La biblioteca di Pietro Crinito: Manoscritti e libri a stampa della raccolta libraria di un umanista fiorentino by Michaelangiola Marchiaro (review)

As Michaelangiola Marchiaro explains in her introduction to the volume, she publishes here the most significant results of her doctoral dissertation devoted to the Florentine humanist Pietro Crinito (1474–1507) and his book collection. Her work won the international prize for the doctoral dissertations of the Fundación Ana María Aldama Roy de Estudios Latinos that sponsored her publication. The aim of the research was to identify and catalogue, systematically and for the first time, all the manuscripts written by Crinito and also the codices and incunables he owned. This series of books had never been investigated as a whole by the critics who focused mainly on the part of the collection formed by those codices previously in the hands of a more prominent humanist, Angelo Poliziano. As a result, Crinito was known to the scholars just because he had the privilege of inheriting and keeping some of the papers of Poliziano. Marchiaro consequently intends to document Crinito’s literary and philosophical interests and his prolific activity, highlighting for the first time his role as an active intellectual in the Renaissance Florentine context. The work is addressed to the specialists who are already skilled in the field but a deeper description of Florence at the time when the city was uniquely enlivened by the revival of classical literature, art, and architecture would have probably helped also the non-specialist readers appreciate more the research enjoying the distinctive nature of Florentine humanism and its protagonists.

The first chapter of the volume contains the biography of Pietro Crinito. The information on his life, education, and knowledge derived from the examined manuscripts update the entry on Crinito published in the Dizionario biografico degli Italiani in 1990. The investigation into his book collection lets us know he was a learned and enlightened man who came into contact with many distinguished people of high intellect and good education. The list of tutors he was taught by is particularly interesting: first, Paolo Sassi da Roncigliano who had instructed him in grammar from 1486 as the initial part of a manuscript in the Biblioteca Riccardiana in Florence testifies to; second, Ugolino Verino who was his tutor till September 1491 at least. In this period, Crinito was also in contact with the very illustrious intellectuals of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s court probably because of his studies at the library of St. Mark’s and the Florentine studium. For example, he knew Pico della Mirandola, Lorenzo Lorenzi, Bartolomeo Scala, and Angelo Poliziano. Crinito writes that Poliziano was his preceptor but there are no information on the classes he could have attended. It was after the death of Poliziano that Crinito acquired various autograph manuscripts written by the master. He also rearranged and edited some of his works. As a private teacher, he encouraged his students to devote themselves to the studia humanitates as in the case of his disciple and friend Giovanni Ugolini. Crinito travelled in Italy visiting some of the most active cultural cities in the country: he was in Venice, as he writes in a chapter of his work entitled De honesta disciplina, and in Rome in 1503. There, he met the most distinguished scholars of the time such as Tommaso Fusco, Lucio “Fosforo” Fazzini, and Bernardo Carafa, as some pieces dedicated to them in the Pöemata confirm. In February 1507, he was professor of rhetoric and poetry at the Florentine studium, but he enjoyed his academic life for a short time because he died in July. There were no heirs who could inherit his volumes eventually obtained by Benedetto Varchi and Pier Vettori. In particular, the series of books in the hands of the Vettori family were in Italy till 1778 when Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria bought them. Now, they are kept in the Bayerische...