Marco Publio Fontana (1548–1609) was an Italian

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "human ...

and

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 wri ...

, fellow townsman and friend of

Torquato Tasso Torquato Tasso ( , also , ; 11 March 154425 April 1595) was an Italian poet of the 16th century, known for his 1591 poem ''Gerusalemme liberata'' ( Jerusalem Delivered), in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between ...

. He wrote the ''Apotheosis of Tasso'', a poem which extended his reputation through all Italy. His most popular work is ''Delphinis'', a Latin poem (1582).

Biography

Marco Publio Fontana was born at

Palosco Palosco (Bergamasque: ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Bergamo in the Italian region of Lombardy, located about east of Milan and about southeast of Bergamo. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 5,353 and an area ...

, in the

diocese of Brescia The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brescia ( la, Dioecesis Brixiensis) is a Latin rite suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Milan, in Lombardy (Northwestern Italy).Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and

Latin literature Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. The beginning of formal Latin literature dates to 240 BC, when the first stage play in Latin was performed in Rome. Latin literature ...

, especially in the poets (above all,

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...

). For mathematics, philosophy, and eventually

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...

, he was sent to

Brescia Brescia (, locally ; lmo, link=no, label= Lombard, Brèsa ; lat, Brixia; vec, Bressa) is a city and ''comune'' in the region of Lombardy, Northern Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Alps, a few kilometers from the lakes Garda and Iseo ...

, but continued to study the poets, as he did after transferring his interest to

theology 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 ...

and the Church Fathers. The first collected edition of his

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

poems (Bergamo, 1752) runs to well over three hundred pages. The chief work is the ''Delphinis'' in three books, a mythological epic of very little but historical interest today. This is followed by five books of ''Heroica carmina'' (verse epistles, epicedia, and the like). Besides Horatian lyrics, hendecasyllabics, and a hexameter poem on the birth of

Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

, there is also the ''Pastoralia carmina'' — six

eclogues The ''Eclogues'' (; ), also called the ''Bucolics'', is the first of the three major works of the Latin poet Virgil. Background Taking as his generic model the Greek bucolic poetry of Theocritus, Virgil created a Roman version partly by offer ...

and three ''lusus pastorales''. The fifth eclogue (''Doris et Alcon''; 78 hexameters) is by far the least attractive, being a sentimental love-story of little verve. The sixth eclogue (''Caprea'', “The She-Goat”; 103 hexameters) has far more to offer. Fontana composed this pastoral

elegy 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 ...

on the death of a friend's pet

goat The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a domesticated species of goat-antelope typically kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the a ...

. Marco Publio Fontana died on November 10, 1609. After his death the treatise ''Del proprio et ultimato fine del poeta'' was published (Bergamo 1615). His Latin poems, collected by Marco Antonio Foppa, were published with the title ''Poëmata omnia'', by Pierantonio Serassi in Bergamo in 1752, together with a ''Vita di Marco Publio Fontana'' by cardinal

Giuseppe Alessandro Furietti Giuseppe Alessandro Furietti (24 January 1685 – 14 January 1764) was a Roman Catholic cardinal, an antiquarian and philologist, and a collector of antiquities whose ambitious excavations at the site of Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli rewarded him ...

. “Fontana is one of the modern poets,” says Gian Vittorio Rossi, “who have approached nearest to Virgil in beauty of imagery and harmony of diction.”

References

Bibliography

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fontana, Marco Publio 17th-century Italian poets 1548 births 1609 deaths 16th-century Italian poets 16th-century male writers Italian male poets People from the Province of Bergamo Italian humanists