Italy
Despite early approaches, a.o. in Padua, where A. Mussato wrote his tragedy “Eccerinis” based on the example of Seneca the Younger and was crowned a poet in 1315 as the first author since antiquity, Petrarch with his Latin work (e.g. Scipio epic “Africa”, “Bucolicum Carmen”, Roman biographies, collections of letters, “Fortuna” dialogue) as the actual founder of neo-Latin literature. Salutati drew talents such as the historian Bruni, the poet Antonio Loschi (* 1368, † 1441) and Poggio Bracciolini, the creator of the frivolous and humorous short story (»Facetiae«), to Florence. This was created under the patronage of the Medici, especially Lorenzos de ‘Medici, to whom Poliziano and M. Marullo dedicated subtle elegies and epigrams, the famous “Platonic Academy”. Her thoughts reflect the “Disputationes Camaldulenses” (an allegorical interpretation of the “Aeneid” Virgil) by C. Landino; her intellectual head, M. Ficino, sought to unite Christian doctrine with the philosophy of Plato and Plotinus in the “Theologia platonica”, while his protégé G. Pico della Mirandola, who in 1486 in Rome raised the universally educated, free man to the measure of all things in 900 theses and celebrated in the great speech about his dignity (“De dignitate hominis”), who was suspected of heresy. On the other hand, F. Filelfo lost the favor of the Medici through often unrestrained satires and epigrams and went to the Milanese court to F. Sforza, whose deeds he praised in the epic “Sphortias”. The dukes of Este also brought humanists to their court in Ferrara, among others. the philologist Guarino of Verona, who founded classical studies at the university; his pupil T. V. Strozzi took up the ancient tradition of eclogue and love elegance. However, the Carmelite Baptista Mantuanus was more effective than thiswhose Christian “Aeglogae” (1498) became a school book in Europe. The allegorical romance novel “Hypnerotomachia Poliphili” (printed in 1499 by Manutius, authorship not clarified) and the epic-satirical doctrine of life “Zodiacus vitae” (printed 1535) by M. Palingenius Stellatus (* around 1500, † around 1500, †) were just as successful. 1543?). Further humanistic centers arose at the royal court in Naples and at the curia in Rome. The founder of the older “Neapolitan Academy” was A. Panormita, who became famous for his daring, erotic collection of epigrams (“Hermaphroditus”, 1425) in 1435; G. Pontano was its head for a long timewhose love strategies, hymns and astrological teaching poem “Urania” are among the best of their kind; it also included the philologist Valla, who proved the “Constantinian donation” to be false, as well as the poet I. Sannazaro. Both were members of the “Roman Academy” founded by Valla’s pupil J. Pomponius Laetus and sponsored by the popes. Here, inter alia. B. Sacchi and P. Giovio as historians of the papacy and contemporary history, M. Vegio wrote his work on bringing up children (“De educatione liberorum”), which combines ancient and Christian educational ideals, wrote M. G. Vida Epics about the game of chess (“Scacchia ludus”, 1527) and the life of Christ (“Christias”, 1535); G. Fracastoro’s didactic poetry on the origin and spread of syphilis (1530) also became famous. His friend P. Bembo wrote a purely Ciceronian Latin, but also works in the mother tongue. T. Folengo mixed both idioms in the humorous knight epic “Baldus” (1517) and thus created the macaronic poetry. Outside of the Church and the Jesuit order, neo-Latin literature increasingly narrowed down to the sciences at the end of the 16th century, for which G. Bruno’s philosophical didactic poetry (1589) and T. Campanellasutopian »Civitas solis« (1623) are exemplary. For more articles about Italy and Europe, please follow Commit4fitness.
Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation
Humanistic thinking and neo-Latin literature reached the German-speaking area in two ways in the 15th century: the Italian participants in the Council of Basel (1431–49), who, like other Italian humanists later, sought their advancement at German courts, took a long time for Emperor Friedrich III. active Enea Silvio Piccolomini (later Pope Pius II) to the actual stimulator and well-read model author. G. Peurbach worked in Vienna with mathematical and astronomical writings, his work was continued by Regiomontanus. Conversely, German students in Italy such as P. Luder, A. von Eyb and R. Agricola knew the new educational concept (and the new Latin literature) and proclaimed it in Germany as a teacher and poet enthusiastically in word and writing, albeit with little success; Humanistic circles such as in Heidelberg around J. von Dalberg (Chancellor of the University since 1481), Adwerth Abbey near Groningen (Agricola), Deventer (A. Hegius) and Münster (R. von Langen) remained exceptions for the time being. Nevertheless, the two main figures of German humanism emerged from them: K. Celtis, the first German to be crowned a poet (1487) and by Emperor Maximilian I. Professor of poetry in Vienna, as founder of literary and learned societies, as poet (“Amores”) and historian (first editions of Latin works of the German Middle Ages, “Germania illustrata”) gave decisive impulses for the development of national cultural self-confidence. Unlike Erasmus boasted outstanding Bible scholar and stylist, witty for his criticism of scholasticism, church, society “Encomium Moriae” (“Praise of Folly”) and in the “Colloquia Familiaria” (“talks”), but also with hostility because he saw his ideal not in the Reformation, but in a Christian humanism determined by morality and the will for peace. The literary boom came around 1500, supported by Maximilian I. and some sovereigns, first in urban circles, then also at universities: for example in Basel around Erasmus von Rotterdam and the editor Beatus Rhenanus, in Augsburg around the historian C. Peutinger, in Erfurt around Mutianus Rufus with the poets E. Cordus and H. E. Hessus, in Heidelberg with the founder of German Hebrew studies J. Reuchlin, in Nuremberg with Dürer’s friend and translator W. Pirckheimer, in Strasbourg with the pedagogue J. Wimpfeling and the poet of the “Ship of Fools”, S. Brant. His students J. Locher and H. Bebel continued as professors in Ingolstadt and Tübingen, this also in the popular form of the fluctuating narrative (»Facetiae«), but were far surpassed in effect by the Epistolae obscurorum virorum,anonymously printed in 1515-17, with which their authors Crotus Rubeanus, H. von dem Busche and U. von Hutten finally exposed the (Cologne) representatives of late medieval scholasticism to ridicule. The teachings of the Reformation were most succinctlyproclaimedby Father Melanchthon (“Loci theologici”). In the discussion about this, satire and polemics prevailed. B. Hutten’s combat writings and T. Naogeorgus “Satyrae” against the papacy, the dialog satires “Eckius dedolatus” (printed anonymously in Erfurt 1520, against J. Eck) and S. Lemnius Emporicus“Monachopornomachia” against Luther. From the Wittenberg circle also came P. Lotichius Secundus, who created impressive elegies, and F. Dedekind, who successfully held up the mirror in his time with the verse satire “Grobianus” (1549). Moral education was the leitmotif of the drama, which is particularly popular in Germany. by Reuchlin resumed (“Henno”, 1497) ancient forms of Celtis was changed for the courtly festival, in school dramas of G. Gnapheus and G. Macropedius,reached its climaxin Naogeorgus ‘ anti-papal tragedies (“Pammachius”, 1538) and N. Frischlin’s grotesque comedies (“Julius redivivus”, 1585) andlongin the pompous plays of the Jesuits (including J. Bidermann, N. Avancini) re-bloomed. J. Balde was also a Jesuit, who acquired the honorary title of “German Horace” with perfectly formed personal poetry, when contemporaries like P. Fleming and A. Gryphius, following the example of M. Opitz, already preferred the German idiom and Latin increasingly to specialist literature the type of mining science (»De re metallica«, printed in 1556) des G. Agricola narrowed.
