Jacopo Passavanti

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File:Portret van architect en schrijver Jacopo Passavanti, RP-P-1909-5526.jpg
Jacopo Passavanti

Jacopo Passavanti OP (Latin: Jacobus Passavantius; c. 1302 – 15 June 1357) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest, writer and architect.

Biography

Jacopo Passavanti was born in Florence around 1302, the son of Banco and Francesca dei Tornaquinci. After becoming a Dominican friar in 1317,[1] he showed great intellectual ability and was sent to finish his theological training in Paris. Returning to Tuscany, he became prior first in Pistoia, then in San Miniato al Tedesco and later in the convent of Santa Maria Novella, where he also oversaw the ongoing construction of the great Gothic-style basilica. Under his direction, between 1338 and 1340, work began on the construction of a library, now dedicated to him.

He was a reader in theology and a famous preacher. He held various offices and was also vicar general of the dioceses of Florence between 1350 and 1352. The only work definitely written by his own hand is the Specchio di vera penitenza (Mirror of True Penance), where he collected the matter of sermons he gave in 1354 during Lent: a treatise with numerous examples to explain moral principles and sacred scriptures, which represent one of the earliest examples of instructive and moralizing fiction (especially novella). Some of these novellas have become famous: that of the Carbonaio di Niversa (Dist. III, ch. II), for example, juxtaposed with that of Nastagio degli Onesti contained in Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron.[2] "All of Passavanti's little paintings have a sharpness of outline, a skillful drama of development, and a spontaneous sense of plasticity and life that would be enough on their own to make one admire the inopacable Mirror."[3] This work also inspired the frescoes in the Green Cloister of the Santa Maria Novella complex. Passavanti's ideas were also represented graphically at one of Bonaiuto's frescoes in the nearby Spanish Chapel.[4]

His works as an architect include the original core of the Florence Charterhouse, the so-called Acciaiuoli Palace, for which we are left with the commission commissioning him to design by Niccolò Acciaioli.

Works

Jacopo Passavanti composed a distinguished work, the Specchio di vera penitenza (1495), a book in which he collected and ordered in five Distinctions, followed by some moral treatises (On pride, On humility, On vainglory, On science, On dreams), the things that around the well confessing people he had preached in several years, and especially "in the past Lent of the present year, that is, in 1354." These are simple, humane, persuasive reasonings, which often, according to the custom of medieval preaching, are infused with "examples,"[5] which the good friar derives (he tells us himself) from Elinando, Caesarius or other sources.[6] And here we have the greatest Passavanti, the thoroughbred novelist, who shows the things he describes, with an art that is sober and measured, and at the same time incisive. Famous is that page which, in competition with the Decameron, represents Purgatory on earth. Besides its literary value, Passavanti's work is a valuable source for the history of the religious spirit and customs of that century.

Along with German theologian Konrad Summenhart, he is one of the few authors to condemn the practice of insurance as immoral.[7]

With exact expletive Momigliano notes, regarding the example of the Count of Matiscona (Dist. II, ch. VI), how Passavanti is one of the most succinct writers Italy has had, and adds, "It is difficult to find anyone who is more rapid and evident than he in fright, anyone who can trace with such certainty the picturesque and psychological line of a scene and an action."[8]

Doubtful are the vulgarizations attributed to Passavanti: the Homily of Origen begins to be added to the Specchio from the Venetian edition of 1586: there are no recent studies on the problem of the legitimacy of its attribution. Under Passavanti's name has also come down to us the vernacularisation of some fragments from the third decade of Titus Livy[9] (the speeches of Hannibal and Scipio before the Battle of Zama [XXX 30–31], the oration of Fabius Maximus against Scipio and the reply of Scipio [XXVIII, 40–44]), found in a small notebook of vellum formerly belonging to Carlo Roberto Dati.[10] The attribution is repeated in another Florentine codex by Giuseppe Campori. "The above-mentioned codex leaves no uncertainty, since in it we read clearly volgarizato e tracto di Tito Livio per frate Jacopo Passavanti dell'ordine di frati predicatori."[11]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Dandolo, Tullio (1856). I Secoli dei Due Sommi Italiani, Dante e Colombo. Napoli: Giovanni Pedome Lauriel, p. 100.
  2. ↑ Gaspary, Adolf (1888). Geschichte der italienischen Literatur, Vol. 2. Berlin: Oppenheim.
  3. ↑ Renzo, Enrico de Sanctis (1943). Il Letto di Procruste, Cinquanta Noterelle di Letteratura Italiana da Jacopo Passavanti ad Alfredo Panzini. Milano: Istituto di Propaganda Libraria, p. 35.
  4. ↑ Devlin, Mary Aquinas (1929). "An English Knight of the Garter in the Spanish Chapel in Florence," Speculum, Vol. IV, No. 3, pp. 270–81.
  5. ↑ Crane, Thomas Frederick (1890). "Introduction." In: Jacques de Vitry, The Exempla or Illustrative Stories from the Sermones Vulgares. London: David Nutt, pp. cix–cx.
  6. ↑ Lee, A. Collingwood (1909). The Decameron: Its Sources and Analogues. London: David Nutt.
  7. ↑ Pesce, P. G. (1966). La Dottrina degli Antichi Moralisti circa la Liceità del Contratto di Assicurazione. Roma: Istituto Nazionale delle Assicurazioni, p. 40.
  8. ↑ Momigliano, Attilio (1945). Antologia della Letteratura Italiana: dalle origini alla fine del quattrocento. Milano: Principato Editore, p. 142.
  9. ↑ Maggini, Francesco (1916). "Le Prime Traduzioni di Livio," La Rassegna della Letteratura Italiana, Vol. XXIV, pp. 247–56, 420–30.
  10. ↑ Delcorno, Carlo (1994). "Professionisti della Parola: Predicatori, Giullari, Concionatori." In: Tra Storia e Simbolo: Studi Dedicati a Ezio Raimondi. Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, p. 19.
  11. ↑ Lodi, Luigi (1875). Catalogo dei codici e degli autografi posseduti dal marchese Giuseppe Campori, Vol. 1. Modena: Tipografia di P. Toschi, p. 10.

References

Aurigemma, Marcello (1959). "La Fortuna Critica dello Specchio di Vera Penitenza di Jacopo Passavanti." In: Studi in Onore di Angelo Monteverdi, Vol. 1. Modena: Società Tipografica Editrice Modenese, pp. 48–75.
Auzzas, Ginetta (1974). "Per il Testo dello "Specchio della vera Penitenza". Due Nuove Fonti Manoscritte," Lettere Italiane, Vol. XXVI, No. 3, 1974, pp. 261–87.
Auzzas, Ginetta (2003). "Dalla Predica al trattato: Lo "Specchio della Vera Penitenzia" di Iacopo Passavanti." In: Carlo Delcorno & Maria Luisa Doglio, Scrittura Religiosa. Forme Letterarie dal Trecento al Cinquecento. Bologna: Il Mulino, pp. 37–57.
Auzzas, Ginetta (2014). "Passavanti, Iacopo." In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol. 81. Roma: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.
Brown, J. Wood (1902). The Dominican Church of Santa Maria Novella at Florence. Edinburgh: Otto Schulze.
Corbari, Eliana (2013). Vernacular Theology. Domincan Sermons and Audience in Late Medieval Italy. Berlin–Boston: de Gruyter.
Cornagliotti, Anna (1976). "Un Nuovo Codice dello Specchio di Vera Penitenza," Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, Vol. CLIII, pp. 376–86.
Debenedetti, Santorre (1935). "Passavanti, Iacopo." In: Enciclopedia Italiana. Roma: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.
Di Pierro, Carmine (1906). "Contributo alla Biografia di Frà Jacopo Passavanti," Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, Vol. XLVII, pp. 1–24.
Goffis, Cesare Federico (1970). "Passavanti, Iacopo." In: Enciclopedia Dantesca. Roma: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.
Kaeppeli, Tommaso (1962). "Opere Latine Attribuite a Jacopo Passavanti, con un appendice sulle opere di Nicoluccio di Ascoli, O.P.," Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, Vol. XXXII, pp. 145–79.
Meiss, Millard (1969). "Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death." In: Readings in Art History, Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
Minocchi, Salvatore (1904). "La Bibbia nella Storia d'Italia," Studi Religiosi, Vol. IV, p. 449–88.
Monteverdi, Angelo (1913). "Gli Esempi dello "Specchio di Vera Penitenza"," Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, Vol. LXI, pp. 266–344.
Rossi, Giancarlo (1991). "La Redazione Latina dello Specchio della Vera Penitenza," Studi di Filologia Italiana, Vol. XLIX, pp. 29–58.
Sorrentino, Andrea (1927). "L'Unità Concettuale dei Canti XI e XII del Paradiso e una Leggenda Riferita dal Passavanti," Giornale Dantesco, Vol. XXX, pp. 45–51.

External links

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