Lodovico Sergardi (b. at

Siena Siena ( , ; lat, Sena Iulia) is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena. The city is historically linked to commercial and banking activities, having been a major banking center until the 13th and 14th centuri ...

, 1660; d. at

Spoleto Spoleto (, also , , ; la, Spoletum) is an ancient city in the Italian province of Perugia in east-central Umbria on a foothill of the Apennines. It is S. of Trevi, N. of Terni, SE of Perugia; SE of Florence; and N of Rome. History Spolet ...

, 7 November 1726) 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 lette ...

priest and poet, chiefly known for his vivid latin satires against the jurist

Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina (20 January 1664 – 6 January 1718) was an Italian man of letters and jurist. He was born at Roggiano Gravina, a small town near Cosenza, in Calabria. Biography Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina was descended from a dist ...

, models of composition, which for nearly a decade kept the Roman public in an uproar.

Biography

Sergardi was born at Siena on 27 March 1660. As a youth he studied

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...

literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

, and

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

, and showed a passionate inclination toward poetry. In October 1684 he went to Rome to study

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 ...

. Soon after his arrival at Rome he began to make acquaintances among the ''literati'' of the city, and soon became the protégé of Prince Chigi. He befriended cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, and served him as Prefect of

St. Peter's Basilica The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican ( it, Basilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano), or simply Saint Peter's Basilica ( la, Basilica Sancti Petri), is a church built in the Renaissance style located in Vatican City, the papal e ...

when he was elected pope as

Alexander VIII Pope Alexander VIII ( it, Alessandro VIII; 22 April 1610 – 1 February 1691), born Pietro Vito Ottoboni, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 6 October 1689 to his death in February 1691. He is to date the las ...

in 1689. An active member of the

Republic of Letters The Republic of Letters (''Respublica literaria'') is the long-distance intellectual community in the late 17th and 18th centuries in Europe and the Americas. It fostered communication among the intellectuals of the Age of Enlightenment, or ''phil ...

, Sergardi soon became friends with such eminent scholars as

Jean Mabillon Dom Jean Mabillon, O.S.B., (; 23 November 1632 – 27 December 1707) was a French Benedictine monk and scholar of the Congregation of Saint Maur. He is considered the founder of the disciplines of palaeography and diplomatics. Early life Mabil ...

and

Francesco Bianchini Francesco Bianchini (13 December 16622 March 1729) was an Italian philosopher and scientist. He worked for the curia of three popes, including being ''camiere d'honore'' of Clement XI, and secretary of the commission for the reform of the cal ...

, the keeper of the Ottoboni Library. In 1691 Sergardi became a member of the

Academy of Arcadia The Accademia degli Arcadi or Accademia dell'Arcadia, "Academy of Arcadia" or "Academy of the Arcadians", was an Italian literary academy founded in Rome in 1690. The full Italian official name was Pontificia Accademia degli Arcadi. History F ...

under the pseudonym of “Licone”. During the seances of the Academy, Sergardi began a spirited debate with the famed jurist

. The hatred between them soon split the academy into supporting factions. Sergardi attacked Gravina in a series of bitter latin

satires 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 or ...

published under the pseudonym of ''Quintus Sectanus'' (1694). Sergardi's satires appeared in five editions between 1694 and 1701. They have the force, the poetical expression, and the freedom or, rather, licentiousness, of

Juvenal Decimus Junius Juvenalis (), known in English as Juvenal ( ), was a Roman poet active in the late first and early second century CE. He is the author of the collection of satirical poems known as the ''Satires''. The details of Juvenal's life ...

. The Satires were translated into

Terza rima ''Terza rima'' (, also , ; ) is a rhyming verse form, in which the poem, or each poem-section, consists of tercets (three line stanzas) with an interlocking three-line rhyme scheme: The last word of the second line in one tercet provides the rhy ...

as it is believed by the author himself. The latter part of the fourteenth is particularly fine. The Spanish scholar Manuel Martí published his ''Satyromastix'' in defence of Gravina. Sergardi died in Spoleto in November 1726.

References

Bibliography

* Amedeo Quondam, ''Le satire di Ludovico Sergardi. Contributo ad una storia della cultura romana tra Sei e Settecento'', in «La Rassegna della letteratura italiana» LXIII (1969), pp. 206-272 * * ''The Satires of Lodovico Sergardi''. An English Translation and Introduction by Ronald E. Pepin (Seventeenth-Century Texts and Studies 4) (New York, San Francisco, Bern, etc., 1994), Introduction pp. 1–13 and notes to each of the fourteen satires. *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sergardi, Lodovico Italian poets Italian male poets 1660 births 1726 deaths Writers from Siena 17th-century Latin-language writers 17th-century Italian poets Italian Latinists Latin-language writers from Italy Members of the Academy of Arcadians