Benedetto Menzini (b. at

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

, 1646; d. at

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, 7 September 1704) was an Italian

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

priest and poet. In his

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...

s he assails in acrid terms the hypocrisy prevailing in

Tuscany it, Toscano (man) it, Toscana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Citizenship , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = Italian , demogra ...

in the last years of the

Medici The House of Medici ( , ) was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici, in the Republic of Florence during the first half of the 15th century. The family originated in the Mu ...

rule.

Life

His family being poor, he early became a teacher, becoming a professor of belles-lettres at Florence and Prato. He was already in Holy Orders. In 1681 he failed to obtain the chair of rhetoric in the

University of Pisa The University of Pisa ( it, Università di Pisa, UniPi), officially founded in 1343, is one of the oldest universities in Europe. History The Origins The University of Pisa was officially founded in 1343, although various scholars place ...

, partly because of the jealousy of other clerics and partly because of the acrimony constantly shown by him in his words and acts. In 1685 he went to Rome and enjoyed the favour of Queen

Christina of Sweden Christina ( sv, Kristina, 18 December ( New Style) 1626 – 19 April 1689), a member of the House of Vasa, was Queen of Sweden in her own right from 1632 until her abdication in 1654. She succeeded her father Gustavus Adolphus upon his death ...

, until her death in 1689.

Pope Innocent XII Pope Innocent XII ( la, Innocentius XII; it, Innocenzo XII; 13 March 1615 – 27 September 1700), born Antonio Pignatelli, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 12 July 1691 to his death in September 1700. He ...

then gave him a canonry, and appointed him to a chair of rhetoric in one of the institutions of the city of Rome

Works

Following the models provided by the poems of Gabriello Chiabrera and Fulvio Testi, Menzini wrote his

Pindar Pindar (; grc-gre, Πίνδαρος , ; la, Pindarus; ) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar ...

ic "Canzoni eroiche e morali" (1674–80). These observe the Greek division - ''

strophe A strophe () is a poetic term originally referring to the first part of the ode in Ancient Greek tragedy, followed by the antistrophe and epode. The term has been extended to also mean a structural division of a poem containing stanzas of varyi ...

'', ''

antistrophe Antistrophe ( grc, ἀντιστροφή, "a turning back") is the portion of an ode sung by the chorus in its returning movement from west to east, in response to the strophe, which was sung from east to west. Characteristics Usage as a lit ...

'', and deal with subjects that were also engaging the attention of the contemporary poet Filicaja, e.g., the freeing of

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

, the taking of

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

. Some seventeen of his

elegies An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometime ...

treat of matters of various interest. The poem "Il Paradiso terrestre" is almost continuation of the "Mondo creato" of

Tasso TASSO (Two Arm Spectrometer SOlenoid) was a particle detector at the PETRA particle accelerator at the German national laboratory DESY. The TASSO collaboration is best known for having discovered the gluon, the mediator of the strong interaction an ...

, Menzini's favourite poet. In the "Academia Turculana" in mingled prose and verse, he introduces leading spirits of the time, who discuss subjects of many sorts. The pastoral note was struck by him in his "Sonetti pastorali"; and in his "Canzonette anacreontiche" he produced a number of graceful little lyrics. As well as his satires, he lashes in his "Arte poetica" the artificiality and the uncouthness of the versifiers of his time.

References

;Attribution * The entry cites: **''Opere'' (4 vols., Florence, 1731); **''Satire'' (Amsterdam, 1728) and Borghini, III (1876); **Paolucci, ''Vita di Benedetto Menzini'' (FIorence, 1732); **Magrini, ''Studio critico su Benedetto Menzini'' (Naples, 1885); **Tonchini, ''Benedetto Menzini e le sue opere'' (Cairo, 1893). **''Satire, rime e lettere scelte di Benedetto Menzini'' (Florence, 1874)

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Menzini, Benedetto 1646 births 1704 deaths 17th-century Italian Roman Catholic priests 17th-century Italian writers Italian poets Italian male poets Members of the Academy of Arcadians