Sperone Speroni

Sperone Speroni degli Alvarotti (1500–1588) was an Italian Renaissance humanist, scholar and dramatist. He was one of the central members of Padua's literary academy Accademia degli Infiammati and wrote on both moral and literary matters.

Biography

Born April 12, 1500 in Padua, Sperone was the second child of Bernardino Speroni degli Alvarotti and Lucia Contarini.

A member descending of the same family, Arnaldo Speroni degli Alvarotti (1727-1801) would become bishop of Rovigo.

Works Speroni's works include:

Dialogo della retorica (1542), on rhetoric; Dialogo delle dignità delle donne (1542), on the status of women; Dialogo d'amore (written in 1537 and published in 1542), on the nature of love. Dialogo delle lingue (1542), a defense of vernacular languages instead of Latin. Canace (1546), a verse tragedy; followed by an Apologia (1550). Discorso su Dante (1560), on the poet Dante. Discorso su l'Eneide (1560), on Virgil's Aeneid. Discorso sul Orlando Furioso (1560), on Ariosto's poem Orlando Furioso. Dialogo della istoria (1560), on history.

Influence His play Canace, based on a Greek legend of incestuous love, was only performed once; but was widely diffused, and (together with Giraldi's play Orbecche) led to literary debates on tragedy and theatrical morals through to the next century.

Speroni's Dialogo delle lingue (1542) greatly influenced French Renaissance thinking about the French language; it formed the basis of Joachim Du Bellay's Deffense et illustration de la langue française (1549) and inspired in part the literary studies of Claude Fauchet.

Speroni was a friend and supporter of Venetian-language playwright Angelo Beolco (el Ruzante). His Dialogo delle lingue was an important source for Joachim du Bellay's Défense et illustration de la langue française.