Pier Paolo Vergerio the Elder

Pier Paolo Vergerio (the Elder) (b. at Capodistria, 23 July1370; d. at Budapest, 8 July, 1444 or 1445) was an Italian humanist, statesman, and canon lawyer.

Life

He studied rhetoric at Padua, canon law at Florence (1387-89) and at Bologna (1389-90). He is noted for writing the earliest known comedy of the Italian Renaissance, "Paulus" (c.1390), which was based upon the style of Roman dramatist Terence. He taught logic at Padua and Florence, and was tutor of the princes of Carrara at their court at Padua. In 1405 Padua was taken over by Venice. After 1406 we find him at Rome as secretary to Pope Innocent VII and Pope Gregory XII. Hans Baron writes ["The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance", 1966 edition, p.134.] that "The catastrophe of 1405 ruined Vergerio's career as a humanist".

Later he became canon of Ravenna and took part in the Council of Constance in 1414. The next year he was one of the fifteen delegates who accompanied the Emperor Sigismund to Perpignan, where an endeavour was made to induce Pope Benedict XIII to renounce his claims. From 1417 to his death he was secretary to the Emperor Sigismund.

In July 1420, he was the chief orator of the Catholic party at the Hussite disputation at Prague. Though never married and probably in minor orders, he was not a priest.

Works

The following of his works have been printed:

*"Pro redintegranda uniendaque Ecclesia", edited with introduction and notes by Combi in "Archivio storico per Trieste, l'Istria ed il Trentino" (Rome, 1882), 351-74
*"Historia principum Carrariensium ad annum circiter MXXXLV", edited by Muratori, "Rerum ital. Script.", XVI, 113-184
*"Vita Petrarcae", edited by Tommassini in "Petrarca redivivus", (Padua, 1701)
*"De ingenuis moribus ac liberalibus studiis" (Venice, 1472).

His letters, 146 in number, were edited by Luciani (Venice, 1887). There are still in manuscript: a Latin version of Arrian's "Gesta Alexandri Magni"; a "Life of Seneca"; a panegyric on St. Jerome; a few comedies, satires, and other poems.

His "On Good Manners" (1402) is characterised by Quentin Skinner ["The Foundations of Modern Political Thought" (1978) I p. 90, where it is described as "brief but extremely influential".] as the first treatise about the proper education of princes.

References

*Bischoff, Studien zu P. P. Vergerio dem Aeltern (Berlin, 1909)
*Kopp, Pietro Paolo Vergerio der erste humanistische Padagog (Lucerne, 1894)
*Baduber, P. P. Vergerio il seniore (Capodistria, 1866)
*Woodward, "Vittorino da Feltre and other Humanist Educators" (Cambridge, 1897)
*Jachino, Del pedagogista Pier Paolo Vergerio (Florence, 1894)
*Buschbell, Reformation und Inquisition in Italien und die Mite des 16. Jahrhunderts (Paderborn, 1910), 103-54.
*Catholic|Pier Paolo Vergerio, the Elder

Notes