- Gasparinus de Bergamo
Gasparinus de Bergamo (in Italian, Gasparino (da) Barizizza or Gasparino (da) Barzizza; in French, Gasparin de Pergame; in
Latin , Gasparinus Barzizius Pergamensis) (c. 1360 – c. 1431) was an Italiangrammarian and teacher noted for introducing a new style of epistolaryLatin inspired by the works ofCicero .With
Pier Paolo Vergerio the Elder , he was influential in the development ofhumanism atPadua . As one of the first Italian Humanists, he taughtrhetoric ,grammar , andmoral philosophy with the aim of revivingLatin literature .Biography
Born Gasparino Di Pietrobuono in the village of Barzizza, near
Bergamo , he studiedgrammar andrhetoric atPavia . Remaining there to teach from 1403 to 1407, he subsequently moved toVenice to serve as private tutor to the Barbaro family.Unable to find backing in Venice in order to establish a school there, Gasparinus then taught at Padua (1407-21), enjoying his most productive writing period, where his reputation as a teacher and scholar was established. He was appointed to lecture there on
rhetoric and on authors such as Seneca,Cicero ,Virgil , andTerence . He also established the elementary school, which offered a humanist curriculum. BothVittorino da Feltre andLeon Battista Alberti owed their boyhood education to him.Antonio Beccadelli , called "Il Panormita", also studied under him.He then taught at
Ferrara , and on the invitation ofFilippo Maria Visconti , opened an elementary school atMilan in 1418, to be organized along the same lines as Gasparinus' school at Padua. He taught at Milan from 1421 and also served as Visconti's courtorator .Gasparinus also served as secretary to
Pope Martin V and in this capacity attended theCouncil of Constance . Gasparinus died at Milan around 1431.By his marriage to Lucrezia Alliardi, Gasparinus had a son, named Guimforte (Guiniforto) Barzizza (c. 1406–63), who became a distinguished scholar and writer. Guimforte married Giovannina Malabarba.
Works
One of his works, "Liber epistolarum" ("Book of Letters") or "Epistolae Gasparini" ("Gasparinus' Letters"), carries the distinction of being the first book in
France to have been printed and published with the newly-introducedprinting press , in 1470 byJohann Heynlin . This work was intended to provide an exemplar for students for the writing of artful and elegantLatin and was designed to teach prose composition.Other works include:
*"Tractatus de compositione" (ca. 1420): a treatise onrhetoric and literary style. In this treatise, Gasparinus argued for a return to the elements of style found in the rhetoricians of antiquity.
*"Orthographia": a manual of Latinorthography ources
* [http://opac.bml.firenze.sbn.it/seneca.htm&numrec=031919246919100 Un altro codice col commento di Barzizza alle ad Lucilium] it icon
* [http://itlinguistica.net/linguistica/Barzizza-%20Gasparino-11D7.html Philology and linguistics] it icon
* [http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/camenaref/cmh/cmh116.html#543 The Classical Renaissance] en icon
* [http://www.textmanuscripts.com/home/archives/archivesdescription.php?m=178 Miscellany of Humanistic Texts] it icon
* [http://www.bbplanet.it/strutture/index.asp?id=528 Palazza Barzizza] it iconFurther reading
*Robert P. Sonkowsky, "Magister Gasparinus", "The Speech Teacher", 12 (1963), 200-203.
*Robert P. Sonkowsky, "Critical Edition of the Latin Rhetorical Treatise De Compositione by Gasparino Barizizza of Bergamo", "Year Book of the American Philosophical Society", 1962, 629.
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