Vincenzo Leonio (9 February 1650 – 16 January 1720) was an Italian lawyer and poet, and in 1690 was one of the original founders of the Academy of Arcadia.

Biography

Vincenzo Leonio was born to an aristocratic family in

Spoleto Spoleto (, also , , ; ) is an ancient city in the Italian province of Perugia in east-central Umbria on a foothill of the Apennines. It is south of Trevi, north of Terni, southeast of Perugia; southeast of Florence; and north of Rome. H ...

. He graduated in civil law, canon law, and theology from the

University of Macerata The University of Macerata () is a public university located in Macerata, Italy. It is one of the oldest universities in Europe that are still functioning. Overview It was founded in 1290 and is one of the oldest in Italy. The various Departmen ...

. After practicing law in Rome for a few years, he became a writer and founder in the ''

Accademia degli Arcadi The Accademia degli Arcadi or Accademia dell'Arcadia, "Academy of Arcadia" or "Academy of the Arcadians", is an Italian literary academy founded in Rome in 1690. The full Italian official name was Pontificia Accademia degli Arcadi. History Found ...

'' (Academy of the Arcadians), aiming to ''extirpate the ruling taste and oddities introduced into the poetic language''. For the academy, he took the name of ''Uranius Tegeaeus''. A great admirer of

Petrarch Francis Petrarch (; 20 July 1304 – 19 July 1374; ; modern ), born Francesco di Petracco, was a scholar from Arezzo and poet of the early Italian Renaissance, as well as one of the earliest Renaissance humanism, humanists. Petrarch's redis ...

, Leonio wrote poetry in both

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 ...

and

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 ...

. Some of his elegies were included in
Arcadum Carmina
', Rome, 1757. His prose works are collected in the ''Prose degli Arcadi'' (Roma 1718). Some of his works were published in the second volume of ''Vite degli Arcadi illustri''.Biografia universale antica e moderna ossia Storia per alfabeto
Volume 32, Compiled by a French Society of the Learned; Specific entry by Peries; Republished in Italian by Presso Giovanni Battista Missiaglia, Venice (1826); page 161.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Leoni Vincenzo 1650 births 1720 deaths 17th-century Italian poets 17th-century Italian male writers Italian male poets Members of the Academy of Arcadians People from Spoleto 18th-century Italian poets 18th-century Italian male writers University and college founders People from the Papal States