Giorgio Valla (

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

: ''Georgius Valla'';

Piacenza Piacenza (; ; ) is a city and (municipality) in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Piacenza, eponymous province. As of 2022, Piacenza is the ninth largest city in the region by population, with more ...

1447–

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

January 23, 1500) was an Italian academic, mathematician, philologist and translator.

Life

He was born in Piacenza in 1447. He was the son of Andrea Valla and Cornelia Corvini. At the age of fifteen Giorgio Valla moved to

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

, where he was educated by the famous Neoplatonic Hellenist Constantine Lascaris. Among his works is a Latin translation of the Hieroglyphica of Horapollo and Aristarchus's ''On the Sizes and Distances'' (1488). The ''

De expetendis et fugiendis rebus ''De expetendis et fugiendis rebus'' (On seeking and avoiding things) is an encyclopedia which was compiled by Giorgio Valla in 49 books. Valla died in 1500 and the work was then published by his adopted son, Giovanni Pietro in 1501. It was p ...

'' is the most valuable work produced by Valla. He lectured in physics and in medicine at

Pavia Pavia ( , ; ; ; ; ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, in Northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino (river), Ticino near its confluence with the Po (river), Po. It has a population of c. 73,086. The city was a major polit ...

and

. His ''magnum opus'' included Boethian arithmetic and music, and

Euclidean geometry Euclidean geometry is a mathematical system attributed to ancient Greek mathematics, Greek mathematician Euclid, which he described in his textbook on geometry, ''Euclid's Elements, Elements''. Euclid's approach consists in assuming a small set ...

, law and rhetoric, among other matters. In 1496, he was arrested for 8 months due to suspicions of conspiring with persons of the Trivulzio family who were allied with the king of France, Charles VIII.Nuovo Dizionario Istorico
Va = Uz, Tomo XXI, translated from French, Remondini of Venice (1796); page 37.

Works

Treatises

* ''De orthographia'' (1495), Vienna. * ''De expedita ratione argumentandi'' (1498; also Basel, 1529). * ''Logica'' (1498), Venice. * ''De simplicium natura'' (1528) Strassburg (on pharmacology). * ''Georgii Vallae Placentini viri class. De expetendis et fugiendis rebus'' (1501, 40 books in 2 vols.), pr. Aldus Manutius, Venice.

Commentaries, critical editions and translations

* ''Hori Apollinis Niliaci Hieroglyphica'', per Georgium Vallam in latinum translata
ms. Vat. lat. 3898
* ''Problemata Alexandri Aphrodisei, per Georgium Vallam in latinum translata'', Venice: Antonio de Strada, 1488. * ''Galeni introductorium ad medicinam Georgio Valla interprete'' (1491), pr. Bartholomaeus de Zanis, Venice. * ''Opus magnorum moralium Aristotelis'' (1522), with Latin translation by Girardo Ruffo Vaccariensi, Paris. * ''Juvenalis cum tribus commentariis'' (1485, repr. 1495), Venice. * ''M. Tullii Ciceronis epistolae familiares'' (1505), Lyons. * ''Preface'' to the ''Commentary on Juvenal'' of Antonio Mancinelli (1494), Venice.

Life

Works

Treatises

Commentaries, critical editions and translations

References

Further reading