GIOVIO, Paolo.

Venice, Giovanni de’ Rossi, 1557.

      Second Italian edition of Giovio’s Elogia on political and military men, or book of heroes as he liked to refer to it. A compilation of brief biographical descriptions, including those of such adventurers as Christopher Columbus and Hernan Cortes. The Elogia, in contrast to Giovio’s Histories, were intended to be ‘rhetorical in form: brief, vivid, and memorable’ (Zimmermann, Paolo Giovio p. 206).The individuals described range from Roman emperors to Moorish sultans, with such diverse ‘heroes’ as Attila and Piero Soderini. ‘Renaissance theory accorded biographers the convenience of glossing over bad qualities, [but] Giovio’s lives were rigorously historical. Everyone had bad traits as well as good, he maintained, and ‘adulation’ only invited ridicule’ (ibid., pp. 221–2). ‘In the humanist tradition of history as moral philosophy, the Elogia furnished examples not only of good conduct but of bad, notable examples of the latter being Ezzelino da Romano “with his fearful pallor and viper’s eyes,” Cardinal Alidosi, “an example to posterity of a wicked life,” and Cesare Borgia “who in his bloody character and pitiless cruelty can be likened to the ancient tyrants” ’ (ibid., p. 243).Giovio (1483–1552), bishop of Nocera, was one of the most prolific humanist historians of the sixteenth century. As Zimmerman notes: ‘seldom has the life and times reflected more vividly the nature of an era than with Paolo Giovio. An articulate sounding board for the political, social, and intellectual turmoil of the cinquecento, he resonated with the life of a brilliant, yet troubled epoch. His deep frustrations with princes and politics betrayed the devastation that Italy’s political calamity wrought on the morale of an individual Italian’ (ibid., p. ix). Among his many works, Giovio also wrote three other books of Elogia. These described: deceased men of letters; living men of letters; and, lastly, makers of great works of art and renowned wits. Lodovico Domenichi, translator of this Elogia, was a close friend of Giovio’s and his preferred translator. Giovio believed Domenichi’s translations ‘united fidelity to the original Latin with purity of language and felicity of style. It was gratifying to see his works translated into Italian during his lifetime, Giovio once told Domenichi, although his pleasure was tinged with envy when he reflected that, in Italy, Domenichi’s translations would be more sought-after than his own Latin originals, “which will await praises from other more remote and foreign nations” ’ (ibid., p. 246). His translation of the Elogia was first published in Florence in 1554.Adams G641; BL STC Italian p. 304. Not in Alden.