Giovanni Battista Guarini
Giovanni Battista Guarini ( born December 10, 1538 Ferrara, † October 7, 1612 in Venice ) was an Italian poet.
Life
Giovanni Battista Guarini studied in Padua, Pisa and Ferrara was still very young, Professor of Literature and Philosophy at the latter university. At the age of 30 he entered the service of Duke Alfonso II of Ferrara, who made him a knight, and sent as ambassador to various courts, most recently in the Polish stands to propose to the King Alfons.
Redundant as a result of the failure of this mission by the Duke, he retired in 1582 to his estate near Rovigo, where he mainly dealt with the sciences. But already in 1585 called him the Duke as Secretary of State to Ferrara back, and Guarini came again for a short time to great prestige, but declined in 1587 because he felt aggrieved by any interference of the Duke in his family affairs, again his dismissal.
After he had stopped a short time at the court of the Duke of Savoy and had to this again lived a number of years as a private citizen, he entered in 1597 in the service of the Grand Duke Ferdinand I of Tuscany, soon afterwards in that of the Duke of Urbino, which he but also soon left to return to his hometown, of which he was sent in 1605 to Rome to wish Pope Paul V to his election happiness. But he always stayed only temporarily in Ferrara on, because the numerous processes in which we engaged him to be very quarrelsome character throughout his life, even with the next of kin, constrained him to perpetual travel. In one of them he died in 1612 in Venice.
From Guarini's poetic works is his pastoral poetry Il pastor fido, the most excellent of all imitations of the Aminta of Torquato Tasso, has become most famous. It was first in 1585 in Turin for marriage Charles Emanuel, Duke of Savoy, with Catherine of Austria, Philip III. Sister, listed but not printed until 1590 in Venice.
When drama is not really outstanding, the piece has some great beauty and is characterized in particular by the elegance of language and versification. It has continued to be a favorite of the Italians and seals is extremely often printed ( outside of Italy ) ( best Venice in 1602 and 1769, Leiden 1678, London 1800, Milan 1807) and have been translated into almost all European languages ( into German by Hoffmannswaldau ( 1652), by Hans Assmann Freiherr von Abschatz 1672/78 under the title " the teutsch - -talking loyal Schäffer of famous Italians Guarini "; Arnold ( Gotha 1815), H. Müller ( Zwickau 1822) and Merbach ( Grimsby 1846).
The singer Anna Guarini, member of the famous vocal ensemble Il Canto delle Dame di Ferrara at the court of Alfonso II, was his daughter.
Works (selection)
- Humanities. Verona in 1593 and 1615
- Il segretario. Venice 1594
- Rime. Venice 1598
- La idropica. Verona 1734 ( comedy )
And finally his only recently printed Trattato della politica libertà 1818 ( with Guarini Biography of Ruggieri ). A collection of his works unfinished and Apostolo Zeno worried Barotti (Verona 1737-38, 4 vols ).
Literature (selection )
- Leo Olschki: Battista Guarini's Pastor fido in Germany. Firenze 1908.
- Nicolas J. Perella: The Critical Fortune of Battista Guarini 's Pastor Fido. Olschki, Firenze 1973 ( Biblioteca dell'Archivium Romanicum I.117 ).
- V. Rossi: Battista Guarini ed il pastor fido. Torino 1886.
- Ruggieri: Guarini, Giovanni Battista. 1818 ( Biography ).