Benedetto Varchi was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 humanist

Renaissance humanism

Renaissance humanism was an activity of cultural and educational reform engaged by scholars, writers, and civic leaders who are today known as Renaissance humanists. It developed during the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, and was a response to the challenge of Mediæval...

, a historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

 and poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

.

Biography

Born in Florence to a family that had originated at Montevarchi

Montevarchi

Montevarchi is a town and comune in the province of Arezzo, Tuscany, Italy.- History :The town of Montevarchi sprang up around 1100, near to a fortified Benedictine monastery founded by bishop Elempert of Arezzo. At first the castle belonged to the Marquess Bourbon del Monte di Santa Maria, then...

, he frequented the neoplatonic academy

Academy

An academy is an institution of higher learning, research, or honorary membership.The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 385 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and skill, north of Athens, Greece. In the western world academia is the...

 that Bernardo Rucellai organized in his garden, the Orti Oricellari; there, in spite of the fact that Rucellai was married to the elder sister of Lorenzo de' Medici

Lorenzo de' Medici

Lorenzo de' Medici was an Italian statesman and de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic during the Italian Renaissance. Known as Lorenzo the Magnificent by contemporary Florentines, he was a diplomat, politician and patron of scholars, artists and poets...

, republican ideals circulated, in the context of revived classical culture, that culminated in a plot in 1513 to subvert Medici

Medici

The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...

 rule in Florence. At Pisa, Varchi studied to become a notary.

With his return to Florence, he fought in the defense of the temporarily revived Republic of Florence

Republic of Florence

The Republic of Florence , or the Florentine Republic, was a city-state that was centered on the city of Florence, located in modern Tuscany, Italy. The republic was founded in 1115, when the Florentine people rebelled against the Margraviate of Tuscany upon Margravine Matilda's death. The...

, during the siege by the Medicean

Medici

The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...

s and imperialists in 1530, and was exiled after the surrender of the city; he spent time at Padua (1537), where he was a protégé of the émigré Piero Strozzi

Piero Strozzi

Piero Strozzi was an Italian military leader. He was a member of the rich Florentine family of the Strozzi.-Biography:Piero Strozzi was the son of Filippo Strozzi the Younger and Clarice de' Medici....

 and at Bologna (1540). In 1536 he took part in Strozzi's unsuccessful expedition against Medicean rule, but seven years later Varchi was called back to Florence by Cosimo I

Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany

Cosimo I de' Medici was Duke of Florence from 1537 to 1574, reigning as the first Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1569.-Biography:...

 who, who gave him a pension and commissioned him to write a history of the city. His Storia fiorentina< (16 vol.) covers the period from 1527 to 1538, though it was so frank it was not published in Florence until 1721. Varchi also wrote a number of plays, poems, dialogues and translations from the classics.

With his return to Medici patronage, he became a member of the Accademia fiorentina, occupied with studies of linguistics, literary criticism, esthetics and philosophy, but also, as became a Renaissance humanist in botany and alchemy. His tract L'Hercolano, in the form of a dialogue between the writer and a conte Ercolano, discussed the Tuscan dialect

Tuscan dialect

The Tuscan language , or the Tuscan dialect is an Italo-Dalmatian language spoken in Tuscany, Italy.Standard Italian is based on Tuscan, specifically on its Florentine variety...

 as it was spoken at Florence, in the vulgar rather than in Latin, an innovation in works of linguistics; it was published posthumously, in 1570. He wrote a comedy La Suocera ("The Mother-in-Law").

Towards the end of his life he had a spiritual crisis and took holy orders.

Homosexuality

In his time Varchi was notorious for his many sonnets to young boys. Though his loves were not always reciprocated, and despite his denounciations of men who engaged in "filthy loves," he was criticized by his contemporaries for his attachments to young boys. One critic mocked him in a satire: "O father Varchi, new Socrates . . . his arms open and his trousers down, this is how your Bembo is waiting for you in the Elyssian Fields." Another comments on his legacy, "But since he was always inclined to boy love . . . he greatly lessened the reputation that would have been rightfully appropriate." In 1545, Varchi was arrested and tried for pederasty, and was eventually pardoned by Cosimo de Medici upon the intercession of his many friends.

On-line texts (Italian)

• Due lezioni ("On painting" and" On sculpture");
• Il discorso della bellezza e della grazia;
• Rime.