Ambrogio Calepino

Ambrogio Ambrogio Calepino or Calepio, Latin: Ambrose Calepinus (? * 1440 in Bergamo, † end of 1509 / beginning of 1510 ibid ) was an Italian lexicographer in the Renaissance period. His authored in the spirit of humanism -Latin dictionary took place in the 16th to the 18th century spread widely, appearing in more than two hundred, mostly heavily reworked and expanded editions. The name " Calepino " was consequently in several languages ​​to refer to a dictionary par excellence.

Life

Calepino ( = " of Calepio ") was the illegitimate son of Count Trussardo, Lord of Calepio, born and baptized in the name of Iacopo. He had two brothers: Marco and Nicolino († 1484 ), who was begotten legitimate and the family property inherited. With his permission, Iacopo and also illegitimately begotten Marco were legitimized.

1458 Jacopo was admitted to the Order of St. Augustine, in their reformed branch, the so-called Observant. After the novitiate in Milan in the convent of Santa Maria Incoronata he received the monastic name Ambrogio, under which he was known in the following year.

After about two per year stays in Mantua, Cremona and Brescia was in 1466 in Cremona, the decision on his career at other orders. At this time he was already ordained. He chose the humanistic studies because his superiors his desire to study philosophy disagreed and he was constitutionally too weak to ministry.

Then he went back to Bergamo, where he lived in the Convento di Sant'Agostino. This convent was founded in the late 13th century by Augustinian hermits and since 1442 in the hands of the Reformed Augustinians, which with the support of the citizens of Bergamo - even the Calepio family - began rebuilding, after it had previously fallen into decay. By no later than the years before 1487 Calepino worked here at his life's work, a Latin dictionary, because in this year is a first draft dated preserved.

The distribution of the dictionary, which already circulated in manuscript, by the pressure Calepino was a personal matter, so as to reach a wider audience. Calepinos nephew Count Andrea Calepio (the son Nico Linos ) partially financed the pressure. They chose as a printer Dionisio Bertocchi from Reggio Emilia, perhaps because he had in 1494 already gained experience with Latin dictionaries with an edition of Cornucopia Pirotti, perhaps because he promised to run the pressure in Bergamo in the presence of the author (which was then not made ​​). The book was published in 1502 in Reggio Emilia and was dedicated to the senate and people of Bergamo, a gesture for which the City Council in February 1503 Calepino 25 gold ducats (about 150 lire) bequeathed. A copy of the dictionary cost 4 lire 10 soldi.

From a letter to the Superior General Calepinos Egidio da Viterbo from October 1, 1509 stating that he was ill and almost blind at this time. He died shortly thereafter.

Work

The Latin Dictionary

With the Dictionary Calepino created the first Latin dictionary in almost modern sense. He was guided by the Cornucopia of Niccolò Perotti ( " horn of plenty ", from 1489 several editions, a commentary on the Roman poet Martial, who could also serve as a dictionary ) and the work of the subtleties of the Latin Language ( 1471 ) of Lorenzo Valla. The Late Antique and Medieval Latin from him was along these lines largely ignored, while the Renaissance humanists found a spot right next to the classics. The church fathers, especially Augustine and Jerome are, however, also often cited.

Gigliola Soldi Rondinini and Tullio De Mauro describe Biografico Dizionario degli Italiani, the intention of the dictionary as: " The dictionary is understood as the leader of those who leave the Middle Ages behind and want to move up again to classical Latinity. "

The focus of dictionary articles were meaning explanations. Quotations from ancient authors should legitimize the use of language. In contrast to the medieval dictionaries, as widespread Catholicon the Dominican Johannes Balbus 1286, occurred in Calepino back of theological teaching content and etymological explanations.

Calepinos dictionary also recorded proper names, and some explanations of words went into the Antiquarian, even if they are not related to any proper names. For example contained the article " pingo " = "paint" a history of painting.

A revised version of his dictionary that he was still able to finish in 1509, appeared in 1520 in Venice. They corrected errors of the first edition, adding about 1,500 new lemmas added.

Explorers of the work Giulio Orazio Bravi, Maria Giuseppina Ceresoli and Francesco Lo Monaco mention several properties of the dictionary, which could have contributed to its popularity:

• The high number of entries (about 20,000 )
• The diversity of fields of meaning: from literature to history, theology, geography, natural science and medicine
• The brevity of the articles
• The ordered structure of the article ( usually in the order of accents and spellings, grammatical peculiarities; etymology, if available: Greek equivalents; major importance if one is present: other meanings, initiated with " hinc " = " therefore ", " aliquando " = " sometimes alias " =" " " or " " item " =" and "; sample sentences if one is present: Unterlemmata )
• The richness and usefulness of the text examples
• The alphabetical order, which almost always goes to the third letter of the lemma
• Last but not least, the drive to personal anecdote and fleeting remark was an endearing trait of the plant

Other works

Apart from his major work written Calepino some more fonts. Giacomo Filippo Foresti published in 1483, a brother Calepinos in the monastery of Sant'Agostino in Bergamo, the Supplementum Chronicarum, a comprehensive historical work to which Calepino contributed a praise of Venice. However, this is merely a poem in four hexameter verses.

More extensive is a Vita the hermit John Bonus, which he probably did not write much later than 1484. This was done as part of a renaissance of the worship of this important precursor of the Order of Augustinian Hermits.

After the first edition of the Dictionary Calepino worked on a smaller Latin- Italian dictionary, but remained the manuscript. He should also have a spiritual work Confessionale and two Latin hymns written to Clare of Montefalco and St. Augustine.

Edits the dictionary from the 16th to the 18th century

The Dictionarum was granted a fast and long-lasting success. From 1502 to 1509 there were nine editions until 1520, there were already about 26, who had appeared in Venice, Basel, Strasbourg, Paris, Lyon and other places in Europe.

Soon after the first edition came on the need for an improved new version. To 1528, this desire to the Parisian printer Robert Estienne was approached. Since Estienne failed to win a scholar for this difficult task he undertook it himself and published in 1931, the Dictionary, seu Latinae linguae thesaurus. Although Estienne's Thesaurus is an original work, so it was but partially to the makeover of discovered at Calepino material Estienne rearranged, which he added new things, from which he retired Old, where he examined documents and completed and he French translations was handed out.

During the 16th century, the Dictionary of Calepinus developed for multi-lingual dictionary. However, always remained the Latin language, the basis of the explanations of words and different linguistic equivalents were usually not added continuously. Already the first edition contained isolated Greek data, the second version built from these, and later campaigned particularly the Cologne edition of 1534 with its suitability as a Greek dictionary. The first multilingual edition was the Pentaglottos, Antwerp 1545, the three surviving Western and Central European languages, offered in addition to Greek with German, Dutch and French.

In German-speaking countries, most Calepino spending in Basel published. They took part on the tactics deployed by Estienne improvements, such as application of the alphabetical arrangement of the headwords or the separation of voice and name dictionary. Staff were scholars such as Conrad Gesner and Christian Wurstisen. The Basel edition from 1590 consisted of eleven languages: Latin, Hebrew, Greek, French, Italian, German, Flemish, Spanish, Polish, Hungarian and English. It was 1598, 1605, 1616 and 1627 reprinted and represents the culmination of the development of the polyglot Calepino

Spanish was first recorded in the Lyons edition of 1559. Jesuit missionaries published in 1595 in Japanese Amakusa in Nagasaki a Latin- Portuguese- Japanese version of the dictionary.

Beginning of the 18th century created the linguist Jacopo Facciolati with the help of Egidio Forcellini one of the last revisions ( septem linguarum Calepinus. 2 volumes, Padua 1718), which was reprinted several times.

Overall, the bibliography of Albert Labarre listed 211 issues from 1502 to 1779.

Others

Because of the wide dissemination of its work, the name " Calepinus " was in several languages ​​almost synonymous with dictionaries of all kinds, so Italian " calepino " French " calepin " (with secondary meaning " Notebook " ) and English " calepin ".

1839 a bust of Ambrosio Calepino was erected at the Ateneo of Bergamo. The neoclassical sculptor Gaetano Matteo of the Monti (1776 -1847) created marble sculpture stands today in the library Angelo May The library has one of the most important Calepino collections with several manuscripts and 48 different printing editions. The 81 editions worldwide collection is that of the Bavarian State Library.

Works

• Ambrosii Calepini Bergomatis Dictionary. Dionisio Bertocchi, Reggio Emilia 1502 (online).
• Ambrose Calepinus Bergomensis, dictionum Latinarum, et Graecarum interpres perspicacissimus, omniumque vocabulorum insertor acutissimus. Bernardino Benaglio, Venice 1520.
• Life of John bonus in three books. In: Acta Sanctorum. Octobris. T. 9 Brussels 1858, pp. 748-767 ( edition Paris and Rome 1869 Internet Archive ).