Jacopo Tintoretto - Portrait of Alvise Cornaro - WGA22687

Alvise Cornaro, often Italianised Luigi (1484, 1467 or 1464 gives a birth date of 1467 – 8 May 1566), was a Venetian nobleman and patron of arts, also remembered for his four books of ''Discorsi'' (published 1583–95) about the secrets to living long and well with measure and sobriety.

Early life

Born in

Padua Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of t ...

, the son of an innkeeper, who claimed a connection to the noble Cornaro family of Venice, a connection he was at pains to prove, Cornaro expanded a modest stake from his mother's brother into a fortune based on his entrepreneurial skills, especially in

hydraulics Hydraulics (from Greek: Υδραυλική) is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid coun ...

that reclaimed

wetlands A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free ( anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

for farming, expressed in his ''Tratto di Acque'' ("Tract on Water management") of 1566.

Later life

As a patron, Cornaro sat to

Tintoretto Tintoretto ( , , ; born Jacopo Robusti; late September or early October 1518Bernari and de Vecchi 1970, p. 83.31 May 1594) was an Italian painter identified with the Venetian school. His contemporaries both admired and criticized the speed wit ...

for his portrait and guided the career of the Veronese artist-architect

Giovanni Maria Falconetto Giovanni Maria Falconetto (c. 1468–1535) was an Italian architect and artist. He designed among the first high Renaissance buildings in Padua, the '' Loggia Cornaro'', a garden '' loggia'' for Alvise Cornaro built as a Roman doric arcade. Al ...

, whose Loggia and Odeo Cornaro (1524) for Alvise's then suburban garden in Padua was an early

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 id ...

-style building in the

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. As financial advisor to the

Bishop of Padua The Roman Catholic Diocese of Padua ( it, Diocesi di Padova; la, Dioecesis Patavina) is an episcopal see of the Catholic Church in Veneto, northern Italy. It was erected in the 3rd century.Villa dei Vescovi ("Villa of the Bishops") at Luvigliano, in the Eugaean Hills, as well as his own Villa Cornaro in

Este Este may refer to: Geography * Este (woreda), a district in Ethiopia * Este, Veneto, a town in Italy * Este (Málaga), a district in Spain * Este (river), a river in Germany * Este (São Pedro), a parish in Portugal * Este (São Mamede), a par ...

. Later in life, from about 1538, Cornaro was acquainted with the young mason who was to become

Andrea Palladio Andrea Palladio ( ; ; 30 November 1508 – 19 August 1580) was an Italian Renaissance architect active in the Venetian Republic. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily Vitruvius, is widely considered to be one of ...

. Cornaro's own views on architecture are expressed in his ''Trattato dell'architettura'' ("Treatise on Architecture"). Cornaro constructed two theatres, the ''Odeo Cornaro'' in Padua and another in the gardens of his villa at Este.

Publications

When he was about 40, Cornaro found himself exhausted and in poor health, a condition he attributed to a hedonistic lifestyle with excessive eating, drinking, and sexual licentiousness. On the advice of doctors, he began to adhere to a

calorie restriction Calorie restriction (caloric restriction or energy restriction) is a dietary regimen that reduces intake of energy from caloric foods & beverages without incurring malnutrition. "Reduce" can be defined relative to the subject's previous intake be ...

diet specially for morbid obese/anorexia nervosa persons, centered on the "quantifying principle" of restricting himself to only 350g of food daily (including bread, egg yolk, meat, and soup) and 414 mL of wine. His book ''Discorsi della vita sobria''
Discourses On the Temperate Life
, which described his regimen, was extremely successful, and "was a true reconceptualization of old age. As late as the Renaissance it was largely the negative aspects of this phase of life which were emphasized ... Cornaro’s method offered the possibility for the first time not only of a long but also a worthwhile life." After his conversion to a holistic lifestyle, he remained in vigorous health well into old age. In 1550, when Cornaro claimed to be about 83, he was urged to write down his secrets of health, and its English translation, often referred to today under the title ''The Sure and Certain Method of Attaining a Long and Healthful Life'', went through numerous editions; he wrote three follow-ups in 1553, 1558, and 1562. The first three were published at

in 1558. They are written, says

Joseph Addison Joseph Addison (1 May 1672 – 17 June 1719) was an English essayist, poet, playwright and politician. He was the eldest son of The Reverend Lancelot Addison. His name is usually remembered alongside that of his long-standing friend Richard ...

, in the early 18th century periodical ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''Th ...

'' (No. 195), "with such a spirit of cheerfulness, religion and good sense, as are the natural concomitants of temperance and sobriety."

Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his c ...

criticized the work for ''mistaking the consequence with the cause,'' insisting that Cornaro's diet is not the cause of his long life, but rather that the cause of his long life - which Nietzsche gives as his slow

metabolism Metabolism (, from el, μεταβολή ''metabolē'', "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run c ...

- is the reason for his diet. Cornaro maintained that longevity was desirable and "God wills it". He rejected ascetics who believed man must suffer in this life to attain salvation in the next, arguing that there was no reason one could not enjoy both his earthly existence and his heavenly one. In addition, he rejected conventional wisdom that old age was a period of misery and decay, writing "And now some sensual and unreasonable individuals pretend that the existence of a man after he passes the age of 65 cannot be termed a living one, but a dead one. I will plainly demonstrate that they are mistaken, for I have a desire that all men should attain my age, which is the most beautiful period of life." He also commented that at the age of 83, his health was good, he could perform most functions unassisted, and he had a wide circle of younger friends and correspondents. Cornaro also firmly condemned those with a live-fast-and-die-young mentality, stating that "They don't stop and consider the virtue of ten more years of active life, at a point where we've reached a high point of experience and wisdom, two things that can only be honed with time." He died at Padua at age 98, according to his birth and death date in the 1911 ''Encyclopædia Britannica''; other sources give his age at death as 102. However, Cornaro deliberately overstated his age by consistently increasing amounts as he got older. Therefore, it seems safer to assume his birth date to be 1484, the one he declared in an esposto he lodged to Serenissima, both because of the degree of officialism imposed by that context and because that date is the numerical maximum among the ones he provided along his life. In the work known as '' Illustrissimi'', a collection of letters written by

Pope John Paul I Pope John Paul I ( la, Ioannes Paulus I}; it, Giovanni Paolo I; born Albino Luciani ; 17 October 1912 – 28 September 1978) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City from 26 August 1978 to his death 33 days later. Hi ...

when he was Patriarch of

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

, Cornaro serves as one of the "recipients" of the letters. There are 40 letters in all, mainly to people in Italian history and fiction, but also to internationally well known fictional and historical characters such as

Pinocchio Pinocchio ( , ) is a fictional character and the protagonist of the children's novel ''The Adventures of Pinocchio'' (1883) by Italian writer Carlo Collodi of Florence, Tuscany. Pinocchio was carved by a woodcarver named Geppetto in a Tuscan vil ...

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

Hippocrates Hippocrates of Kos (; grc-gre, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, Hippokrátēs ho Kôios; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history o ...

, and

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...

References

External links

* * *
Luigi Cornaro Online writings on the Temperate life
*Fischer, Sören: The Allegorical Landscape: Alvise Cornaro and his Self-Promotion by the Landscape Paintings in the Odeo Cornaro in Padua, in Kunstgeschichte, 2013
online-pdf
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cornaro, Alvise 1566 deaths Republic of Venice nobility Italian non-fiction writers Italian male writers

Luigi is a fictional character featured in video games and related media released by Nintendo. Created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, Luigi is portrayed as the younger fraternal twin brother and sidekick of Mario, Nintendo's mas ...

Writers from Padua Italian Renaissance writers 16th-century Italian writers Diet food writers Year of birth uncertain Male non-fiction writers