Guarino Veronese or Guarino da Verona (1374 – 14 December 1460) was an Italian

classical scholar Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "human ...

, and

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...

of ancient Greek texts during the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...

. In the republics of

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

and

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

he studied under Manuel Chrysoloras ( 1350–1415), renowned professor of

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and ambassador of the

Byzantine emperor This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, to its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as ...

Manuel II Palaiologos, the first scholar to hold such course in

medieval Italy The history of Italy in the Middle Ages can be roughly defined as the time between the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the Italian Renaissance. The term "Middle Ages" itself ultimately derives from the description of the period of "obsc ...

Biography

He was born in

Verona Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city municipality in the region and the second largest in nor ...

, and later studied

Greek language Greek ( el, label= Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy ( Calabria and Salento), souther ...

and

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

, at the time capital of the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

, where for five years he was the pupil of the renowned

Byzantine Greek Medieval Greek (also known as Middle Greek, Byzantine Greek, or Romaic) is the stage of the Greek language between the end of classical antiquity in the 5th–6th centuries and the end of the Middle Ages, conventionally dated to the Ottoman c ...

scholar, Renaissance humanist, and professor Manuel Chrysoloras. He was also a student of the Italian professor

Giovanni Conversini Giovanni Conversini, also known as Giovanni di Conversino or John of Ravenna (Buda, 1343 – Muggia, 27 September 1408), was an Italian educator, whose students included Vittorino da Feltre and Guarino da Verona. He is one of two individuals of t ...

. When he set out to return home, he had with him two cases of precious manuscripts of ancient Greek texts which he had taken great pains to collect. It is said that the loss of one of these by shipwreck caused him such distress that his hair turned grey in a single night. On arriving back in Italy, he earned a living as a teacher of Greek, first in

and afterwards in

and

. In 1436, he became a professor of Greek in Ferrara through the patronage of Leonello, Marquis of Este. His method of instruction was renowned and it attracted many students from Italy and the rest of

medieval Europe In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

as distant as the

Kingdom of England The Kingdom of England (, ) was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from 12 July 927, when it emerged from various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. On ...

. Many of them, notably the Italian Renaissance humanist and teacher

Vittorino da Feltre Vittorino da Feltre (1378February 2, 1446) was an Italian humanist and teacher. He was born in Feltre, Belluno, Republic of Venice and died in Mantua. His real name was Vittorino Rambaldoni. It was in Vittorino that the Renaissance idea of the com ...

, afterwards became well-known scholars and, as Vittorino would later, he would support poor students from his own funds. From 1438 on, he served as interpreter for the Byzantine Greek participants at the

ecumenical council An ecumenical council, also called general council, is a meeting of bishops and other church authorities to consider and rule on questions of Christian doctrine, administration, discipline, and other matters in which those entitled to vote ar ...

s of Ferrara and Florence (1431–1449). He was particularly influenced by the Byzantine Greek scholar and philosopher

Gemistus Pletho Georgios Gemistos Plethon ( el, Γεώργιος Γεμιστός Πλήθων; la, Georgius Gemistus Pletho /1360 – 1452/1454), commonly known as Gemistos Plethon, was a Greek scholar and one of the most renowned philosophers of the late By ...

. He died in Ferrara in 1460. His principal works are translations of

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called " Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could s ...

and of some of the ''Lives'' of

Plutarch Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for hi ...

, a compendium of the Greek grammar of Chrysoloras, and a series of commentaries on

Persius Aulus Persius Flaccus (; 4 December 3424 November 62 AD) was a Roman poet and satirist of Etruscan origin. In his works, poems and satires, he shows a Stoic wisdom and a strong criticism for what he considered to be the stylistic abuses of hi ...

Martial Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial ; March, between 38 and 41 AD – between 102 and 104 AD) was a Roman poet from Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his twelve books of ''Epigrams'', published in Rome between AD 86 and ...

, the

Satires of Juvenal The ''Satires'' () are a collection of satirical poems by the Latin author Juvenal written between the end of the first and the early second centuries A.D. Juvenal is credited with sixteen known poems divided among five books; all are in the ...

, and on some of the writings of

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...

and

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...

. The layout of the Studiolo of the Palazzo Belfiore is also attributed to him. He corresponded with the writer and humanist

Isotta Nogarola Isotta Nogarola (1418–1466) was an Italian writer and intellectual who is said to be the first major female humanist and one of the most important humanists of the Italian Renaissance. She inspired generations of artists and writers, among them ...

References

Sources

* *
''Guarino da Verona''
from

Catholic Encyclopedia The ''Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church'' (also referred to as the ''Old Catholic Encyclopedia'' and the ''Original Catholic Encyclopedia'') i ...

Guarino da Verona in Ferrara
* *Durant, Will. (1953). ''The Renaissance''. The Story of Civilization. 5. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 269. * Omont, Henri: Portrait de Guarino de Veronese, Bulletin de la Société Nationale des Antiquaires de France, 1904, 323–326. https://archive.org/stream/bulletin1904sociuoft#page/n339/mode/2up (Book mentioned in this article, there is today: University of Minnesota, James Ford Bell Library, ms. 1460/f St.) {{DEFAULTSORT:Guarino da Verona 1370 births 1460 deaths 14th-century Italian writers 14th-century Latin writers 14th-century translators 14th-century Venetian writers 15th-century Italian writers 15th-century Latin writers 15th-century translators 15th-century Venetian writers Byzantine Empire–Republic of Venice relations Expatriates of the Republic of Venice Greek–Latin translators Interpreters Italian classical scholars Italian Renaissance humanists Italian Renaissance writers Translators of Ancient Greek texts Translators of Homer Venetian Renaissance humanists Writers from Verona