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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:
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: 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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