The Accademia Cosentina ("Cosentian Academy" or "Telesian Academy" in English) is still an Italian ''accademia'' or

learned society A learned society (; also learned academy, scholarly society, or academic association) is an organization that exists to promote an discipline (academia), academic discipline, profession, or a group of related disciplines such as the arts and s ...

Cosenza Cosenza (; local dialect: ''Cusenza'', ) is a city in Calabria, Italy. The city centre has a population of approximately 70,000; the urban area counts more than 200,000 inhabitants. It is the capital of the Province of Cosenza, which has a populati ...

, Italy. It was founded in 1511–12 by Aulo Giano Parrasio and has a long and complex history, with several changes of name.

History

The society was founded in Cosenza by

Giovan Paolo Parisio Giovan Paolo Parisio (1470–1522), who used the classicised pseudonym Aulo Giano Parrasio or Aulus Janus Parrhasius, was a humanist scholar and grammarian from Cosenza, in Calabria in southern Italy. He was thus sometimes known as "Cosentius". H ...

("Aulo Giano Parrasio") in late 1511 or early 1512, and was initially known as the "Accademia Parrasiana". As in other ''accademie'' of the time, the principal studies were of literature and

philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and writing, written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defin ...

. Following the death of Parrasio, which may have been in 1522 or in 1534, the academy came under the control of

Bernardino Telesio Bernardino Telesio (; 7 November 1509 – 2 October 1588) was an Italian philosopher and natural scientist. While his natural theories were later disproven, his emphasis on observation made him the "first of the moderns" who eventually devel ...

, who gave it a more scientific and practical direction; it was known as the "Accademia Telesiana". In 1544 it was suppressed by the authorities. Not long before Telesio died in 1588, the society came under the direction of Sertorio Quattromani and was renamed the "Accademia Cosentina". It is not clear whether it had been active from the closure of 1544 to this time. The accademia was again closed down in about 1593. In 1608 Giovanni Battista Costanzo, the archbishop of Cosenza, re-opened the society as the Accademia dei Costanti, with a larger number of members from the church. It may have become inactive again after his death in 1617. Another archbishop, Giuseppe Sanfelice, founded the Accademia dei Negligenti in about 1649; it remained active until his death in 1660. The Accademia dei Costanti was revived by

Pirro Schettini Pirro may refer to: An Albanian given name; derived from Greek "Pyrrhos" (Latinized as "Pyrrhus") (flame-coloured, red-haired). *Pirro Çako (born 1965), Albanian artist * Pirro Del Balzo (c. 1430-1491), Italian nobleman *Pirro Dodbiba (1925–200 ...

from 1668 until 1678, when he died. It was restarted under the name Accademia dei Pescatori Cratilidi by

Gaetano Greco Gaetano Greco (c. 1657c. 1728) was an Italian Baroque composer. He was the younger brother of Rocco Greco ( c.1650 - before 1718). Both brothers were trained at, and later taught at the Poveri di Gesu` Cristo conservatory in Naples. Gaetano Greco's ...

in 1756, but again became inactive in 1794. In 1811 the society was again revived, through the efforts of

Matteo Galdi Matteo is the Italian form of the given name Matthew. Another form is Mattia. The Hebrew meaning of Matteo is "gift of god". Matteo can also be used as a patronymic surname, often in the forms of de Matteo, De Matteo or DeMatteo, meaning " escenda ...

; it was called the Istituto Cosentina until 1817, when royal permission was obtained to change the name to Accademia Cosentina. On 11 June 1871 the Accademia Cosentina founded the Biblioteca Civica, the public library of Cosenza, which remained inactive until it was officially inaugurated on 4 March 1898. In March 2012 the academy announced that it might have to cease all activity because of a total lack of funds; it had received €2000 in ministerial funding in 2008. The Accademia Cosentina is still operative, despite the economic difficulties due to the lack of public subsidies, and continues its cultural promotion work yet today, with monthly events and conferences on literary, humanistic and scientific subjects.

References

{{authority control Cosenza Buildings and structures in the Province of Cosenza 1511 establishments in Italy Learned societies of Italy