Niccolò Perotti
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Niccolò Perotti, also Perotto or Nicolaus Perottus (1429 – 14 December 1480) was an Italian
humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humanism" ha ...
and the author of one of the first modern Latin school grammars. Born in
Sassoferrato Sassoferrato is a town and ''comune'' of the province of Ancona in the Marche region of central-eastern Italy. It is one of I Borghi più belli d'Italia ("The most beautiful villages of Italy"). History Between Sassoferrato and Arcevia was t ...
(near
Fano Fano () is a city and ''comune'' of the province of Pesaro and Urbino in the Marche region of Italy. It is a beach resort southeast of Pesaro, located where the ''Via Flaminia'' reaches the Adriatic Sea. It is the third city in the region by pop ...
),
Marche Marche ( ; ), in English sometimes referred to as the Marches ( ) from the Italian name of the region (Le Marche), is one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. The region is located in the Central Italy, central area of the country, ...
, Perotti studied with Vittorino da Feltre in
Mantua Mantua ( ; ; Lombard language, Lombard and ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Italian region of Lombardy, and capital of the Province of Mantua, eponymous province. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the "Italian Capital of Culture". In 2 ...
in 1443, then in Ferrara with Guarino. He also studied at the
University of Padua The University of Padua (, UNIPD) is an Italian public research university in Padua, Italy. It was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from the University of Bologna, who previously settled in Vicenza; thus, it is the second-oldest ...
. At the age of eighteen he spent some time in the household of the Englishman William Grey, later
Lord High Treasurer The Lord High Treasurer was an English government position and has been a British government position since the Acts of Union of 1707. A holder of the post would be the third-highest-ranked Great Officer of State in England, below the Lord H ...
, who was travelling in Italy and was a student of Guarino. He transcribed texts for Grey and accompanied him to Rome when he moved there. He was a secretary of Cardinal Basilius Bessarion in 1447, and wrote a biography of him in 1472. From 1451 to 1453 he taught rhetoric and poetry at the
University of Bologna The University of Bologna (, abbreviated Unibo) is a Public university, public research university in Bologna, Italy. Teaching began around 1088, with the university becoming organised as guilds of students () by the late 12th century. It is the ...
. In 1452 he was made Poet Laureate in
Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...
by the Emperor Frederick III, as acknowledgment of the speech of welcome he had composed. In 1455 he became secretary to
Pope Callixtus III Pope Callixtus III (, , ; 31 December 1378 – 6 August 1458), born Alonso de Borja (), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 April 1455 to his death, in August 1458. Borgia spent his early career as a professor ...
. In 1456 he was ordained, and from 1458 he was Archbishop of Siponto (thus he is sometimes called Sipontino or Sipontinus). Occasionally he officiated also as papal governor in
Viterbo Viterbo (; Central Italian, Viterbese: ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in the Lazio region of Italy, the Capital city, capital of the province of Viterbo. It conquered and absorbed the neighboring town of Ferento (see Ferentium) in ...
(1464–69),
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(1471–2) and
Perugia Perugia ( , ; ; ) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber. The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area. It has 162,467 ...
(1474–77). He also travelled on diplomatic missions to Naples and Germany. On behalf of
Pope Nicholas V Pope Nicholas V (; ; 15 November 1397 – 24 March 1455), born Tommaso Parentucelli, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 6 March 1447 until his death in March 1455. Pope Eugene IV made him a Cardinal (Catholic Chu ...
he translated
Polybius Polybius (; , ; ) was a Greek historian of the middle Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , a universal history documenting the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean in the third and second centuries BC. It covered the period of 264–146 ...
' ''
Roman History The history of Rome includes the history of the Rome, city of Rome as well as the Ancient Rome, civilisation of ancient Rome. Roman history has been influential on the modern world, especially in the history of the Catholic Church, and Roman la ...
'', for which the Pope paid him five hundred
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s. He wrote a Latin school grammar, ''Rudimenta Grammatices'' (printed by Pannartz and Sweynheim in 1473), one of the earliest and most popular Renaissance Latin grammars, which attempted to exclude many words and constructions of medieval, rather than classical, origin. Described by
Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus ( ; ; 28 October c. 1466 – 12 July 1536), commonly known in English as Erasmus of Rotterdam or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic priest and Catholic theology, theologian, educationalist ...
as 'accurate, yet not pedantic', it became a bestseller of its day, going through 117 printings and selling 59,000 copies in Italy, Spain, Germany, France and the Low Countries by the end of the century; a further 12,000 copies of Bernardus Perger's adaptation of the work, ''Grammatica Nova'', were also sold. With Pomponio Leto, he produced a version of the poet
Martial Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial ; March, between 38 and 41 AD – between 102 and 104 AD) was a Roman and Celtiberian poet born in Bilbilis, Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his twelve books of '' Epigrams'', pu ...
's ''Epigrammaton'' in the 1470s. A book on Martial, ''Cornu Copiae'' – part commentary, part dictionary – which was completed by Perotti in 1478 and printed after his death, in 1489, was another bestseller. One commentator calls it "a massive encyclopedia of the classical world. Every verse, indeed every word of Martial's text was a hook on which Perotti hung a densely woven tissue of linguistic, historical and cultural knowledge". It was dedicated to the condottiere
Federico III da Montefeltro Federico da Montefeltro, also known as Federico III da Montefeltro KG (7 June 1422 – 10 September 1482), was one of the most successful mercenary captains (''condottieri'') of the Italian Renaissance, and lord of Urbino from 1444 (as Duke f ...
. He was also something of a controversialist and openly criticised for his work on Martial. He was involved in
Lorenzo Valla Lorenzo Valla (; also latinized as Laurentius; 1 August 1457) was an Italian Renaissance humanist, rhetorician, educator and scholar. He is best known for his historical-critical textual analysis that proved that the Donation of Constantine w ...
's dispute with the writer
Poggio Bracciolini Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (; 11 February 1380 – 30 October 1459), usually referred to simply as Poggio Bracciolini, was an Italian scholar and an early Renaissance humanism, Renaissance humanist. He is noted for rediscovering and recove ...
, and in 1453 he sent an assassin to murder Poggio, then Chancellor of
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. When the attempt failed and the Florentine government protested, he was forced by Bessarion, his employer, to write an apology to Poggio. Perotti was so incensed by the number of errors in Giovanni Andrea Bussi's printed edition of Pliny's ''
Natural History Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...
'' that he wrote to the Pope asking him to set up a board of learned correctors (such as himself) who would scrutinise every text before it could be printed. This has been described as the first call for censorship of the press. He himself was later accused by another scholar of introducing 275 serious errors in the text when he produced his own version of the work. A collection of fables by Phaedrus, not known from any other source, was discovered by Perotti in a manuscript which is now lost. Perotti's version has been preserved in the Vatican Library and is known as "Perotti's Appendix". Together with the Florentine bookseller
Vespasiano da Bisticci Vespasiano is a municipality in the Belo Horizonte metropolitan region in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, located north of Belo Horizonte. Vespasiano is home to Cidade do Galo, the training grounds of Campeonato Brasileiro Série A tea ...
, he collected books for the Papal library. He died in
Sassoferrato Sassoferrato is a town and ''comune'' of the province of Ancona in the Marche region of central-eastern Italy. It is one of I Borghi più belli d'Italia ("The most beautiful villages of Italy"). History Between Sassoferrato and Arcevia was t ...
on 14 December 1480.


References


Further reading

*''I rapporti tra Niccolò Perotti e Sassoferrato – tre nuove lettere e una vicenda sconosciuta'', Dario Cingolani, Istituto Internazionale di Studi Piceni, Sassoferrato, 1999 Perugia *''I reliquiari donati da Niccolò Perotti a Sassoferrato'', G. Barucca, Studi umanistici piceni, XII (1992), pag. 9–46 *''Dove morì Mons. Perotti?'', G. Battelli, Atti e memorie della Regia Deputazione di storia patria per le provincie delle Marche, serie VII, vol. I, Ancona, 1946, pp. 147–149. *''La Trebisonda del Perotti (una lettera a papa Niccolò V)'', S. Boldrini, Maia, 36 (1984), pp. 71–83 *''La patria del Perotti'', S. Boldrini, Studi umanistici piceni, VI (1986), pp. 9–17 *''Vecchi e nuovi elementi nella biografia di Niccolò Perotti'', A. Greco, Studi umanistici piceni, I (1981), pp. 77–91 *'Studi sul Cornu copiae di Niccolò Perotti'', F. Stok, ETS, Pisa, 2002. {{DEFAULTSORT:Perotti, Niccolo 1429 births 1480 deaths People from the Province of Ancona Italian Renaissance humanists 15th-century Italian writers Grammarians of Latin Poets laureate