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Giannantonio Campano (1429-1477)(Giovanni Antonio de Teolis)
Humanist Poet
Table of contentsRelations with Pomponio Leto (Testimonia):It is not precisely clear when Campano came into contact with Leto, but it must have been around 1460. Campano arrived in Rome in 1460 under the protection of Pius II, while Pomponio Leto studied under Pietro Oddi (or Odo) da Montopoli, who was also very close to Pius II. Furthermore, Campano was already corresponding with Pietro Oddi in 1459. Quite logically in this humanistic entourage Campano and Leto would have met.
a. An elegy by Campano dedicated to Pomponio Leto (ca. 1462-1464)Campano wrote a considerable amount of neo-Latin poetry, mostly in the elegiac and epigrammatic genres. The greatest part was printed in 1495 as part of his Opera Omnia edited by Michele Ferno and reprinted in 1707 in Leipzig by J.B. Mencken. Part of his poetry, however, is still unedited in various manuscripts. A first exploratory study of these manuscripts can be found in Cecchini 1995.
My numbering of the poems is taken from Cecchini who followed Ferno's edition, which differs slightly from that by Mencken. The text of the following poem is established on the basis of the two printed editions and three manuscripts (R = Firenze, BR., ms. 915; S = Firenze, Biblioteca del Seminario arcivescovile maggiore, ms. B V 2; U = Vatican City, BAV, Urb. Lat. 338). I have edited a considerable number of Campano's poems in the appendix to Beer 2013.
R 226r / S 80v / U 213v
Note: Leto had apparently argued that Campano's poetry had deteriorated, whether in quality or quantity, since he had entered the clergy and become bishop. This must be so, since this poem presents itself as an answer to an accusation by Leto (cf. ais in v. 2 and quid dicat contra in v. 5). We do not know by which means Leto did this, but presumably it was in a poem or a letter that has not been preserved. This poem by Campano is presented as an answer to that accusation by Leto. He even states already at the beginning that if Leto were wise, he would also shave his head, that is, take holy orders. The main argument that Campano presents in favour of his career change regards the material wealth he has gained by this, which enables him to dedicate time and energy to his poetry. As Campano refers to himself as mitratus (with a mitre), he must have written the poem after his appointment as bishop in 1462.
b. An elegy by Leto dedicated to Campano (ca. 1462-1464)This hitherto unknown poem has been preserved in ms. B V 2 in the Biblioteca del Seminario Arcivescovile Maggiore in Florence, fols. 87r-92r.
Title: Pomponij Saturnalios ad Campanum episcopum Prutinum
Inc. Expectant madidum mero decembrem Exc. Glandes, castaneas, nuces, olivas Note: the poem was probably written in the period between 1462 and 1464, according to Leto's references to Campano as a bishop (1462) and to his writing poetry for Pius II (d. August 1464). The specific reference in the title to Campano as bishop of Teramo (he was transferred from the bishopric of Crotone to Teramo in 1463) does not necessarily have to be Leto's. The setting of the poem is given by the title as the Saturnalia, the ancient Roman festival at the end of December that celebrated the reign of Saturn and coincided with the winter solstice. A more detailed description of the poem, the manuscript, and part of the text can be found in Beer 2008 and Ead. 2013. I am grateful to the Prefect of the Seminary and the librarian Dr. Gurrieri for letting me consult this very interesting manuscript, and their permission to publish parts of it.
c. A manuscript with poems by Campano and drawings (from Pomponio's house?)Vatican City, BAV, Vat. Lat. 5245
Note: This manuscript, of which two quires are dedicated to a collection of poetry by Campano, also includes a treatise on orthography, transcriptions and drawings of classical inscriptions, lists of Latin abbreviations, classical treatises on gardening by Columella and Palladius Rutilius and poetry by Panormita, Antonio Cornazzano, and Giovanni Mario Filelfo, among others. In the whole of the manuscript, only two different hands can be discerned: one rather tidy hand transcribed the classical treatises and all of the poetry, a looser one wrote the other parts.
Since the latter hand also made notes in the margins of the parts first mentioned, he must be regarded as the more recent contributor and probably the compiler of the complete collection. Although this person cannot be identified by name, he must have belonged to the circle of Leto since some of his drawings are characterised by the gloss in domo Pomponij (f. 16r).
d. Campano's name inscribed as as Antistes Precutinus in the Catacombs of SS. Marcellino and PietroSee Palermino 1980, 144.
e. Two mentions of Campano in Leto's Defensio in CarceribusThe first time Leto mentions Campano occurs in the context of the accusation that he [Leto] had written homoerotic poetry for two Venetian pupils. Then he states that his intent was pure, and to underscore this he adds that he had also asked Campano in a letter to write poetry for this Venetian family. The second reference is to Campano as a witness, because Callimaco had uttered incriminating things in his presence.
See Di Bernardo 1975, 209 and Carini 1894, 36 and 38.
f. An epigram by Campano on the death of Settimuleio CampanoThis unpublished poem can be found in Urb. Lat. 338, fol. 232v. Cf. Cecchini 1995, 40 and Di Bernardo 1975, 219.
(Sweet friends of mine, do not lament my condition, especially not you, Pomponio, and your new protégé Fabio. Although the first thread of my youth has been broken, this does not mean that Libitina [the goddess of death] has snatched me away completely. I will live on in the future because of my fame, I do not bury Septimuleius completely, because I was greater than the urn can grasp.)
Note: Di Bernardo mentions that the poem was entitled Ad Pomponium, but this is clearly a later addition in the manuscript. In this epitaph Settimuleio is presented speaking, as is typical in/a topos in the genre of the epitaph. He urges his dear friends (dulces sodales) not to weep, especially not Fabio, Pomponio's new pupil. Although he died a young man, his fame will live on. This fame will at least partly be due to his own poetical production, of which part is preserved in a manuscript of Martial (Vatican City, BAV, Vat. Lat. 7619), his primary classical model.
g. A letter by Campano to Fabio Mazzattosti, referring to Leto as a teacher (1471)This letter is taken from the 1707 edition of Campano's poetry and letters by Mencken, and is generally referred to as CE VI, 49. Cf. Di Bernardo 1975, 218.
Abs te vero peculiariter id postulo, quem cupio excolere ingenium, et quod hactenus domi intra parietes didicisti, in apertum aut certe inter eos, quibus sis carissimus, efferre. Pomponium nostrum ne desere: nihil potuit habere aetas tua felicius, quam Pomponium praeceptorem, in quo tantum inest Latinae puritatis atque elegantiae, ut non possit, qui illum sequatur, nisi quam eloquentissimus fieri. Doctrina illius vera, cognitio rerum conditarum maxima, diligentia in te summa, ingenium tuum ad omnia facile, virum te mihi brevi eruditissimum pollicentur.
(I ask from you in particular that you bring your literary talent, which I want you to cultivate, and which you have learned until now mostly within the walls of this house, out into the open, or certainly among those to whom you are dearest. Do not abandon our Pomponio: at your age you could not be more fortunate than to have Pomponius as a teacher, whose Latin is so pure and elegant, that he who follows him cannot but become very eloquent. His true learning, his very great knowledge of recondite things, your extreme diligence, and your talent that is easily suited to all purposes, hold out the promise that you will soon become a very erudite man.)
Note: Campano strongly advised a young acquaintance of his, Fabio Mazzatosta (sometimes referred to as Mazzatosti), to continue studying with Leto.
h. An epigram by Campano about Leto inserted in a letter to Gentile Becchi (1471)This letter is also taken from the 1707 edition of Campano's poetry and letters by Mencken, and is generally referred to as CE VI, 1. Cf. Di Bernardo 1975, 220 ff.
Vide felicitatem nostri temporis: undique extant et offerunt se praeclara ingenia, jam ad frontem certatura cum priscis.
Et ipse plane videtur id cupere, ut quoniam nasci Romae non contigit, Romae moriatur. (See the good fortune of our times: everywhere outstanding talents appear and offer themselves, ready to compete on the front line with the ancients. Or has it escaped your notice how competently Pomponius has educated Rome, how he teaches Latium the right things? Quirinus, you are worthy of a burial place along the long Via Appia, as testimony to your death. And it is clear that he wants this, namely that, since he was not born in Rome, he might die in Rome.)
Note: In this letter Campano pays attention to all the people in Italy whom he longs for in his far away exile. One by one these persons are introduced in prose, but most of them are also described in a short epigram. Interestingly these epigrams have been completely incorporated into the narrative of the letter in such a manner that they cannot be easily read or understood separately.
Campano refers to the events in Rome connected with the 'Academy' and Pope Paul II in a question about Platina (see the entry on Platina by Stefan Bauer). In the above mentioned epigram Campano presents Leto as a model for the competition of the humanist writers with their classical predecessors, and praises him as a teacher. As a true ancient Roman, Pomponio is granted a tomb along the Via Appia, so that he can at least be buried in Rome, since he was not born there.
The above material is taken from the publication of my doctoral dissertation (Beer 2013) and my article (Beer 2008), which includes further information on this subject.
VitaIn the autumn of 1429, Campano was born in Cavelli, near Galluccio and Capua, as Giovanni Antonio de Teolis. At the age of eight he came to live with an uncle in Sessa Aurunca, where he received his first education in the Latin language. Through the mediation of another uncle, Antonio da Venafro, Campano came into contact with the Pandoni family and became their private teacher. In the entourage of this Neapolitan family, he spent some time in Naples, where he furthered his studies through contacts with various scholars.
In the summer of 1452, Campano went to Perugia. He was soon taken into the entourage of the Baglioni, who offered him the opportunity of further training and made him responsible for educating their family's children. From 1452 to 1455, Campano attended lectures by Francesco della Rovere (later Sixtus IV), Guido Vanucci, and Nicola Rainaldi. He started lessons in Greek with Demetrio Calcondilla, but never acquired a mastery of this language.
On 16 November 1455, Campano was officially appointed Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Perugia; in the end he was not happy with its intellectual climate. By 1456, he had seriously attempted to change his career. When Calixtus III appointed three new cardinals, Campano informed the papal secretary, Giacomo degli Ammannati, about his wish to serve one of them. Unfortunately, no functions were available to him, and he remained in Perugia until 1459. A considerable part of Campano's literary works came into being during his stay there. He wrote a biography of the famous relative of the Baglioni, Braccio da Montone, De vita et gestis Bracchi, a work that established his reputation as historiographer. Furthermore, he composed a description of Lake Trasimeno, Thrasimeni descriptio, and dedicated a treatise on ingratitude, De ingratitudine fugienda, to Pandolfo Baglioni. He also composed a funeral oration upon the death of Nello Baglioni in 1457.
When it comes to poetry, it appears that Campano mainly wrote love elegies during his Perugian period. He dedicated one complete book of love elegies to a puella named Diana, the pseudonym for Margherita di Montesperelli. She was the mistress of Braccio Baglioni, who commissioned Campano to write this book.
In February 1459, Pope Pius II made a visit to Perugia on his way to the Council of Mantua. During the stay of the papal Curia in Campano's hometown, he had the opportunity to tighten old friendships and establish new ones. His contact with Giacomo degli Ammannati, the papal secretary, provided him a proper introduction to the papal court. Ammannati brought up the prospect of a career in Rome and advised him to accompany the Pope's retinue to Mantua. Campano indeed joined the papal court during the Council of Mantua, first as a secretary to Cardinal Calandrini, and then in the secretarial service of Cardinal Alessandro Oliva. He also managed to establish contact with Pius himself and on their return to Rome in October 1460, Campano came to live in the Vatican palace. In October 1462, he was appointed Bishop of Crotone; in August 1463 he was transferred to the richer and more honourable bishopric of Teramo. Until Pius's death in 1464, Campano belonged to the inner circle of his acquaintances.
Campano complained that he could hardly find enough time to read and write in his first few years at the papal court, yet he engaged in several literary activities. He composed the treatises De regendo magistratu and De dignitate matrimonii, and the Oratio Cineritia. Pius asked him to revise his autobiographical Commentarii. His shift from university professor to cleric at the papal court had most impact on his poetic production, for its character and subject matter changed considerably. From longer elegies, he shifted to shorter elegies and epigrams, and from love poetry to poetry of various subjects, reflecting his diverse contacts with both patrons and friends.
After Pius's death in 1464, Campano left Rome and went to live in Teramo. He spent most summers with Ammannati and Francesco Todeschini-Piccolomini in Siena or Pienza, keeping the memory of Pius alive. Campano delivered the oration for the ceremony of the first anniversary of Pius's death, and he also put much effort into the composition of a biography of this Pope, the Vita Pij, which he finished in 1470. The first few years after Pius's death elicited a large amount of complaints in Campano's poetry about the lack of support he was receiving, directed mainly towards Ammannati, but also to some unidentified, and possibly fictional addressees.
In 1468 Campano returned to Rome, where he became involved in working on critical editions of classical texts. He collaborated with the Roman printing houses of Ulrich Hahn, Filippo de Lignamine and Sweynheim and Pannartz, and with other humanists, such as Andrea Bussi and Niccolò Perotti. Campano was in charge of five text editions, which he dedicated to both Ammannati and Todeschini-Piccolomini. Besides the courts of these two cardinals, he also frequented the court of Cardinal Bessarion, who held scholarly gatherings and established a library that was important for its collection of early printed works.
The revival of classical antiquity was one of the main objectives of the so-called Roman Academy, a group of humanists around Pomponio Leto. This circle included Platina (Bartolomeo Sacchi di Piadena), Callimaco (Filippo Buonaccorsi) and Agostino Patrizi. Campano had already come into contact with this group during Pius's pontificate, but these contacts intensified after his return to Rome. In 1468, Paul II incriminated and incarcerated some of the members, but Campano kept out of range of the pope's anger; Paul II appointed him Archpriest of Sant'Eustachio in 1470 and promised a promotion to the cardinalate later on; this never happened, as Paul II died in July 1471.
To please the new Pope Sixtus IV, his former teacher Francesco della Rovere, Campano brought a prestigious manuscript from Germany back to the Vatican (now unfortunately unidentified or lost) As a reward he was granted the papal governorship of Todi. The situation in Todi, however, was far from ideal for a governor with no substantial political experience. In August 1472, Sixtus IV sent Campano to Urbino to represent the papal court at the funeral of Battista Sforza, the wife of the Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino. Campano delivered the funeral oration, for which he was highly praised. This visit also provided him with the opportunity to tighten his contacts with Federico, which would prove valuable later on.
Due to Ammannati´s successful mediation, Campano was transferred to Foligno in October 1472. However, when the papal nephew Pietro Riario became Legate of Perugia and Umbria in April 1473, Campano had to fear for his position again. To prevent himself from being transferred, he set out to win the favour of Riario, both by the intercession of Ammannati and others and by means of private letters. In the end Campano dedicated to the cardinal the power of his poetry. He thus managed to gain Riario's approval and retain his position in Foligno until March 1474, after the cardinal's premature death. In the meantime, Campano himself had become ill with epilepsy, which kept him away from his work from November 1473 until the beginning of 1474. In order to recover Campano took some time off to rest in Teramo and Assisi.
In February 147 he was appointed papal governor of Città di Castello. This Umbrian city was practically ruled by Niccolò Vitelli, the anti-papal tyrant who was supported by the Medici. Campano did not hide his appreciation for Vitelli. Sixtus IV found that Vitelli had far too much power and decided to attack the city, thereby overruling Campano's authority. The papal nephew Girolamo Riario hired Federico da Montefeltro to lead the attack. Despite the advice of both Federico and Ammannati, Campano could not reconcile himself with the situation. As he felt that the people of Città di Castello would be the primary victims of this attack, he wished to protect them from papal aggression. For this purpose, he addressed a very critical letter about the situation directly to Sixtus IV. Campano went so far as to compare the Pope to a barbarian, a criticism that was both inappropriate and rash.
The siege continued, but, directly after Sixtus had received Campano's letter, Campano was removed from his office and denied hospitality at the papal court in Rome, although he maintained his bishopric in Teramo, where he settled. Campano's attempts to set things straight failed, as Sixtus was unyielding and most of his acquaintances did not want to risk their position by supporting him. Campano shifted his attention to other projects, such as the biography of Federico da Montefeltro, which he had offered to write a few years earlier. The duke had accepted the offer and Campano continually worked on this vita in the following years until he finished it in 1475. Concurrently, he dedicated some epigrams to Federico and his entourage.
Campano's career at the papal court in Rome was so damaged that he had to find another place to go. Before the debacle with Sixtus IV, he had expressed his wish to return to his native region of Naples. His chances for gaining another bishopric had diminished, so he set his mind on a position at the Aragonese court. He used a letter of recommendation by Federico da Montefeltro to get in touch with King Ferrante and composed a few elegies to strengthen his attempts. In autumn 1474, he went to Naples hoping that his presence there would further his ends. Although he was received in a friendly way and came into contact with Giovanni of Aragon, Ferrante's son who was to become cardinal, he was still left with nothing.
Disappointed and disillusioned, Campano returned to his bishopric in Teramo. At the Jubilee, he visited Rome for the last time. He made his final journey to Siena at the end of 1476, whence he undertook at least one trip to the baths of San Cassiano. He died in July 1477 and was buried in the Sienese cathedral in front of the Chapel of St. John the Baptist.
Bibliographyeditions:
Campanus 1495 and Campanus 1707
studies:
Beer 2008 and 2013; Cecchini 1995 and Di Bernardo 1975
Susanna de Beer,
December 2009, rev. August 2013 This entry can be cited as follows:
Susanna de Beer, "Giannantonio Campano," Repertorium Pomponianum, (URL: www.repertoriumpomponianum.it/pomponiani/campano_giannantonio.htm,
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