Vincenzo da Filicaja (30 December 164224 September 1707) was a Tuscan poet and politician. His poetry was compared to that of

Petrarch Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited ...

, and his association with the Accademia della Crusca gave him access to royal patronage. He served as governor of

Volterra Volterra (; Latin: ''Volaterrae'') is a walled mountaintop town in the Tuscany region of Italy. Its history dates from before the 8th century BC and it has substantial structures from the Etruscan, Roman, and Medieval periods. History Volt ...

and Pisa, successively, and finally in the Tuscan Senate.

Biography

Vincenzo da Filicaja was born in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

to a prominent aristocratic family. From an incidental notice in one of his letters, stating the amount of house rent paid during his childhood, his parents must have been in easy circumstances, and the supposition is confirmed by the fact that he enjoyed all the advantages of a liberal education, first under the

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of Florence, and then in the

University of Pisa The University of Pisa ( it, Università di Pisa, UniPi), officially founded in 1343, is one of the oldest universities in Europe. History The Origins The University of Pisa was officially founded in 1343, although various scholars place ...

. At Pisa he studied law. After a five years in Pisa he returned to Florence, where he married Anna, daughter of the senator and marquis Scipione Capponi, and withdrew to a small villa at "Al Filicaja" (he always referred to Al Filicaja with the former name of "Figline"), not far from the city. Abjuring the thought of writing amatory poetry due the premature death of a young lady to whom he had been attached, he occupied himself chiefly with literary pursuits, above all the composition of Italian and

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 ...

poetry. He was a member of the celebrated Accademia della Crusca and had good relations with the patrons of the Capponi family. At this academy he befriended Lorenzo Magalotti, Benedetto Menzini, Gori and Francesco Redi. The latter, author of ''Bacchus in Tuscany'', was influential in gaining Filicaja access to court patronage. Filicaja's rural seclusion was due to his limited means than to his rural tastes. But his poetical genius was fired by the

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from the Turks in 1683, and helped by Redi, who not only laid Filicaja's verses before his own sovereign, but had them transmitted with the least possible delay to the foreign princes whose noble deeds were praised. The first recompense came, however, not from those princes, but from Christina, the ex-queen of Sweden, who, from her circle of savants and courtiers at

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, spontaneously and generously announced to Filicaja her wish to bear the expense of educating his two sons, enhancing her kindness by the delicate request that it should remain a secret. Filicaja's fortunes now improved. The grand-duke of

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Cosimo III Cosimo III de' Medici (14 August 1642 – 31 October 1723) was Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1670 until his death in 1723, the sixth and penultimate from the House of Medici. He reigned from 1670 to 1723, and was the elder son of Grand Duke Ferdinan ...

, conferred on him an important office, the commissionership of official balloting. He was named governor of

in 1696, where he strenuously exerted himself to improve public morality. Both there and at Pisa, where he was subsequently governor in 1700, his popularity was so great that on his removal the inhabitants of both cities petitioned for his recall. He passed the close of his life at Florence; the grandduke raised him to the rank of senator, and he died in that city. He was buried in the family vault in the church of San Pietro in Florence, and a monument was erected to his memory by his sole surviving son Scipione Filicaja.

Assessment

According to the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Eleventh Edition:

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Filicaja, Vincenzo da 1642 births 1707 deaths Writers from Florence Italian poets 17th-century Italian poets Italian male poets

Biography

Assessment

See also

References