Francesco Filelfo
Francesco Filelfo (
Biography
Filelfo was born at
In Venice
His earliest studies in
He was admitted to the society of the first scholars and the most eminent nobles. In 1419 he received an appointment from the state, which enabled him to reside as notary and chancellor to the Baile of the Venetians in Constantinople. This appointment was an honour for Filelfo as a man of trust and general ability, and gave him the opportunity of acquiring the most coveted of all possessions at that moment — a scholar's knowledge of the Greek language. Immediately after his arrival in Constantinople at the end of 1420, Filelfo placed himself under the tuition of John Chrysoloras, whose name was already well known in Italy as that of his uncle Manuel Chrysoloras, the first Greek to profess the literature of his ancestors in Florence.[1]
He assumed his charge of chancellor for the bailo Benedetto Emo (summer 1421 to summer 1423), with diplomatic missions. In late 1421, he accompanied Emo during an embassy to the Ottoman Sultan
In Tuscany
When Filelfo arrived at Venice with his family in 1427, he found the city had almost been emptied by the
In addition to these labours of the chair, he found time to translate portions of Aristotle, Plutarch, Xenophon and Lysias from the Greek. Nor was he dead to the claims of society. At first, he seems to have lived with the Florentine scholars on tolerably good terms; but he was so arrogant that Cosimo de' Medici's friends were not long able to put up with him. Filelfo hereupon broke out into open and violent animosity; and when Cosimo was exiled by the Albizzi party in 1433, he urged the signoria of Florence to pronounce upon him the sentence of death. On the return of Cosimo to Florence, Filelfo's position in that city was no longer tenable. His life, he asserted, had been already once attempted by a cut-throat in the pay of the Medici; and now he readily accepted an invitation from the state of Siena. In Siena, however, he was not destined to remain more than four years. His fame as a professor had grown great in Italy, and he daily received tempting offers from princes and republics. The most alluring of these, made him by the Duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti, he decided to accept; and in 1440 he was received with honour by his new master in the capital of Lombardy.[1]
In Lombardy
Filelfo's life at
Not satisfied with these outlets for his mental energy, Filelfo went on translating from the Greek, and prosecuted a paper warfare with his enemies in Florence. He wrote, moreover, political pamphlets on the great events of Italian history; and when Constantinople was taken by the Turks, he procured the liberation of his wife's mother, Manfredina Doria, by a message addressed in his own name to the sultan. In addition to a fixed stipend of some 700 golden florins yearly, he was continually in receipt of special payments for the orations and poems he produced; so that, had he been a man of frugal habits or of moderate economy, he might have amassed a considerable fortune. As it was, he spent his money as fast as he received it, living in a style of splendour and self-indulgence. In consequence of this prodigality, he was always poor. His letters and his poems abound in demands for money from patrons, some of them couched in language of the lowest adulation, and others savouring of literary brigandage.[1]
During the second year of his Milanese residence Filelfo lost his first wife, the Greek Theodora. He soon married again; and this time he chose for his bride a young lady of good Lombard family, called Orsina Osnaga. When she died he took in wedlock for the third time a woman of Lombard birth, Laura Magiolini.[4]
On the death of Visconti in 1447, Filelfo, after a short hesitation, transferred his allegiance to
Crossing the Apennines and passing through Florence, he reached Rome in the second week of 1475. Pope Sixtus IV now ruled in the Vatican, and Filelfo had received an invitation to occupy the chair of rhetoric with good emoluments. At first he was pleased with the city and court of Rome; but his satisfaction turned to discontent, and he gave vent to his ill-humour in a venomous satire on the pope's treasurer, Milliardo Cicala. Sixtus himself soon fell under the ban of his displeasure; and when a year had passed he left Rome never to return. Filelfo reached Milan to find that his wife had died of the plague in his absence, and was already buried.[5]
Return to Tuscany
For some time past he had been desirous of displaying his abilities and adding to his fame in Florence. Years had healed the breach between him and the Medici family; and on the occasion of the
A complete edition of Filelfo's Greek letters (based on the Codex Trevulzianus) was published for the first time, with French translation, notes and commentaries, by Emile Legrand in 1892 at Paris (C. xii. of Publications de l'école des lang. orient.).[5]
Editions
- De Keyser, Jeroen; Verreth, Louis, eds. (2022). Francesco Filelfo: Rhetorica ad Alexandrum. Alessandria: Edizioni dell'Orso. ISBN 9788836132713.
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h Symonds 1911, p. 341.
- ^ Swisher, Samuel (1991). Humanism and the Council of Florence, 1438-1439 (PDF). Denton, TX. pp. 3–4.
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. .
- ^ Symonds 1911, pp. 341–342.
- ^ a b c d Symonds 1911, p. 342.
References
- Rosmini, C. (1808). Vita di Francesco Filelfo da Tolentino. Milan.
- Rudolf Georg Adam: Francesco Filelfo at the court of Milan (1439-1481), University of Oxford Thesis, 1974, 569 pp. (Part 1: Text, 1-198, Part 2: Footnotes, 199-569)
- Robin, M. (1991). Filelfo in Milan. Writings 1451-1477. Princeton.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Viti, P. (1997). "Filelfo, Francesco". Dizionario biografico degli Italiani. Rome. p. 624.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Ganchou, Th. (2005). "Les ultimae voluntates de Manuel et Iôannès Chrysolôras et le séjour de Francesco Filelfo à Constantinople". Bizantinistica. VII: 195–285.
- Meserve, Margaret (2010). "Nestor Denied: Francesco Filelfo's Advice to Princes on the Crusade against the Turks". S2CID 154515098.
- public domain: Symonds, John Addington (1911). "Filelfo, Francesco". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 341–342. Symonds appended his own assessment of Filelfo's work. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the