atmospheric elegiac descriptions of the lost world of Arcadia. It was the first
pastoralThe adjective pastoral refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an...
work in
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
Europe to gain international success. Inspired in part by classical authors who wrote in the pastoral mode— in addition to
VirgilPublius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
and
TheocritusTheocritus , the creator of ancient Greek bucolic poetry, flourished in the 3rd century BC.-Life:Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from his writings. We must, however, handle these with some caution, since some of the poems commonly attributed to him have little claim to...
including comparatively obscure recently rediscovered Latin poets Calpurnius and Nemesianus— and by
BoccaccioGiovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular...
's
Ameto, Sannazaro depicts a lovelorn first-person narrator ("Sincero") wandering the countryside (
ArcadiaArcadia is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the administrative region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the central and eastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas. In Greek mythology, it was the home of the god Pan...
) and listening to the amorous or mournful songs of the shepherds he meets. In addition to its pastoral setting, the other great originality of the work stems from its novel structure of alternating prose and verse.
Sannazaro's
Arcadia - coupled with the Portuguese author
Jorge de MontemayorJorge de Montemayor was a Portuguese novelist and poet, who wrote almost exclusively in Spanish.-Biography:He was born at Montemor-o-Velho , whence he derived his name, the Spanish form of which is Montemayor....
's
Diana (
Los siete libros de la Diana, 1559), itself indebted to Sannazaro's work - had a profound impact on literature throughout Europe up until the middle of the seventeenth century.
With the
Arcadia behind him, Sannazaro concentrated on
Latin works of classical inspirationThe term New Latin, or Neo-Latin, is used to describe the Latin language used in original works created between c. 1500 and c. 1900. Among other uses, Latin during this period was employed in scholarly and scientific publications...
. His
VirgilPublius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
ian bucolic works include the five
Eclogae piscatoriae,
eclogueAn eclogue is a poem in a classical style on a pastoral subject. Poems in the genre are sometimes also called bucolics.The form of the word in contemporary English is taken from French eclogue, from Old French, from Latin ecloga...
s on themes connected with the Bay of Naples, three books of elegies, and three books of epigrams. Other works in Latin include three books of epigrams, and two short works entitled
Salices [Willows] and
De Morte Christi Lamentatio ["Lament on the Death of Christ"].
Sannazaro's now seldom-read sacred poem in Latin,
De partu Virginis, which gained for him the name of the "Christian
VirgilPublius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
",
["The poem is as Virgilian as he could make it", his translator Ralph Nash observes (Nash 1996:13).] was extensively rewritten in 1519-21 and appeared in print, 1526. It has been characterized as "his version of Mary's
MagnificatThe Magnificat — also known as the Song of Mary or the Canticle of Mary — is a canticle frequently sung liturgically in Christian church services. It is one of the eight most ancient Christian hymns and perhaps the earliest Marian hymn...
"
Among his works in Italian and Neapolitan are the recasting of Neapolitan proverbs as
Gliommeri his
Farse, and the
Rime (published as
Sonetti et canzoni di M. Jacopo Sannazaro, Naples and Rome, 1530), where the manner of
PetrarchFrancesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...
is paramount. He also wrote some savage and caustic epigrams. Most famous is the one he wrote against Pope Alexander VI after the murder of Giovanni Borgia, eldest son of the Pope, whose body was recovered from the Tiber River -- Sannazaro cheekily described Alexander VI as a "fisher of men" (playing on the Christ's words to Peter). This epigram caused immense grief to the Pope.
His portrait by
Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
, painted ca 1514-18, is in the
Royal CollectionThe Royal Collection is the art collection of the British Royal Family. It is property of the monarch as sovereign, but is held in trust for her successors and the nation. It contains over 7,000 paintings, 40,000 watercolours and drawings, and about 150,000 old master prints, as well as historical...
, part of the diplomatic "
Dutch GiftThe Dutch Gift of 1660 was a collection of 28 mostly Italian Renaissance paintings and 12 classical sculptures, along with a yacht, the Mary, and furniture, which was presented to King Charles II of England by the States-General of the Netherlands in 1660...
" to
Charles IICharles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
, in 1660.
The first complete translation into English of the
Arcadia is by Ralph Nash,
Jacopo Sannazaro: Arcadia and Piscatorial Eclogues (Detroit: Wayne State University Press) 1966. Nash returned to translate into English prose and verse
The Major Latin Poems of Jacopo Sannazaro, (Detroit: Wayne State University Press) 1996. The distinguished Latinist
Michael C. J. PutnamMichael Courtney Jenkins Putnam is an American classicist specializing in Latin literature, but has also studied literature written in many other languages. Putnam has been particularly influential in his publications concerning Virgil's Aeneid. He is the son of politician and businessman Roger...
has recently published the first translation of all of Sannazaro's Latin poetry.
Tomb
"
MontfauconBernard de Montfaucon was a French Benedictine monk, a scholar who founded a new discipline, palaeography; an editor of works of the Fathers of the Church; he is also regarded to be one of the founders of modern archaeology.-Early life:Montfaucon was born January 13, 1655 in the castle of...
describes the tomb of the poet Sannazaro in the church of the Olivetans, Naples, as ornamented with the statues of Apollo and Minerva, and with groups of satyrs. In the eighteenth century the ecclesiastical authorities tried to give a less profane aspect to the composition, by engraving the name of David under the Apollo, and of Judith under the Minerva"
(Rodolfo Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome 1896, ch. 1)
External links