Giovanni Tortellli, also known as Tortellius (circa 1400 – before 26 April 1466) was a

Renaissance humanist Renaissance humanism was a revival in the study of classical antiquity, at first in Italy and then spreading across Western Europe in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. During the period, the term ''humanist'' ( it, umanista) referred to teache ...

, largely responsible for the creation of the

Vatican Library The Vatican Apostolic Library ( la, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, it, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City. Formally es ...

, together with scholars such as

Bessarion Bessarion ( el, Βησσαρίων; 2 January 1403 – 18 November 1472) was a Byzantine Greek Renaissance humanist, theologian, Catholic cardinal and one of the famed Greek scholars who contributed to the so-called great revival of letters ...

and

Poggio Bracciolini Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (11 February 1380 – 30 October 1459), usually referred to simply as Poggio Bracciolini, was an Italian scholar and an early Renaissance humanist. He was responsible for rediscovering and recovering many classi ...

Biography

Born in Capolona near

Arezzo Arezzo ( , , ) , also ; ett, 𐌀𐌓𐌉𐌕𐌉𐌌, Aritim. is a city and ''comune'' in Italy and the capital of the province of the same name located in Tuscany. Arezzo is about southeast of Florence at an elevation of above sea level. ...

, he studied Greek with

Filelfo Francesco Filelfo ( la, Franciscus Philelphus; 25 July 1398 – 31 July 1481) was an Italian Renaissance humanist. Biography Filelfo was born at Tolentino, in the March of Ancona. He is believed to be a third cousin of Leonardo da Vinci. At th ...

and

Carlo Marsuppini Carlo Marsuppini (1399–1453), also known as Carlo Aretino and Carolus Arretinus, was an Italian Renaissance humanist and chancellor of the Florentine Republic. Biography Marsuppini was born in Genoa into a family from Arezzo, but grew up and ...

in Florence and with

Vittorino da Feltre Vittorino da Feltre (1378February 2, 1446) was an Italian humanist and teacher. He was born in Feltre, Belluno, Republic of Venice and died in Mantua. His real name was Vittorino Rambaldoni. It was in Vittorino that the Renaissance idea of the com ...

in Mantua, perfected his Greek by spending five years in Greece between 1433 and 1438. In 1447 he came to Rome to work with

Pope Nicholas V Pope Nicholas V ( la, Nicholaus V; it, Niccolò V; 13 November 1397 – 24 March 1455), born Tommaso Parentucelli, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 6 March 1447 until his death in March 1455. Pope Eugene IV, Po ...

(Tommaso Parentucelli, 1447–1455). In 1453 he was named abbot ''in commenda'' of the abbey of San Sebastiano at Alatri, some 40 miles south of Rome, in what was then Campania. He restored and embellished the ancient monastery, where he may have spent much of the rest of his life. His major work, dedicated to Nicholas V, was the ''De Orthografia'', a vast study of ancient Greek and Latin, antiquarian and erudite. Special attention is now giving to epigraphical and grammatical sources of ''De Orthographia'': in the theoretical section, at the beginning of the treatise, Tortelli handed down some grammatical fragments ascribable to Pliny the Elder’s ''Dubius sermo'' and to Papiriano, both of which are sources in Prisciano’s ''De litteris''. Tortelli attributed the existence of other fragments also to a Greek grammarian called Partenio. Under the item "Archimedes" one can found one of the first witness of the new humanistic translation of the Archimedean corpus, made by Iacopo da San Cassiano in the first half of the 15th century.

References

Relevant literature

* Onorato, Aldo, Gli Amici bolognesi di Giovanni Tortelli. Messina : Centro interdipartimentale di studi umanistici, 2003. 270 p. * Raffarin-Dupuis, Anne. "Les" antiquaires" et les debuts de l'archeologie a la renaissance: la roma instaurata de flavio biondo.(edition, traduction, commentaire)." PhD diss., Paris 4, 1998. * Raffarin, Anne. 2012. "Les Sources Antiques Confrontées Aux Sources Contemporaines Dans Les Annotations À L’italia Illustrata De Flavio Biondo Traduite En Italien Par Lucio Fauno." ''Camena'' * Tome, Paola. "L'" Orthographia" di Giovanni Tortelli: studio dell'opera e delle fonti." (2012). * Tomè, Paola. "Tortelli e Valla: tra epigrafia e ortografia." ''Revue d'Histoire des Textes'' 8 (2013): 387-413. * Tomè, Paola. "Papiri (an) us, Paperinus, Papirinus e l’«Orthographia» di Giovanni Tortelli." ''Revue d'Histoire des Textes'' 6 (2011): 167-210. * Tomè, Paola. "Carlo Marsuppini nell'Orthographia di Giovanni Tortelli." (2013): 11-20. ''Studi rinascimentali : rivista internazionale di letteratura italiana'' : 11: 11-20 {{DEFAULTSORT:Tortelli, Giovanni Italian Renaissance humanists 15th-century Latin writers 1400 births 1466 deaths People from Arezzo