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JOVIANUS PONTANUS (1426-1503)

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Originally appearing in Volume V22, Page 63 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JOVIANUS See also:

PONTANUS (1426-1503)  , See also:Italian humanist and poet, was See also:born in 1426 at Cerreto in the duchy of See also:Spoleto, where his See also:father was murdered in one of the frequent See also:civil brawls which then disturbed the See also:peace of Italian towns . His See also:mother escaped with the boy to See also:Perugia, and it was here that Pontano received his first instruction in See also:languages and literature . Failing to recover his patrimony, he abandoned See also:Umbria, and at the See also:age of twenty-two established himself at See also:Naples, which continued to be his See also:chief See also:place of See also:residence during a See also:long and prosperous career . He here began a See also:close friendship with the distinguished See also:scholar, See also:Antonio Beccadelli, through whose See also:influence he gained See also:admission to the royal See also:chancery of See also:Alphonso the Magnanimous . Alphonso discerned the singular gifts of the See also:young scholar, and made him See also:tutor to his sons . Pontano's connexion with the Aragonese See also:dynasty as See also:political adviser, military secretary and See also:chancellor was henceforth a close one; and the most doubtful passage in his See also:diplomatic career is when he welcomed See also:Charles VIII. of See also:France upon the entry of that See also:king into Naples in 1495, thus showing that he was too ready to abandon the princes upon whose generosity his fortunes had been raised . Pontano illustrates in a marked manner the position of See also:power to which men of letters and learning had arrived in See also:Italy . He entered Naples as a penniless scholar . He was^ almost immediately made the See also:companion and trusted friend of its See also:sovereign, loaded with honours, lodged in a See also:fine See also:house, enrolled among the nobles of the See also:realm, enriched, and placed at the very height of social importance . Following the example of Pomponio Leto in See also:Rome and of Cosimo de' See also:Medici at See also:Florence, Pontano founded an See also:academy for the meetings of learned and distinguished men . This became the centre of See also:fashion as well as of erudition in the See also:southern See also:capital, and subsisted long after its founder's See also:death . In 1461 he married his first wife, Adriana Sassone, who See also:bore him one son and three daughters before her death in 1491 .

Nothing distinguished Pontano more than the strength of his domestic feeling . He was passionately attached to his wife and See also:

children; and, while his friend Beccadelli signed the licentious verses of Hermaphroditus, his own Muse celebrated in liberal but loyal strains the pleasures of conjugal See also:affection, the See also:charm of See also:infancy and the sorrows of a See also:husband and a father in the loss of those he loved . Not long after the death of his first wife Pontano took in second See also:marriage a beautiful girl of See also:Ferrara, who is only known to us under the name of Stella . Although he was at least sixty-five years of age at this See also:period, his poetic See also:faculty displayed itself with more than usual warmth and lustre in the glowing See also:series of elegies, styled See also:Eridanus, which he poured forth to commemorate the rapture of this See also:union . Stella's one See also:child, Lucilio, survived his See also:birth but fifty days; nor did his mother long remain to comfort the scholar's old age . Pontano had already lost his only son by the first marriage; therefore his declining years were solitary . He died in 1503 at Naples, where a remarkable See also:group of terra-See also:cotta figures, See also:life-sized and painted, still adorns his See also:tomb in the See also:church of See also:Monte Oliveto . He is there represented together with his See also:patron Alphonso and his friend Sannazzaro in See also:adoration before the dead See also:Christ . As a diplomatist and See also:state See also:official Pontano played a See also:part of some importance in the affairs of southern Italy and in the Barons' See also:War, the See also:wars with Rome, and the See also:expulsion and restoration of the Aragonese dynasty . But his chief claim upon the attentions of posterity is as a scholar . His writings See also:divide themselves into See also:dissertations upon such topics as the " Liberality of Princes " or " Ferocity," composed in the rhetorical See also:style of the See also:day, and poems . He was distinguished for See also:energy of Latin style, for vigorous intellectual See also:powers, and for the faculty, rare among his contemporaries, of expressing the facts of See also:modern life, the actualities of See also:personal emotion, in See also:language sufficiently classical yet always characteristic of the See also:man .

His See also:

prose See also:treatises are more useful to students of See also:manners than the similar lucubrations of See also:Poggio . Yet it was principally as a Latin poet that he exhibited his full strength . An ambitious didactic See also:composition in hexameters, entitled Urania, embodying the astronomical See also:science of the age, and adorning this high theme with brilliant mythological episodes, won the admiration of Italy . It still remains a See also:monument of fertile invention,exuberant facility and energetic handling of material . Not less excellent is the didactic poem on See also:orange trees, De horlis Hesperidum . His most See also:original compositions in See also:verse, however, are elegiac and hendecasyllabic pieces on personal topics—the De conjugali amore, Eridanus, Tumuli, Naeniae, Baiae, &c.—in which he uttered his vehemently passionate emotions with a warmth of southern colouring, an evident sincerity, and a truth of See also:painting from reality which excuse their erotic freedom . Pontano's prose and poems were printed by the Aldi at See also:Venice . For his life see Ardito, Giovanni Pontano e i suoi tempi (Naples, 1871) ; for his place in the See also:history of literature, See also:Symonds, See also:Renaissance in Italy . (J . A .

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