Gasparinus de Bergamo

Portrait of Gasparino Barzizza, designed by Rosalba Maria Salvioni, engraved by Anton Fritz. The first book printed in France: Epistolae ("Letters"), by Gasparino Barzizza. It was printed in 1470 by the press established by Johann Heynlin.

Gasparino Barzizza (in French, Gasparin de Bergame; in Latin, Gasparinus Barzizius Bergomensis or Pergamensis) (c. 1360 – 1431) was an Italian grammarian and teacher noted for introducing a new style of epistolary Latin inspired by the works of Cicero. He was appointed to lecture there on rhetoric and on authors such as Seneca, Cicero, Virgil, and Terence.

He then taught at Ferrara, and on the invitation of Filippo Maria Visconti, opened an elementary school at Milan in 1418, to be organized along the same lines as Gasparino's school at Padua. He taught at Milan from 1421 and also served as Visconti's court orator.

Gasparino also served as secretary to Pope Martin V and in this capacity attended the Council of Constance. Gasparino died at Milan around 1431, after which Lorenzo Valla succeeded him as chair of rhetoric in Pavia. Exempla exordiorum. Orthographia: a manual of Latin orthography, his most important work. possibly the Synonyma Ciceronis ("Synonyms of Cicero"): a collection of synonymous terms used in the rhetorical works of Cicero, produced to aid in the expansion of students' rhetorical vocabulary in Latin.