Poggio Bracciolini

Poggio Bracciolini
Engraving of Bracciolini[1]
Born
Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini

11 February 1380
Terranuova, Republic of Florence
Died30 October 1459(1459-10-30) (aged 79)
Florence, Republic of Florence
OccupationPapal Secretary
Children5 sons and a daughter

Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (Italian: [dʒaɱ franˈtʃesko ˈpɔddʒo brattʃoˈliːni]; 11 February 1380[2] – 30 October 1459), usually referred to simply as Poggio Bracciolini, was an Italian scholar and an early Renaissance humanist. He is noted for rediscovering and recovering many classical Latin manuscripts, mostly decaying and forgotten in German, Swiss, and French monastic libraries. His most celebrated finds are De rerum natura, the only surviving work by Lucretius, De architectura by Vitruvius, lost orations by Cicero such as Pro Sexto Roscio, Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria, Statius' Silvae, Ammianus Marcellinus' Res Gestae (Rerum gestarum Libri XXXI), and Silius Italicus's Punica, as well as works by several minor authors such as Frontinus' De aquaeductu, Nonius Marcellus, Probus, Flavius Caper, and Eutyches.

  1. ^ Following an old engraving; from Alfred Gudeman, Imagines philologorum: 160 bildnisse..., (Leipzig/Berlin) 1911.
  2. ^ Date in Cav. Toneilli's ms Elogi delli uomini illustri Toscani, noted by William Shepherd, The Life of Poggio Bracciolini