BECCADELLI, ANTONIO, called il PANORMITA. — Humanist, born in 1394 in Palermo (hence the nickname P.), to a Bolognese family, died in 1471. He soon left his native city to pursue legal studies in Siena (1420), Pistoia, and Florence. He then wandered between study and diversions in Bologna and Pavia.
His best-known work dates from this period: Hermaphroditus, two books of Latin epigrams, in a sufficiently agile Latin (Mar Martial, Catullus, Propertius, and Ovid are his principal masters), and predominantly licentious in tone. Its success was considerable: Guarino himself wrote a eulogy, which was placed before the little book; numerous, however, were also the criticisms and invectives.
In Pavia B. made friends with various humanists, such as Maffeo Vegio and Lorenzo Valla; he then wrote the four books of the Epistolae gallicae, in which he appears to us as a brilliant and carefree writer. It was this image of him that inspired Valla when he placed him, in the role of a defender of Epicureanism, among the interlocutors in his De voluptate.
In 1434 Alfonso of Aragon, “a great light of letters,” as Vespasiano da Bisticci calls him, invited him to the court of Naples, and thereafter gave him continual proofs of his liberality, showering him with gifts and appointing him first his counsellor, and finally his ambassador and secretary; this office was also confirmed to him by King Ferdinand, Alfonso’s successor. In Naples, in addition to the Epistolae campanare, B. also composed four books De dictis et factis Alphansi regis Aragonum, an abundant collection of anecdotes in praise of the sovereign.
But B.’s finest initiative was the foundation of an academy, which arose from the frequent gatherings of learned friends and young scholars at his house in Naples and at his villa in Resina. This academy, later called Pontanian after B.’s most famous disciple, Giovanni Pontano, was an active and flourishing centre of humanistic studies throughout the remainder of the fifteenth century.
B. took an active part in the life of the humanists; he contributed in his own way to the resolution of problems concerning Plautine texts. He showed no profound aptitude even in the field of history, and remained at the level of anecdote and the little vignette. He deserves credit for promoting and developing humanistic studies in southern Italy.
For B.’s works: A. B., Epistularum gallicarum Libri quator; Epistularum Campanarum Liber, Napoli 1746; A. Panormitae, Hermaphroditus, Coburgo 1824 and Lipsia 1908. V. also: A. Cinquini and R. Valentini, Poesie latine inedite di A. B. detto il P., Aosta 1907, and R. Sabbadini, Ottanta lettere inedite del P., Catania 1910, pp. 3-167; and there: M. Catalano, Nuovi documenti sul P., pp. 169-209. Giulio Vallese