Nicola (or Niccolò) Villani (1590 – 2 October 1636) was an Italian

literary critic Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...

and

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

poet.

Biography

Nicola Villani was born in

Pistoia Pistoia (, is a city and ''comune'' in the Italian region of Tuscany, the capital of a province of the same name, located about west and north of Florence and is crossed by the Ombrone Pistoiese, a tributary of the River Arno. It is a typi ...

in 1590, of a noble family. The famous Medieval chronicler Giovanni Villani was among his ancestors. He studied in Florence, Siena and

Pisa Pisa ( , or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower, the cit ...

, then entered the service of Cardinal

Tiberio Muti Tiberio Muti (1574–1636) was a Roman Catholic cardinal. Biography On 15 Jan 1612, he was consecrated bishop by Scipione Caffarelli-Borghese, Archbishop of Bologna, with Fabio Biondi, Titular Patriarch of Jerusalem, and Antonio Ricci, Bishop ...

in Rome. He became a member of the

Accademia degli Umoristi The Accademia degli Umoristi (Academy of the Humorists) was a learned society of intellectuals, mainly noblemen, that significantly influenced the cultural life of 17th century Rome. It was briefly revived in the first half of the eighteenth cent ...

under the pseudonym Aldeano. After a journey to Greece, he took up residence in

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

. Around 1630, he returned to Rome, where he died in 1636.

Works

Nicola Villani is best known for his critical writings, in which he defended Giambattista Marino against the attacks of Tommaso Stigliani. Villani took up a moderate position in the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns that developed in Italy in the second and third decades of the 17th century. While he ranked Marino above Dante and Petrarch, he considered Homer and Virgil superior to all modern poets. Villani's ''Fiorenza difesa'' (Florence Defended), a regular, neoclassic

epic Epic commonly refers to: * Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation * Epic film, a genre of film with heroic elements Epic or EPIC may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and medi ...

inspired by

Trissino Trissino ( vec, Trisino) is a ''comune'' in the province of Vicenza, in northern Italy. Its mayor is Davide Faccio (member of Lega Nord, right). The town is famous all over Italy for its hockey team, the Gruppo Sportivo Hockey Trissino. Twin t ...

and

Chiabrera Gabriello Chiabrera (; 18 June 155214 October 1638) was an Italian poet, sometimes called the Italian Pindar. Endnote: The best editions of Chiabrera are those of Rome (1718, 3 vols. 8vo); of Venice (1731, 4 vols. 8vo); of Leghorn (1781, 5 vols., ...

, was left incomplete at his death and published posthumously in 1641. In 1634 Villani published the ''Ragionamento sopra la poesia giocosa de' Greci, de' Latini e de' Toscani'', a detailed study on the comic poetry of the ancients. Villani was one of the foremost Dante scholars of his generation. He was a successful writer of 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 e ...

and Italian facetious compositions, highly appreciated during the 17th and 18th centuries..

List of works

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Notes

Bibliography

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Villani, Nicola 17th-century Italian literature People from Pistoia 1590 births 1636 deaths Italian Baroque people Baroque writers