Pietro Alcionio (or Petrus Alcyonius) (c. 1487 – 1527) was a

Venetian Venetian often means from or related to: * Venice, a city in Italy * Veneto, a region of Italy * Republic of Venice (697–1797), a historical nation in that area Venetians might refer to: * Masters of Venetian painting in 15th-16th centuries * ...

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

and classical scholar under the patronage of

Pope Clement VII 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 o ...

. He is known as a translator of

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

. He was wounded during the Sack of Rome in May 1527, and died later that year. His origins are unknown; his eloquence was praised in

Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus ( ; ; 28 October c. 1466 – 12 July 1536), commonly known in English as Erasmus of Rotterdam or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic priest and Catholic theology, theologian, educationalist ...

' letter to John Watson in 1516, the earliest surviving notice. After having studied

Greek Greek may refer to: 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 of all kno ...

in Venice under

Marcus Musurus Marcus Musurus (; ; – 1517) was a Greek scholar and philosopher born in Candia, Venetian Crete (modern Heraklion, Crete). Life The son of a rich merchant, Musurus became at an early age a pupil of Janus Lascaris in Venice. In 1505, Musurus w ...

Candia The name Candia can refer to: People * The House of Candia, a noble family from Savoy (14th-16th) * Alfredo Ovando Candía, 56th president of Bolivia * Antoinette Candia-Bailey, American academic administrator * Cecilia Maria de Candia, British-It ...

, he was employed for some time as a proofreader by the printer

Aldus Manutius Aldus Pius Manutius (; ; 6 February 1515) was an Italian printer and Renaissance humanism, humanist who founded the Aldine Press. Manutius devoted the later part of his life to publishing and disseminating rare texts. His interest in and preser ...

. Alcionio published at Venice, in 1521, a Latin translation of several of the works of

(dedicating the volume to

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 Me ...

). The Spanish scholar Sepúlveda, when shown the work, found it to contain many mistakes. In 1522 Alcionio was appointed professor of Greek at

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 ...

through the influence of Giulio de' Medici. That year he entrusted to the Aldine publish a dialogue in the nature of a eulogy on the theme of exile (''Medices legatus, sive de exsilio''), in a

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

nian Latin so finely honed that he was charged with

plagiarism Plagiarism is the representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 ''Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close ...

by his personal enemy,

Paulus Manutius Paulus Manutius (; ; 12 June 15126 April 1574) was a Venetian printer with a Renaissance Humanism, humanist education, the third son of the famous printer Aldus Manutius and his wife Maria Torresano. Life As a young man, Paulus Manutius moved t ...

. The accusation was that he had taken the finest passages in the work from Cicero's lost treatise ''De Gloria'' and had then destroyed the only existing copy of the original to escape detection. The 18th century scholar Abate

Girolamo Tiraboschi Girolamo Tiraboschi (; 18 December 1731 – 9 June 1794) was an Italian literary critic, the first historian of Italian literature. Biography Born in Bergamo, he studied at the Jesuit college in Monza, entered the order, and was appointed in 17 ...

in his ''Storia della letterature italiana'' demonstrated this to be groundless, but the smear has dogged the reputation of Alciono. When his patron became pope the following year under the title of

Clement VII 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 ...

, Alcionio followed him 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, ...

and remained there until his death. ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' (1911) remarked that "His contemporaries speak very unfavourably of Alcionio, and accuse him of haughtiness, uncouth manners, vanity and licentiousness." Alcionio is one of the four humanists in the circle of Clement VII selected by Kenneth Gouwens to illustrate the shock of cultural discontinuity and new sense of human vulnerability caused by the Sack of Rome that put a premature end to the

High Renaissance In art history, the High Renaissance was a short period of the most exceptional artistic production in the Italian states, particularly Rome, capital of the Papal States, and in Florence, during the Italian Renaissance. Most art historians stat ...

. Of Alcionio's numerous translations of Greek classics into Latin, which included the orations of

Isocrates Isocrates (; ; 436–338 BC) was an ancient Greek rhetorician, one of the ten Attic orators. Among the most influential Greek rhetoricians of his time, Isocrates made many contributions to rhetoric and education through his teaching and writte ...

and

Demosthenes Demosthenes (; ; ; 384 – 12 October 322 BC) was a Greek statesman and orator in ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide insight into the politics and cu ...

mentioned by

Ambrogio Leoni Ambrogio is a given name, and may refer to: *Saint Ambrogio (Ambrose), patron saint of Milan *Ambrogio Lorenzetti ( – 1348), painter *Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, the birth name of Pope Pius XI *Ambrogio Bergognone, Renaissance painter *Ambr ...

, only his Aristotle has survived (Simon Finch).

References

* *Simon Finch Rare Books Ltd, 2003. ''Catalogue, 52'': ''Aristotelis libros de Generatione...'' Venice: Bernardinus Vitales, April 152
Catalogue 52

References

Further reading