Claudio Achillini (''Latin'' Claudius Achillinus; 18 September 1574 – 1 October 1640
) was an Italian
philosopher
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
,
theologian
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
,
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems.
Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change.
History
On ...
,
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...
, and
jurist
A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...
. He is a major figure in the history of Italian Baroque poetry.
Biography
Born in
Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...
, he was a grandson to
Giovanni Filoteo Achillini
Giovanni Filoteo Achillini (''Latin'' Joannes Philotheus Achillinus; 1466–1538) was an Italian philosopher.
Born in Bologna, he was the younger brother of philosopher Alessandro.
He applied himself to Greek, Latin, theology, philosophy, music, ...
and grand-nephew of
Alessandro Achillini
Alessandro Achillini (''Latin'' Alexander Achillinus; 20 or 29 October 1463 (or possibly 1461)2 August 1512) was an Italian philosopher and physician. He is known for the anatomic studies that he was able to publish, made possible by a 13th-cent ...
. He was professor of
jurisprudence
Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning a ...
for several years at his native Bologna,
Parma
Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, Giuseppe Verdi, music, art, prosciutto (ham), Parmigiano-Reggiano, cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 ...
, and
Ferrara
Ferrara (, ; egl, Fràra ) is a city and ''comune'' in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital of the Province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream ...
, with the highest reputation. So much admiration did his learning excite, that inscriptions to his honour were placed in the schools in his lifetime.
He was a member of a number of learned and literary societies, including the
Accademia dei Lincei
The Accademia dei Lincei (; literally the "Academy of the Lynx-Eyed", but anglicised as the Lincean Academy) is one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rom ...
.
On 9 February 1621, Achillini went to
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 ...
, where he obtained great promises of preferment from popes and cardinals, but they proved only promises.
Odoardo Farnese, duke of Parma
Odoardo Farnese (28 April 1612 – 11 September 1646), also known as Odoardo I Farnese to distinguish him from his grandson Odoardo II Farnese, was Duke of Parma, Piacenza and Castro from 1622 to 1646.
Biography
Odoardo was the eldest legit ...
, engaged him however on very liberal terms, to occupy the chair of law in his university. He wrote the text for a play with music by
Monteverdi
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi (baptized 15 May 1567 – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, choirmaster and string player. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is consider ...
presented during wedding celebrations at the
Farnese court in Parma in 1628. As
Jaynie Anderson
Jaynie Louise Anderson OSI (born 15 December 1944) is an Australian art historian, writer and curator of exhibitions, known for her publications and exhibitions on Giorgione and Venetian painting. Anderson is a Professor Emeritus at the Unive ...
has suggested, Achillini may have devised the program for
Agostino Carracci's frescoes in the
Palazzo del Giardino
The Palazzo del Giardino (''Garden Palace'') or Palazzo Ducale del Giardino (''Ducal Garden Palace'') is a historic palace in the Parco Ducale in Parma. It is not to be confused with the official Parma residence of Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma ...
.
Achillini ended his career in Bologna, returning to a chair at the university, where he was one of
Carlo Cesare Malvasia
Carlo Cesare Malvasia (1616–1693) was an Italian scholar and art historian from Bologna, best known for his biographies of Baroque artists titled ''Felsina pittrice'', published in 1678.
Life and career
Malvasia is the Bolognese equivalen ...
's teachers. Achillini was a particular friend of
Giambattista Marino
Giovanni Battista was a common Italian given name (see Battista for those with the surname) in the 16th-18th centuries. It refers to "John the Baptist" in English, the French equivalent is "Jean-Baptiste". Common nicknames include Giambattista, Gi ...
, whose style in poetry he imitated, occasionally lapsing into the excesses of extravagant
metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wit ...
s.
He championed Marino's primacy, particularly in two letters, included respectively in the
preface
__NOTOC__
A preface () or proem () is an introduction to a book or other literary work written by the work's author. An introductory essay written by a different person is a '' foreword'' and precedes an author's preface. The preface often closes ...
to the latter's ''Sampogna'' (1620) and in the
postface
A postface is the opposite of a preface, a brief article or explanatory information placed at the end of a book
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of p ...
to his first biography (1625). In the controversies that broke out after the publication of Marino's ''Adone'' (Paris, 1623), Achillini apparently encouraged
Girolamo Aleandro
Girolamo Aleandro (also Hieronymus Aleander; 13 February 14801 February 1542) was an Italian cardinal, and .
Life
Aleandro was born on 13 February 1480 in Motta di Livenza, in the province of Treviso, part of the Republic of Venice. He studied ...
to write his ''Difesa'' (1629) in response to
Stigliani's attack on the poem in the ''Occhiale'' (1627). Though a strong partisan of Marino, even Achillini tempered some of the more extravagant elements in his own writing in the later years. Twentieth-century critics have in part overturned the terms of the relationship between Achillini and Marino, making evident instead Marino's debt to the former.
His first collection of poems and prose was published in 1632, although he had published many poems in the preceding decades. A
canzone
Literally "song" in Italian, a ''canzone'' (, plural: ''canzoni''; cognate with English ''to chant'') is an Italian or Provençal song or ballad. It is also used to describe a type of lyric which resembles a madrigal. Sometimes a composition w ...
, which he addressed to
Louis XIII
Louis XIII (; sometimes called the Just; 27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was King of France from 1610 until his death in 1643 and King of Navarre (as Louis II) from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown ...
on the birth of the
dauphin, is said to have been rewarded by
Cardinal Richelieu with a gold chain or collar worth 1000
crown
A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, partic ...
s;
this reward was not given, as some have asserted, for the famous
sonnet ''Sudate o fuochi, a preparar metalli'' (Sweat, fires, in order to forge metal), which was severely criticized by
Manzoni.
[
Achillini's poems were first published at Bologna and were reprinted several times (1633, 1650, 1651,1656, 1662, 1673, 1677 and 1680). He also printed a volume of Latin letters and an exchange of letters with his friend ]Agostino Mascardi
Agostino Mascardi (2 September 1590, in Sarzana – 1640) was an Italian rhetorician, historian and poet.
Expelled from the Jesuit Order by his superiors, Mascardi pursued a successful career as a secretary for various important figures, and beca ...
on the plague of 1630, published in Bologna in 1630 and in Rome in 1631.
Works
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References
Bibliography
* «Claudio Achillini Bolognese». In : ''Le glorie de gli Incogniti: o vero, Gli huomini illustri dell'Accademia de' signori Incogniti di Venetia'', In Venetia : appresso Francesco Valuasense stampator dell'Accademia, 1647, pp. 108–111
on-line
.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Achillini, Claudio
1574 births
1640 deaths
Writers from Bologna
Italian poets
Italian male poets
17th-century Italian poets
17th-century Italian male writers
Members of the Lincean Academy
17th-century Italian jurists
17th-century Latin-language writers
Italian Baroque people
Baroque writers
Marinism