Lodovico Dolce 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...

 theorist of painting

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

. He was a broadly-based Venetian humanist

Humanism

Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

 and prolific author, translator and editor; he is now remembered for his Dialogue on Painting.

Biography

The date of Dolce's birth, long accepted as 1508, has been more likely set in 1510. Dolce's youth was difficult. His father, a former steward to the public attorneys (castaldo delle procuratorie) for the Republic of Venice, died when the boy was only two. For his early studies, he depended on the support of two patrician families: that of the doge Leonardo Loredano (see Dolce's dedication of his Dialogue on Painting) and the Cornaro family, who financed his studies at Padua.

After he completed his studies, Dolce found work in Venice with the press of Gabriele Giolito de' Ferrari

Gabriele Giolito de' Ferrari

Gabriele Giolito de' Ferrari was a 16th century Italian printer active in Venice. He was one of the first major publishers of literature in the vernacular Italian language.-Early life and career:...

. He was one of the most active intellectuals in 16th-century Venice. Claudia Di Filippo Bareggi claims that over the course of thirty-six years Dolce was responsible for 96 editions of his own original work, 202 editions of other writers, and at least 54 translations. As a popularizer, he worked to make information available to the non-specialist, those too busy to learn Greek and Latin.

Following a productive life as a scholar and author, Dolce died in January, 1568, and was buried in the church of San Luca in Venice, although in which pavement tomb is unknown.

Works

Dolce worked in most of the literary genres available at the time, including epic and lyric poetry, chivalric romance, comedy, tragedy, the prose dialogue, treatises (where he discussed women, ill-married men, memory, the Italian language, gems, painting, and colors), encyclopedic summaries (of Aristotle's philosophy and world history), and historical works on major figures of the 16th century and earlier writers, such as Cicero, Ovid, Dante, and Boccaccio. From 1542, when he first went to work for the Giolito, until his death in 1568, he edited 184 texts out of just over 700 titles published by Giolito. These editions included works by Dante

DANTE

Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...

, Petrarch

Petrarch

Francesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...

, Boccaccio, Castiglione

Castiglione

-Places:Towns in Italy, many of which were simply called Castiglione prior to the unification of Italy in the 19th century:* Castiglion Fibocchi, in the province of Arezzo* Castiglion Fiorentino, in the province of Arezzo...

, Pietro Bembo

Pietro Bembo

Pietro Bembo was an Italian scholar, poet, literary theorist, and cardinal. He was an influential figure in the development of the Italian language, specifically Tuscan, as a literary medium, and his writings assisted in the 16th-century revival of interest in the works of Petrarch...

, Lodovico Ariosto, Pietro Aretino

Pietro Aretino

Pietro Aretino was an Italian author, playwright, poet and satirist who wielded immense influence on contemporary art and politics and invented modern literate pornography.- Life :...

, Angelo Poliziano, Jacopo Sannazzaro, and Bernardo Tasso

Bernardo Tasso

Bernardo Tasso , born in Bergamo, was an Italian courtier and poet.He was, for many years, secretary in the service of the prince of Salerno, and his wife Porzia de Rossi was closely connected with the most illustrious Neapolitan families...

. And he translated into Italian works of authors such as Homer

Homer

In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

, Euripides

Euripides

Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...

, Catullus

Catullus

Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...

, 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...

, Horace

Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...

, Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

, Juvenal

Juvenal

The Satires are a collection of satirical poems by the Latin author Juvenal written in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD.Juvenal is credited with sixteen known poems divided among five books; all are in the Roman genre of satire, which, at its most basic in the time of the author, comprised a...

, the playwright 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 Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

.

Tragedies

As a dramatist he wrote numerous tragedies: Giocasta (derived probably from the Phoenissae of Euripides

Euripides

Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...

 via the Latin translation of R. Winter), Thieste, Medea, Didone, Ifigenia, Hecuba and Marianna. An English-language adaptation of the first of these, the Jocasta by George Gascoigne

George Gascoigne

George Gascoigne was an English poet, soldier, artist, and unsuccessful courtier. He is considered the most important poet of the early Elizabethan era, following Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and leading to the emergence of Philip Sidney...

 and Francis Kinwelmersh, was staged in 1566 at Gray's Inn in London. His tragedy Didone (1547) was one of his more influential tragedies in Italy, a precursor of Pietro Metastasio's Didone abbandonata

Didone abbandonata

Didone abbandonata is an opera libretto in 3 acts by Pietro Metastasio. It was his first original work and was set to music by Domenico Sarro in 1724...

(1724).

Comedies

He also wrote numerous comedies, including Il Marito, Il Ragazzo, Il Capitano, La Fabritia, and Il Ruffiano.

Histories

Two of his histories—the Life of Charles V

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...

(1561) and the Life of Ferdinand I

Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor

Ferdinand I was Holy Roman Emperor from 1558 and king of Bohemia and Hungary from 1526 until his death. Before his accession, he ruled the Austrian hereditary lands of the Habsburgs in the name of his elder brother, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.The key events during his reign were the contest...

(1566) were very successful in the sixteenth century. His History of the World (Giornale delle historie del mondo, 1572, posthumous) is a lengthy calendar of notable historical and literary events, listed for each day of the year. The events he employs range in time from the origins of civilization to his own day.

Treatises

His Treatise on Gems (Trattato delle gemme, 1565) falls into the lapidary

Lapidary

A lapidary is an artist or artisan who forms stone, mineral, gemstones, and other suitably durable materials into decorative items such as engraved gems, including cameos, or cabochons, and faceted designs...

 tradition, with Dolce discussing not only the physical qualities of jewels but the power infused in them by the stars. As his authorities, he cites 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...

, the Persian philosopher Avicenna

Avicenna

Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā , commonly known as Ibn Sīnā or by his Latinized name Avicenna, was a Persian polymath, who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived...

, Averroes

Averroes

' , better known just as Ibn Rushd , and in European literature as Averroes , was a Muslim polymath; a master of Aristotelian philosophy, Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Maliki law and jurisprudence, logic, psychology, politics, Arabic music theory, and the sciences of medicine, astronomy,...

, and the Libri mineralium of Albert the Great

Albertus Magnus

Albertus Magnus, O.P. , also known as Albert the Great and Albert of Cologne, is a Catholic saint. He was a German Dominican friar and a bishop, who achieved fame for his comprehensive knowledge of and advocacy for the peaceful coexistence of science and religion. Those such as James A. Weisheipl...

 among others, but, according to Ronnie H. Terpening

Ron Terpening

Ron Terpening is an American writer, professor of Italian, and editor. Though he started his writing career as an author of young-adult fiction, where the father/son conflict is a major theme, he is best known for his later novels of suspense, most of which are set, at least in part, in Italy,...

, he appears to have simply translated Camillo Leonardo's Speculum lapidum (1502) without crediting the earlier author. In addition to translating Cicero's De Oratore (1547), Dolce authored several treatises on language, among them the Osservationi nella volgar lingua (1550). This was a linguistic and grammatical study in which Dolce draws examples from and comments on Dante, Boccaccio, and Ariosto, among others.

Chivalric Romances

In the genre of chivalric romance

Romance (genre)

As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...

, Dolce produced several reworkings of traditional material, including Sacripante (1536), Palmerino (1561), Primaleone, figliuolo di Palmerino (1562), and the posthumous Prime imprese del conte Orlando (The Early Deeds of Count Orlando) (1572).

Classical Epic

Drawing heavily on Virgil, he wrote an epic poem on Aeneas, the Enea, published the year of his death. For those who had no knowledge of Greek or Latin, he compiled a work in ottava rima, L'Achille et l'Enea, joining Homer's epic to Virgil's, a work published posthumously in 1570.

Editions of Other Writers

Among the authors edited by Dolce (for which see "Works" above), he focused most significantly on Ariosto. He edited three of Ariosto's comedies, La Lena (c. 1530), Il Negromante (c. 1530), and I Suppositi (1551); the poet's Rime (1557), and the Orlando furioso (1535). For the latter poem, he published a work explaining the more difficult aspects, the Espositioni (1542), and an analysis of the poem's figurative language, the Modi affigurati (1554).

Translations

Whether Dolce knew Greek or not has been questioned by Emmanuel Antonio Cicogna. Nevertheless, using (but not acknowledging) Latin translations of authors such as Euripides, he translated the works of several Greek authors into Italian, among them Achilles Tatius

Achilles Tatius

Achilles Tatius of Alexandria was a Roman era Greek writer whose fame is attached to his only surviving work, the ancient Greek novel or romance The Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon.-Life and minor works:...

 (Leucippe and Clitophon, 1544), Homer's Odyssey (L'Ulisse, 1573, posthumous) and the History of the Greek Emperors (1569, posthumous) by Nicetas Acominatus. He also translated various Latin authors, sometimes very loosely, other times, such as for Seneca's ten tragedies, with fidelity to the original.

Ronnie H. Terpening

Ron Terpening

Ron Terpening is an American writer, professor of Italian, and editor. Though he started his writing career as an author of young-adult fiction, where the father/son conflict is a major theme, he is best known for his later novels of suspense, most of which are set, at least in part, in Italy,...

concludes his book on Dolce by noting that

Truly, then as now, taking into account all his imperfections and those of the age, this is a worthy career for any man or woman of letters. Without his unstinting efforts, the history and development of Italian literature would surely be the poorer. In addition, if what others have said about him is accurate, Dolce was also a good man, for after “indefatigable” the adjectives used most often to describe him are “pacifico” and, of course, “dolce”. In such a contentious age, these are simple but high words of praise indeed. (p. 169)

External links

• http://www.nd.edu/~italnet/Dante/text/1555.venice.lodovico.html
• Jocasta, the sixteenth-century English-language adaptation by George Gascoigne and Francis Kinwelmersh.