Tommaso de Mezzo ( la, Thomae Medii) (c.1447 – ?) was a Venetian noble and

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

. He is mostly remembered for his

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

'' Epirota'' (the Albanian). De Mezzo, son of Marino de Tommaso, was born circa 1447 in an influential family, originating in

Jesolo Jesolo or Iesolo (; vec, Gèxoło) is a seaside resort town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Venice, Italy of 26,447 inhabitants. With around six million visitors per year, Jesolo is one of the largest beach resorts in the country, and ...

and having settled 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 ...

in 975. Various members of his family had served as ambassadors, generals, and in the Great Council (''Gran Consiglio''). Tommaso himself is not mentioned in any official document until 1465. He collected

codex The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...

es, and was friends with known Venetian and other intellectuals of the humanistic period, including

Ermolao Barbaro Ermolao or Hermolao Barbaro, also Hermolaus Barbarus (21 May 145414 June 1493), was an Italian Renaissance scholar. Education Ermolao Barbaro was born in Venice, the son of Zaccaria Barbaro, and the grandson of Francesco Barbaro (politician), Fr ...

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (24 February 1463 – 17 November 1494) was an Italian Renaissance nobleman and philosopher. He is famed for the events of 1486, when, at the age of 23, he proposed to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, ...

, and Giovan Battista Scita.M. Foscarini, Della letteratura veneziana libri VIII, I, Padova 1752, p. 69
De Mezzo became known with his comedy ''Epirota'' of 1483, dedicated to his friend Barbaro. It follows the track of the classic humanistic comedies, itself inspired by

Plautus Titus Maccius Plautus (; c. 254 – 184 BC), commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the gen ...

works. He was also the author of at least one other comedy, which has been lost.
''Epirota'' is of special importance for the

Albanian language Albanian ( endonym: or ) is an Indo-European language and an independent branch of that family of languages. It is spoken by the Albanians in the Balkans and by the Albanian diaspora, which is generally concentrated in the Americas, Europ ...

since it contains text in Albanian, one of the earliest examples in written form to have survived.

Notes and references

Notes: References: {{authority control 1447 births Republic of Venice nobility 15th-century Venetian writers Italian dramatists and playwrights 15th-century Latin writers Italian Renaissance humanists