Portraits of Learned Men

<p><b>The most complete translation available of these brief biographies of great European figures written by one of the leading historians of the sixteenth century.</b> <p/><i>Portraits of Learned Men</i> provides a fascinating synopsis of the contours mentality and trajectory of humanistic culture in Italy and Europe by one of the leading historians of the sixteenth century Paolo Giovio (1483-1552). These brief biographies of 146 men of learning--from Dante Petrarch and Boccaccio in the fourteenth century to Erasmus Thomas More and Juan Luis Vives in the sixteenth--were meant to accompany accurate portrait paintings commemorating great figures in modern history. Presented together with the literary portraits in this volume these paintings would be located in a purpose-built villa on Lake Como that would be open to the public. Giovio called this his <i>musaeum</i> or home of the Muses one of the first such institutions in European history. His museum would not only serve the traditional function of inspiring virtuous emulation but also provide a comprehensive candid and personal overview of the Republic of Letters as it had taken shape and flourished in Italy and Europe during the Renaissance. <p/>This volume contains a fresh edition of the Latin text and a new more complete translation than any now available in English.</p>