Alessandro Braccesi

Last updated

Alessandro Braccesi (10 December 1445 - 7 July 1503) was an Italian humanist, writer and diplomat. He was born in Florence and died in Rome. Perugino's Portrait of a Boy was long identified as him, but this identification has now been refuted.[ citation needed ]

Contents

Life

He was the eldest of four children born to Sandra and Rinaldo Braccesi. He had to start work at an early age, since his family had fallen into poverty, with his "father and mother old and infirm and providing the dowries for two sisters from the sweat of his own brow and without an inheritance or a father's wealth". [1] He became a notary in 1467 [2] and was employed by the chancellery of the Florentine Republic and Lordship, for whom he worked as a diplomat - between 1470 and 1471 he was in Naples and Rome with the Florentine ambassadors Jacopo Guicciardini and Pierfrancesco de' Medici and then in Bologna and Ferrara.

At the same time he became a humanist scholar and poet - around 1473 he gathered a collection of Italian-language poems dedicated to the lord of Montefeltro Giovanni di Carpegna. [3] He wrote a canzoniere or song-book of love poems in imitation of Petrarch, followed by 200 humorous and mocking sonnets in the style of Burchiello and four carnival songs. About fifteen years later Braccesi added around nineteen elegies and thirty-five sonnets to the canzoniere.

In 1477 he collected all his Latin poems into a three-volume manuscript. The first volume entitled Amorum libellus was dedicated to Francesco Sassetti and consisted of 29 elegies narrating his love for a woman known pseudonymously as Flora, in imitation of Cristoforo Landino's 'Xandra'. The second book, Secundus libellus elegiarum ad amicos, contained twelve poems about everyday life, each dedicated to a different public figure in Florentine life. The third book, Epigrammatum libellus, was a set of epigrams dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici. Ten years later he partially re-edited and expanded the three books, raising their contents to 31, 24 and 73 poems respectively. This new edition was given an overall dedication to the young Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, but was only printed for the first time in 1954.

During these years Braccesi all worked on a reworking into Italian of Enea Silvio Piccolomini's 1444 Historia de duobus amantibus, which he knew via a Roman edition of 1476. In the original the love affair between the German knight Eurialo and the beautiful Siennese noblewoman Lucrezia had a tragic ending, but Braccesi changed this to a happy ending and added comic and poetic episodes. He justified the changes in his dedication of the new work to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, stating that he wanted to make reading it enjoyable, especially in times that were "boring and grave for more respectable people, especially due to the change and fear caused by the plague". Published in Milan in the early 1480s by Pachel and Schinzenzeler, it was so successful that it went through several editions right up to the end of the 16th century.

Braccesi worked on another translation into Italian between 1488 and 1491, this time of part of Appian of Alexandria's Histories, namely books VII-IX and XII (known as The Foreign Wars by the Romans) and books XIII-XVII (known as The Civil Wars). He knew little Greek and so based his work on the Latin translation by Pier Candido Decembrio. He dedicated The Foreign Wars to Giampaolo Orsini and The Civil Wars to Gentile Virginio Orsini, with the former published in 1502 and the latter in 1519.

He was also rising through the ranks in his public career - in 1479 he was made second chancellor, [4] in 1480 chancellor to the Dieci di Balia, [5] and then notary and secretary to the Otto di Pratica. [6] From 1483 to 1487 he was one of the six secretaries of the Florentine Republic, whilst in 1488 he and Francesco Gaddi were joint chancellors of the Otto di Pratica. From September 1491 to November 1494 he was Florence's ambassador to Siena, traditionally an enemy of Florence but then being governed by a pro-Medici faction. When the Medici fell he was suddenly recalled to Florence and dismissed as secretary, though he was reappointed by the end of the year and returned to his diplomatic role.

His most important diplomatic mission was to Rome in 1497, assisting ambassador Ricciardo Becchi at the Borgia court, which was pressing Florence to suppress Savonarola (whom Braccesi admired) and annul its alliance with France in exchange for the territory of Pisa. Whilst the mission was in Rome the pope excommunicated Savonarola, but Braccesi defended Florence's policy, secretly informed Savonarola about the negotiations and carried out secret negotiations with a cardinal on the possibility of calling a council to depose the Borgias and reform the Church as Savonarola hoped to do. The anti-Savonarola uprising in Florence in 1498 led to his condemnation and Braccesi's fall from grace. He was dismissed from all his positions and after a few years in isolation gained the trust of the new rulers of Florence. At the end of 1502 he was sent back to Rome, where he fell ill and died. He is buried in Santa Prassede beneath an epitaph composed by his nephew Agnolo Firenzuola.

Works

Publications

Related Research Articles

Lorenzo de Medici Italian politician and humanist (1449–1492)

Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici was an Italian statesman, banker, de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic and the most powerful and enthusiastic patron of Renaissance culture in Italy. Also known as Lorenzo the Magnificent by contemporary Florentines, he was a magnate, diplomat, politician and patron of scholars, artists, and poets. As a patron, he is best known for his sponsorship of artists such as Botticelli and Michelangelo. He held the balance of power within the Italic League, an alliance of states that stabilized political conditions on the Italian peninsula for decades, and his life coincided with the mature phase of the Italian Renaissance and the Golden Age of Florence. On the foreign policy front, Lorenzo manifested a clear plan to stem the territorial ambitions of Pope Sixtus IV, in the name of the balance of the Italian League of 1454. For these reasons, Lorenzo was the subject of the Pazzi conspiracy (1478), in which his brother Giuliano was assassinated. The Peace of Lodi of 1454 that he supported among the various Italian states collapsed with his death. He is buried in the Medici Chapel in Florence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Girolamo Savonarola</span> Italian Dominican reformer (1452–1498)

Girolamo Savonarola, OP or Jerome Savonarola was an Italian Dominican friar from Ferrara and preacher active in Renaissance Florence. He was known for his prophecies of civic glory, the destruction of secular art and culture, and his calls for Christian renewal. He denounced clerical corruption, despotic rule, and the exploitation of the poor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Republic of Florence</span> City-state on the Apennine Peninsula between 1115 and 1569

The Republic of Florence, officially the Florentine Republic, was a medieval and early modern state that was centered on the Italian city of Florence in Tuscany. The republic originated in 1115, when the Florentine people rebelled against the Margraviate of Tuscany upon the death of Matilda of Tuscany, who controlled vast territories that included Florence. The Florentines formed a commune in her successors' place. The republic was ruled by a council known as the Signoria of Florence. The signoria was chosen by the gonfaloniere, who was elected every two months by Florentine guild members.

Alessandro de Medici, Duke of Florence 16th-century Duke of Florence

Alessandro de' Medici, nicknamed "il Moro" due to his dark complexion, Duke of Penne and the first Duke of the Florentine Republic, was ruler of Florence from 1530 to his death in 1537. The first Medici to rule Florence as a hereditary monarch, Alessandro was also the last Medici from the senior line of the family to lead the city. His assassination at the hands of distant cousin Lorenzaccio caused the title of Duke to pass to Cosimo I de Medici, from the family's junior branch.

Francesco Guicciardini Italian writer, historian and politician (1483–1540)

Francesco Guicciardini was an Italian historian and statesman. A friend and critic of Niccolò Machiavelli, he is considered one of the major political writers of the Italian Renaissance. In his masterpiece, The History of Italy, Guicciardini paved the way for a new style in historiography with his use of government sources to support arguments and the realistic analysis of the people and events of his time.

Piero Soderini

Piero di Tommaso Soderini also known as Pier Soderini, was an Italian statesman of the Republic of Florence.

Filippo Buonarroti

Filippo Buonarroti, the great-grandnephew of Michelangelo Buonarroti, was a Florentine official at the court of Cosimo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany and an antiquarian, whose Etruscan studies, among the earliest in that field, inspired Antonio Francesco Gori. The Etruscan art and antiquities in the family palazzo-museum of Florence, Casa Buonarroti, are his contribution to the artistic-intellectual memorial to the Buonarroti.

While Florence itself needs no introduction as the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance, the music of Florence may, in fact, need such an introduction. The city was at the heart of much of the entire Western musical tradition. It was here that the Florentine Camerata convened in the mid-16th century and experimented with setting tales of Greek mythology to music and staging the result—in other words, the first operas, setting the wheels in motion not just for the further development of the operatic form, but for later developments of separate "classical" forms such as the symphony.

Giovanni Tornabuoni Italian merchant, banker and patron of the arts

Giovanni Tornabuoni was an Italian merchant, banker and patron of the arts from Florence.

The Accademia Platonica di Firenze or Platonic Academy of Florence was an informal discussion group which formed around Marsilio Ficino in the Florentine Renaissance of the fifteenth century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palleschi</span>

The palleschi, also known as bigi, were partisans of the Medici family in Florence. The name derived by the Medici coat-of-arms, bearing six 'balls' (palle).

Benedetto Pamphili Italian cardinal and librettist

Benedetto Pamphili was an Italian cardinal, patron of the arts and librettist for many composers.

Innocenzo Cybo Italian Catholic cardinal and archbishop

Innocenzo Cibo was an Italian cardinal and archbishop.

Timeline of Niccolò Machiavelli

This timeline lists important events relevant to the life of the Italian diplomat, writer and political philosopher Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (1469–1527).

Paolo Antonio Soderini was a noble Florentine jurist active in the anti-Medicean Florentine republic, who spent some years resident at Rome.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank D'Accone</span>

Frank (Anthony) D'Accone was an American musicologist. D'Accone is the author of documentary studies of the musicians and institutions that produced the music of the Florentine and Siennese Renaissance. His many modern editions of the music of this culture made available to present-day performers and scholars for the first time in several centuries a wide-ranging picture of the musical life in Tuscany during the Renaissance. Musicologist Lewis Lockwood stated that his body of work "substantially extends current knowledge of the music history of the Italian Renaissance."

Giovanni di Bernardo Rucellai

Giovanni di Bernardo Rucellai was an Italian humanist, poet, dramatist and man of letters in Renaissance Florence, in Tuscany, Italy. A member of a wealthy family of wool merchants and one of the richest men in Florence, he was cousin to Pope Leo X and linked by marriage to the powerful Strozzi and de' Medici families. He was born in Florence, and died in Rome. He was the son of Bernardo Rucellai (1448–1514) and grandson of Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai (1403–1481). He is now remembered mostly for his poem Le Api, one of the first poems composed in versi sciolti to achieve widespread acclaim.

The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Florence, Tuscany, Italy.

Alessandro Felici Italian composer

Alessandro Felici was an Italian composer and violinist, not to be confused with his contemporary, Roman composer Felice Alessandri.

Giuseppe Bencivenni Pelli Italian civil servant and essayist

Giuseppe Bencivenni Pelli or Giuseppe Pelli Bencivenni was an Italian civil servant and essayist. Born and dying in Florence, he served as director of the Uffizi Gallery from 1775 to 1793. He was the last member of a Florentine patrician family.

References

  1. ↑ (in Italian) Archivio di Stato di Firenze, lettera di Alessandro Braccesi a Piero de' Medici, 23 gennaio 1493.
  2. ↑ Documents worked on by him as a notary are now in Florence's Archivio di Stato, Notarile B 2317-2325.
  3. ↑ Biblioteca vaticana, codice Vat. lat. 10681, ff. 1-115.
  4. ↑ (in Italian) Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Dieci, Deliberationes, 21, f. 140v.
  5. ↑ (in Italian) Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Dieci, Deliberationes, f. 172v.
  6. ↑ (in Italian) Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Otto, Deliberationes, 1, ff. 3, 10, 15

Bibliography (in Italian)

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.