Łuk i kołczan. Łacińskie epigramaty miłosne (XV-XVII wiek)

The book contains a selection of Latin love epigrams from the 15th to the 18th century, written by Michele Marullo, Jacopo Sannazaro, Jan Kochanowski and John Owen. The preface to this bilingual, Latin-Polish edition, contains profiles of these outstanding Renaissance and Baroque poets, as well as Greek and Latin sources of their works.

Bartolomeo Ammannati

Bartolomeo Ammannati [Ammanati] (b. 1511–d. 1592) was a prominent sculptor and architect working in Florence in the mid- to late 16th century. He is considered a key figure of the Italian Mannerist period. One of many artists working in the wake of Michelangelo Buonarroti, Ammannati began as a pupil of Baccio Bandinelli before working under Jacopo Sansovino and Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli. Ammannati developed a style that drew on the dynamic compositions of Michelangelo but one that was tempered with a sense of restraint and an ability to engage bold classical forms and details. In the 1530s and 1540s, Ammannati worked on significant projects, such as Sansovino’s Biblioteca Marciana in Venice and Montorsoli’s tomb for the poet Jacopo Sannazaro installed in Naples. However, he encountered a frustrating setback when his tomb for the soldier Mario Nari in SS. Annunziata in Florence was criticized and taken down amidst religious objections. Between 1544 and 1548, Ammannati created remarkable sculptural and architectural ensembles in Padua for humanist and antiquarian Marco Mantua Benavides, including a triumphal arch, statues of Jupiter and Apollo and a colossus of Hercules, whose towering twenty-nine-foot figure was reproduced on a print by Enea Vico and Antonio Lafreri (1553). Ammannati’s tomb for Benavides in the Church of the Eremitani is celebrated for its sculptural and architectural balance, illustrating his take on Michelangelo’s unfinished wall tombs in the Medici Chapel. In 1550, Ammannati married Laura Battiferra of Urbino, an accomplished poet and a prominent figure in the devotional culture of Counter-Reformation Italy. He traveled to Rome where he undertook important commissions related to the papal family, including tombs for the Del Monte in S. Pietro in Montorio and portions of Julius III’s Villa Giulia, on which he collaborated with Giorgio Vasari and Jacopo Vignola. Ammannati’s elegant and whimsical Nymphaeum for the Villa Giulia showcases his developing architectural style. In 1555, Ammannati returned to Florence to serve under Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, where his service to this family would mark the height of his career and see the full maturity of his style. His works exemplify Mannerism at its height, from the artfully elongated bronzes of the Neptune Fountain to the playful rustication of the Palazzo Pitti courtyard. His numerous fountains present splendid and witty tableaux, and his bronze Ops for the Studiolo of Francesco de’ Medici stands out for its grace and refinement. As architect and engineer, he was responsible for landmarks such as the Ponte Santa Trinità and the Column of Justice, and he oversaw construction materials for the Cathedral and the Uffizi. In his later years, Ammannati took on architectural projects outside of Florence and he grew increasingly dedicated to the Jesuit order and the concerns of the Counter Reformation, even condemning the display of nudity in his own work in 1582. He and Laura left their possessions to the Jesuits and helped with the reconstruction of the church of S. Giovannino in Florence, funding a chapel where they were buried.

Andro Paoli, a representative of eighteenth-century Dubrovnik poetry

Based on the results of the latest research, the article attempts to establish a more comprehensive image of Andro Gianpiero Paoli, an eighteenth-century poet from Dubrovnik (1697-1783). Using archival news sources, the author analyses the environment in which Paoli developed as a poet: it is explained that two of his brothers were writers, which is important for the understanding of his work too. It is emphasised that Paoli was praised for his satirical poetry, while being criticised for his crudeness, acrimony and intemperance. The author points out the fact that Paoli was a typical representative of occasional poetry at the time when Du?brovnik literature was fading. Another fact, previously unnoticed, is highlighted: namely, Paoli is recognised as the possible author of an anonymous poetic translation of the most significant work of Christian Renaissance on the birth of Jesus Christ, the famous epic De partu virginis by Jacopo Sannazaro. The title of Paoli?s translation is O Porodjenju Djevicanskomu.

Words of Conversion: Poetry and Religious Identity in Early Modern Italy

The essay examines three cases of poets (Baptista Mantuanus, Giles of Viterbo, Jacopo Sannazaro) who wrote texts about conversion in early modern Italy. Its goal is to illustrate the evolution of conversion before the Reformation and to explore the role of poetic writing in the construction of religious identities. More precisely, the essay investigates how members of mendicant orders used a so-called ‘language of experiential knowledge’ to define their religious identity and defend the knowledge claims of their order against competing options. In doing so, the essay brings forth an original hypothesis concerning the target and motives of the condemnation of poetry at the Fifth Lateran Council, while further contributing to the current debate on religious pluralism and European identity.

Virgil and Sannazaro's Ekphrastic Vision

If the Neapolitan humanist Jacopo Sannazaro (1458-1530) receives any recognition in scholarly circles these days, it is usually for his Arcadia, an elaborate pastoral in twelve books, each combining prose and verse, that forms one of the most important links between the work of Petrarch, its inspiration, and that of Sir Philip Sidney. The Arcadia, published first authoritatively in 1504, is written in Italian, as are the hundred or so surviving Rime (songs and sonnets), largely products of the last decade of the fifteenth century. But Sannazaro was also a prolific writer in Latin. It is a question worth asking why, after the success of his vernacular magnum opus, he opted to use primarily a classical language for the major poetry that occupied his attention for the opening decades of the subsequent century. Perhaps a confirmation of his allegiance to Christian humanism is one reason. Perhaps also it was his devotion to Virgil whose three great works provided him with the most telling impetus for his own achievements in the Augustan poet's tongue.