Paolo Giovio (also spelled ''Paulo Jovio'';
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 ...
: ''Paulus Jovius''; 19 April 1483 – 11 December 1552)
was an Italian physician, historian, biographer, and prelate.
Early life
Little is known about Giovio's youth. He was a native of
Como
Como (, ; , or ; ) is a city and (municipality) in Lombardy, Italy. It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como. Nestled at the southwestern branch of the picturesque Lake Como, the city is a renowned tourist destination, ce ...
; his family was from the
Isola Comacina
Isola Comacina is a small wooded island of Italy’s Lake Como, administratively a part of the commune of Ossuccio. It is located close to the western shore of the Como arm of the lake in front of a gulf known as ''Zoca de l'oli'', a Lombard n ...
of
Lake Como
Lake Como ( , ) also known as Lario, is a lake of glacial origin in Lombardy, Italy. It has an area of , making it the third-largest lake in Italy, after Lake Garda and Lake Maggiore. At over deep, it is one of the deepest lakes in Europe. ...
. He belonged to the Zanobi, one of the oldest and most prominent families in Como, and was devoted to his cultural patrimony, especially to Como’s great historians, the
elder and
younger Pliny.
His father, a
notary
A notary is a person authorised to perform acts in legal affairs, in particular witnessing signatures on documents. The form that the notarial profession takes varies with local legal systems.
A notary, while a legal professional, is distin ...
, died around 1500. His guardian and mentor was his elder brother, Benedetto Giovio (1471– c. 1545), a prominent civic figure, local historian and antiquarian who, among other projects, was involved with
Cesare Cesariano
240px, The 1521 Italian edition of Vitruvius' , translated and illustrated by Cesare Cesariano.
Cesare di Lorenzo Cesariano (December 10, 1475 – March 30, 1543) was an Italian painter, architect and architectural theorist. He authored th ...
on the translation and annotation of
Vitruvius
Vitruvius ( ; ; –70 BC – after ) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work titled . As the only treatise on architecture to survive from antiquity, it has been regarded since the Renaissan ...
’ ''De architectura'' (Como, 1521).
In compliance with his brother’s wishes, Paolo trained as a
physician
A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...
in
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
Padua
Padua ( ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Veneto, northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Padua. The city lies on the banks of the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice and southeast of Vicenza, and has a population of 20 ...
(1498–1507), studying with
Marcantonio della Torre
Marcantonio della Torre (1481–1511) was a Renaissance Professor of Anatomy who lectured at the University of Pavia and at the University of Padua.
It is believed that della Torre and Leonardo da Vinci, who studied human anatomy by dissecting cor ...
and
Pietro Pomponazzi
Pietro Pomponazzi (16 September 1462 – 18 May 1525) was an Italian philosopher. He is sometimes known by his Latin name, ''Petrus Pomponatius''.
Biography
Pietro Pomponazzi was born in Mantua and began his education there. He completed h ...
. He graduated in 1511.
Career
Giovio worked as physician in Como but, after the plague spread in that city he moved to
Rome
Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
, settling there in 1513. He remained at the papal court for most of his career, moving among the great political and intellectual figures of the day and becoming a member of the Accademia della Virtù and the
.
Pope Leo X
Pope Leo X (; born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, 11 December 14751 December 1521) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 9 March 1513 to his death in December 1521.
Born into the prominent political and banking Med ...
assigned him a ''cathedra'' (chair) of
Moral Philosophy
Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics, applied et ...
and, later, that of
Natural Philosophy
Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe, while ignoring any supernatural influence. It was dominant before the develop ...
in the Roman university. He was also knighted by the Pope. In the same period he started to write historical essays. He wrote a
memoir
A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autob ...
of Leo soon after his death.
In 1517, Giovio was appointed as the personal physician for Cardinal
Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici
Pope Clement VII (; ; born Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici; 26 May 1478 – 25 September 1534) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 November 1523 to his death on 25 September 1534. Deemed "the most unfortunate of ...
(the future Pope Clement VII). In the field he wrote some treatises, like the ''De optima victus ratione'', in which he expresses his doubts about the current
pharmacology
Pharmacology is the science of drugs and medications, including a substance's origin, composition, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, therapeutic use, and toxicology. More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur betwee ...
, and the need to improve prevention before the cure.
Giovio helped Clement VII during the 1527
sack of Rome. From 1526 to 1528, he stayed on the island of
Ischia
Ischia ( , , ) is a volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It lies at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples, about from the city of Naples. It is the largest of the Phlegrean Islands. Although inhabited since the Bronze Age, as a Ancient G ...
as
Vittoria Colonna
Vittoria Colonna (April 149225 February 1547), marchioness of Pescara, was an Italian noblewoman and poet. As an educated and married noblewoman whose husband was in captivity, Colonna was able to develop relationships within the intellectual ci ...
's guest. In 1528, he became
bishop of Nocera de' Pagani. Giovio wrote an account of
Dmitry Gerasimov's embassy to Clement VII, which related detailed geographical data on
Muscovy Muscovy or Moscovia () is an alternative name for the Principality of Moscow (1263–1547) and the Tsardom of Russia (1547–1721).
It may also refer to:
*Muscovy Company, an English trading company chartered in 1555
*Muscovy duck (''Cairina mosch ...
.
In 1536, Giovio had a
villa
A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house that provided an escape from urban life. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the f ...
built for him on Lake Como, which he called ''Museo'', and which he used for his collection of portraits of famous soldiers and men of letters.
After Clement's death, he retired. As well as paintings, he sought antiquities, etc., and his collection was one of the first to include pieces from the
New World
The term "New World" is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: ...
. A set of copies of the paintings from the collection, now known as the
Giovio Series
The Giovio Series, also known as the Giovio Collection or Giovio Portraits, is a series of 484 portraits assembled by the 16th-century Italian Renaissance historian and biographer Paolo Giovio. It includes portraits of literary figures, rulers, s ...
, is on display in the
Uffizi Gallery
The Uffizi Gallery ( ; , ) is a prominent art museum adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums and the most visited, it is also one of ...
.
Death
In 1549,
Pope Paul III
Pope Paul III (; ; born Alessandro Farnese; 29 February 1468 – 10 November 1549) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 13 October 1534 to his death, in November 1549.
He came to the papal throne in an era follo ...
denied Giovio the title of
Bishop of Como, and he moved to
Florence
Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025.
Florence ...
, where he died in 1552.
Works
Monument to Paolo Giovo by , in San Lorenzo di Firenze">San Lorenzo Basilica,
Florence
Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025.
Florence ...
Giovio is chiefly known as the author of a celebrated work of contemporary history, ''Historiarum sui temporis libri XLV'', of a collection of lives of famous men, ''Vitae virorum illustrium'' (1549‑57), and of ''Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium'',
[ (Florence, 1554), which may be translated as ''Praise of Men Illustrious for Courage in War'' (1554).
Giovio is best remembered as a chronicler of the ]Italian Wars
The Italian Wars were a series of conflicts fought between 1494 and 1559, mostly in the Italian Peninsula, but later expanding into Flanders, the Rhineland and Mediterranean Sea. The primary belligerents were the House of Valois, Valois kings o ...
. In his work, ''La prima parte dell'historie del suo tempo'', Giovio claimed that Italian soldiers were despised following the Leagues' defeat at Fornovo. His eyewitness accounts of many of the battles form one of the most significant primary sources for the period. Many pages of his work are devoted to Skanderbeg
Gjergj Kastrioti (17 January 1468), commonly known as Skanderbeg, was an Albanians, Albanian Albanian nobility, feudal lord and military commander who led Skanderbeg's rebellion, a rebellion against the Ottoman Empire in what is today Albania, ...
.
He is the oldest biographer of Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), now generally known in English as Raphael ( , ), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of paintings by Raphael, His work is admired for its cl ...
.
Giovio's notable work include:
*''De romanis piscibus'' (1524)
*''De legatione Basilii Magni Principis Moschoviae'' (1525)
*'' Comentario de le cose de' Turchi'' (1532)
*
Elogia virorum litteris illustrium
' or ''Elogia doctorum virorum'' (1546)
*''Descriptio Britanniae, Scotiae, Hyberniae et Orchadum'' (1548)
*''Vitae'' (1549)
*
Pauli Jovii historiarum sui temporis
' (1550–52)
*'' Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium'' (1554), as an eyewitness of many people involved in the Italian Wars
The Italian Wars were a series of conflicts fought between 1494 and 1559, mostly in the Italian Peninsula, but later expanding into Flanders, the Rhineland and Mediterranean Sea. The primary belligerents were the House of Valois, Valois kings o ...
including Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba
Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba (1 September 1453 – 2 December 1515) was a Spanish general and statesman. He led military campaigns during the Conquest of Granada and the Italian Wars, after which he served as Viceroy of Naples. For his e ...
*
Dialogo dell'imprese militari et amorose
' (1555)
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
External links
*
(English translation, with life of Paulus Jovius)
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Giovio, Paolo
1483 births
1552 deaths
People from the Province of Como
16th-century Italian physicians
Bishops in Campania
16th-century Italian Roman Catholic bishops
16th-century Italian historians
16th-century Italian male writers
Italian male non-fiction writers
Italian military historians
Italian art collectors