Renæssanceforum 9 • 2015

Giancarlo Abbamonte
Materiali biografici antichi su Giovenale recuperati da Domizio Calderini

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At the turn of the fifteenth century, the content of the Vitae Iuvenalis dramatically changed. The lives compiled by Guglielmo da Pastrengo, Giovanni Colonna, and Domenico di Bandino (s. XIV ex. – s. XV in.) are still deeply influenced by the medieval tradition, but even so they tend to reduce anecdotal material. Collecting information on Juvenal culled from the poet's contemporaries (Suetonius, Martial, Tacitus, the Elder and the Younger Pliny) Sicco Polenton, Ognibene Leoniceno, and Giovanni Tortelli (s. XV medio) departed even more radically from earlier Vitae. Only in the 1470s did Domizio Calderini stop this trend; he published a Vita that was simply taken from the oldest biographical tradition. Calderini's model was followed by the later commentators (e.g. Cantalicio and Mancinelli).