Giannozzo Manetti was an Italian politician and diplomat from Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

, who was also a humanist scholar

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...

 of the early Italian Renaissance

Italian Renaissance

The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...

.

Manetti was the son of a wealthy merchant. His public career began in 1429. He participated in municipal government as a member of the advisory council, as an ambassador, and in various gubernatorial positions in the city. Manetti was an eyewitness of the dedication of Santa Maria del Fiore

Santa Maria del Fiore

The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore is the cathedral church of Florence, Italy. The Duomo, as it is ordinarily called, was begun in 1296 in the Gothic style to the design of Arnolfo di Cambio and completed structurally in 1436 with the dome engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi...

 on 25 March 1436, of which he left a record, the Oratio de Secularibus et Pontificalibus Pompis in Consecratione Basilicae Florentinae.

He was a Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

ist and a translator of Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

; he also studied Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

 so that he could read the Hebrew Bible

Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...

 and the rabbi

Rabbi

In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

nic commentaries. These readings convinced him that the Bible needed translation anew from the early manuscripts. After his death, Manetti's sizable library found its way into the Biblioteca Vaticana.

As an author, Manetti's style was an imitation of Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...

. He is now remembered principally as the author of De dignitate et excellentia hominis libri IV ("On the Dignity and Excellence of Man in Four Books"), completed in manuscript in 1452 or 1453. It was a response to Pope Innocent III's

Pope Innocent III

Pope Innocent III was Pope from 8 January 1198 until his death. His birth name was Lotario dei Conti di Segni, sometimes anglicised to Lothar of Segni....

 De miseria humane conditionis. He also wrote a commentary on Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

 and biographies of Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri

Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...

, Giovanni Boccaccio

Giovanni Boccaccio

Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular...

, Pope Nicholas V

Pope Nicholas V

Pope Nicholas V , born Tommaso Parentucelli, was Pope from March 6, 1447 to his death in 1455.-Biography:He was born at Sarzana, Liguria, where his father was a physician...

, Francesco Petrarca, Seneca

Seneca the Younger

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...

, and Socrates

Socrates

Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...

.

Manetti's circle of humanist intellectuals included Carlo d'Arrezzo, Poggio Bracciolini, Leonardo Bruni

Leonardo Bruni

Leonardo Bruni was an Italian humanist, historian and statesman. He has been called the first modern historian.-Biography:...

, Francesco Filelfo

Francesco Filelfo

Francesco Filelfo was an Italian Renaissance humanist.-Biography:Filelfo was born at Tolentino, in the March of Ancona. He is believed to be a third cousin of Leonardo Da Vinci. At the time of his birth, Petrarch and the students of Florence had already brought the first act in the recovery of...

, Niccolo Niccoli, Palla Strozzi

Palla Strozzi

Palla di Onofrio Strozzi was an Italian banker, politician, writer, philosopher and philologist.-Biography:He was born in Florence into the rich family of the Strozzi. He was educated by humanists, learning Greek and Latin, and establishing an important collection of rare books...

, and Lorenzo Valla

Lorenzo Valla

Lorenzo Valla was an Italian humanist, rhetorician, and educator. His family was from Piacenza; his father, Luciave della Valla, was a lawyer....

.

External links

• Manetti at Humanistic Texts
• Selected works at Biblioteca Italiana