Paolo Giovio
Encyclopedia
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...
physician, historian and biographer, and prelate.
He is chiefly known as the author of a celebrated work of contemporary history, Historiarum sui temporis libri XLV, of a collection of lives of famous men, Vitae virorum illustrium (1549‑57), and of Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium, (Florence, 1554), which may be translated as Praise of Men Illustrious for Courage in War (1554). He is best remembered as a chronicler of the Italian Wars
Italian Wars
The Italian Wars, often referred to as the Great Italian Wars or the Great Wars of Italy and sometimes as the Habsburg–Valois Wars, were a series of conflicts from 1494 to 1559 that involved, at various times, most of the city-states of Italy, the Papal States, most of the major states of Western...
. His eyewitness accounts of many of the battles form one of the most significant primary sources for the period.
Biography
Little is known about Giovio's youth. He was a native of ComoComo
Como is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy.It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como....
; his family was from the Isola Comacina
Isola Comacina
Isola Comacina is a small wooded island of Italy’s Lake Como, administratively a part of the commune of Ossuccio. It is located close to the western shore of the Como arm of the lake in front of a gulf known as Zoca de l'oli, a dialectal name referring to the local small-scale production of olive...
of Lake Como
Lake Como
Lake Como is a lake of glacial origin in Lombardy, Italy. It has an area of 146 km², making it the third largest lake in Italy, after Lake Garda and Lake Maggiore...
. His father, a notary
Notary
A notary is a lawyer or person with legal training who is licensed by the state to perform acts in legal affairs, in particular witnessing signatures on documents...
, died around 1500. He was educated under the direction of his elder brother Francesco, a humanist and historian. Although interested by literature, he was sent to Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...
to study medicine. He graduated in 1511.
He worked as physician in Como but, after the spreading of the plague in that city he moved to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, settling there in 1513. Pope Leo X
Pope Leo X
Pope Leo X , born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, was the Pope from 1513 to his death in 1521. He was the last non-priest to be elected Pope. He is known for granting indulgences for those who donated to reconstruct St. Peter's Basilica and his challenging of Martin Luther's 95 Theses...
assigned him a cathedra of Moral Philosophy and, later, that of Natural Philosophy
Natural philosophy
Natural philosophy or the philosophy of nature , is a term applied to the study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science...
in the Roman university. He was also knighted by the Pope. In the same period he started to write historical essays. He wrote a memoir of Leo soon after his death.
In 1517 he was appointed as personal physician by the Cardinal Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici (the future pope Clement VII). In the field he wrote some treatises, like the De optima victus ratione, in which he expresses his doubts about the current pharmacology
Pharmacology
Pharmacology is the branch of medicine and biology concerned with the study of drug action. More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur between a living organism and chemicals that affect normal or abnormal biochemical function...
, and the need to improve prevention before the cure.
He helped Clement VII during the 1527 sack of Rome
Sack of Rome (1527)
The Sack of Rome on 6 May 1527 was a military event carried out by the mutinous troops of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in Rome, then part of the Papal States...
. In 1528, he became bishop of Nocera de' Pagani. Giovio wrote an account of Dmitry Gerasimov
Dmitry Gerasimov
Dmitry Gerasimov , was a Russian translator, diplomat and philologist; he also provided some of the earliest information on Muscovy to Renaissance scholars such as Paolo Giovio and Sigismund von Herberstein....
's embassy to Clement VII, which related detailed geographical data on Muscovy.
In 1536 Giovio had a villa
Villa
A villa was originally an ancient Roman upper-class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became small farming compounds, which were increasingly fortified in Late Antiquity,...
built for him on Lake Como, which he called Museo, and which he used for his collection of portraits of famous people. After Clement's death, he had retired. As well as paintings, he sought antiquities, etc., and his collection was one of the first to include pieces from the New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
. A set of copies of the paintings from the collection, now known as the Giovio Series
Giovio Series
The Giovio Series, also known as the Giovio Collection or Giovio Portraits, is a series of 484 portraits assembled by the 16th century Italian Renaissance historian and biographer Paolo Giovio. It includes portraits of literary figures, rulers, statesmen and other dignitaries, many of which were...
, is on display in the Uffizi Gallery.
In 1549 Pope Paul III
Pope Paul III
Pope Paul III , born Alessandro Farnese, was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 1534 to his death in 1549. He came to the papal throne in an era following the sack of Rome in 1527 and rife with uncertainties in the Catholic Church following the Protestant Reformation...
denied him the title of Bishop of Como
Roman Catholic Diocese of Como
The Catholic diocese of Como, in northern Italy, has existed since the fourth century. It is a suffragan of the archdiocese of Milan. The bishops' seat is in Como Cathedral....
, and he decided to move to 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....
, where he died in 1552.
Works
- De romanis piscibus (1524)
- De legatione Basilii Magni Principis Moschoviae (1525)
- Commentario de le cose de’ Turchi (1531)
- Elogia virorum litteris illustrium or Elogia doctorum virorum (1546)
- Descriptio Britanniae, Scotiae, Hyberniae et Orchadum (1548)
- Vitae (1549)
- Historiarum sui temporis libri (1550–52)
- Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium (1554), as an eye witness of many people involved in the Italian WarsItalian WarsThe Italian Wars, often referred to as the Great Italian Wars or the Great Wars of Italy and sometimes as the Habsburg–Valois Wars, were a series of conflicts from 1494 to 1559 that involved, at various times, most of the city-states of Italy, the Papal States, most of the major states of Western...
including Gonzalo Fernández de CórdobaGonzalo Fernández de CórdobaGonzalo Fernández de Córdoba known as The Great Captain, Duke of Terranova and Santangelo, Andria, Montalto and Sessa, also known as Gonzalo de Córdoba, Italian: Gonsalvo or Consalvo Ernandes di Cordova was a Spanish general fighting in the times of the Conquest of Granada and the Italian Wars... - Dialogo dell'imprese militari et amorose (1555)
External links
- Article in the Catholic Encyclopedia
- Elogia Doctorum Virorum online (English translation, with life of Paulus Jovius)
- Vita de Leonis X (Latin text)