Desiderio Spreti (1414–1474) was an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

historian of contemporary

Ravenna Ravenna ( ; , also ; ) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire during the 5th century until its Fall of Rome, collapse in 476, after which ...

Biography

Born in Ravenna, he studied jurisprudence and was instructed in both Greek and Latin. He fled to

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 ...

from his native city during the rule of

Ostasio III da Polenta Ostasio III da Polenta (died 1447) was the last lord of Ravenna of the da Polenta family. The son of Obizzo da Polenta, he inherited Ravenna but under the control of a '' provveditore'' from the nearby Republic of Venice. In 1438 the condottiero ...

. Upon the deposition and exile of Ostasio in 1441, Spreti wrote chronicles of the events in his town, praising the Venetian role in deposing the Polenta rulers. The work titled ''De amplitudine, vastatione et instauratione urbis Ravennae libri III'', initially published posthumously in 1488–1489 in Venice as a quarto, and dedicated by Jacopo Franchi to Nicolao Foscaro. It was republished in Ravenna in 1793 as a two volume text, with a biography by Carrari. Dizionario biografico universale
Volume 5, by Felice Scifoni, Publisher Davide Passagli, Florence (1849); page 163.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spreti Desiderio 1414 births 1474 deaths 15th-century Italian historians Writers from Ravenna