De viris illustribus

Category
LITERATURE - MAJOR WORKS

Language
LATIN

With the revival of classical learning in the Italian Renaissance, a broader, carefully selected group of men of renown from the distant and recent past, outstanding for their statecraft or their learning emerged "almost simultaneously" in the Italian cities of Milan, Naples, Siena, Padua,[4] Foligno,[5] Florence, Venice, Perugia and Urbino.[6] In literature the theme was revived by Giovanni Colonna around 1330. His friend, Petrarch, penned a De viris illustribus, as a collection of 36 short biographies. Boccaccio, inspired by him, wrote De Casibus Virorum Illustrium , containing 106 biographies. Leonardo Bruni published translations of Plutarch's Lives.

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