Alessandro Adimari
Alessandro Adimari (1579 – 1649) was an Italian poet and classical scholar.
Biography[]
Born at Florence about 1580, he published a free translation of Pindar in Italian verse, with notes and illustrations, Le Odi di Pindaro tradotte in parafrasi e in rima Toscana e dichiarate con osservazione e confronti di alcuni luoghi imitati e tocchi da Orazio, Pisa, 1631, 4º. Adimari, who dedicated his work to Cardinal Francesco Barberini, says that he spent sixteen years about it. He inserted synoptical sketches for the purpose of explaining the plan and order of the Greek poet in his odes. Pierre-Louis Ginguené, in the Biographie Universelle, art. Adimari, falsely charges him with having borrowed them from Erasmus Schmidt's Latin version of Pindar, published 1616.[1] Adimari wrote also a kind of bibliography of poets La Mono-Grecia ove sono raccolti i nomi di tutti i Poeti dal principio della Poesia del Mondo sino al principio della Poesia Toscana ; Esequie di don Francesco de Medici, 1614, Florence, 4º ; and other minor works. Particularly notable is the poetry collection “Terpsichore” (1637), composed of fifty-three highly manneristic sonnets. The sonnets are parodies of Petrarchan flattery, purporting to celebrate beauty in women who are too young or too old to be loved or who are ill or deformed. Following Seneca, Adimari claims that his verses might help husbands to accept the imperfections of their wives; he reminds his reader that just as there is no beauty without a flaw, so there is no flaw that does not also encompass beauty. The sonnets are masterfully witty rhetorical celebrations of such fancied paramours, sometimes savagely ridiculed by Adimari, who shows himself a master of the sonnet and highly attuned to the principal poetic tendencies of late Renaissance culture.[2] Aßmann's translation of Adimari’s “Terpsichore” appeared in the 1704 collection as “Schertz-Sonnette oder Kling-Gedichte über die auch bey ihren Mängeln vollkommene und Lieb-würdige Schönheit des Frauenzimmers” (Playful Sonnets or Songs on the Perfect and Amiable Beauty of Women Even If Flawed).[3] Adimari died in 1649.
Works[]
- Alessandro, Adimari (1631). Ode Di Pindaro Antichissimo Poeta: Cioè, Olimpie & Pithie & Nemee & Istmie Tradotte in Parafrasi, & in Rima Toscana Da Alessandro Adimari, e dichiarate dal medesimo. Con osseruazioni, e confronti d'alcuni luoghi immitati, ò tocchi Da Orazio Flacco (in Italian). Pisa: nella stamperia di Francesco Tanagli.
References[]
- ^ See: Stella Purce Revard (2001). Pindar and the Renaissance Hymn-ode, 1450-1700. Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-86698-263-4.
- ^ See: Patrizia Bettella, The Ugly Woman: Transgressive Aesthetic Models in Italian Poetry from the Middle Ages to the Baroque (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), p. 130 sqq.
- ^ "Hans Aßmann von Abschatz". Dictionary of Literary Biography: German Baroque Writers 1661-1730. Gale Research. 1996. ISBN 9780810393639.CS1 maint: date and year (link)
Bibliography[]
- The Biographical Dictionary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. 1. Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. 1843. pp. 349–350.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. - D'Addario, Arnaldo (1960). "ADIMARI, Alessandro". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 1: Aaron–Albertucci (in Italian). Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana.
- Sandys, John Edwin (1908). A History of Classical Scholarship. 2. Cambridge University Press. p. 282.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the | hide Authority control  | |
|---|---|
| General |
|
| National libraries | |
| Scientific databases | |
| Other | |
- Italian poets
- Italian classical scholars
- 1579 births
- 1649 deaths
- Baroque writers
- 16th-century Italian poets
- 17th-century Italian poets