DAVANZATI, BERNARDO. - Scholar, born in Firenze on 31 Aug. 1529, died there on 29 March 1606. He belonged to the Florentine Academy, then to that of the Alterati—D. was its tenth regent—taking the name Silente and, as his emblem, a barrel hoop with the words “Strictius arctius,” which were his true literary code. His academic activity did not prevent him from engaging in commerce, which he conducted in Lione and Firenze.
In reply to the French Hellenist Enrico Stefano, in order to demonstrate the concise force of the Italian vernacular, he translated the first book of Tacito’s Annals (1596). Encouraged by its reception, he continued with the translation of the entire Tacitean work, published 31 years after his death by the academicians of the Crusca. D., a religious man—in his notebooks he devoted an extensive section to Holy Scripture and the Fathers of the Church in order to prove that “philosophia et coeterae artes deserviunt theologiae”—prepared an Italian version of the Vera et sincera historia schismatis Anglicani (Colonia 1586, Roma 1586), by the Jesuit Niccolò Sanders, a work which he reduced to a simple narrative by altering the original, that is, by removing “the exclamations and discourses.” As a prose writer D. was admired by Alfieri, Giordani, Tommaso, and Leopardi, who described the translations from Tacito as most vigorous and most original.
Studies: C. Guasti, Aneddoto biografico sul Tacito del D., Prato 1883; G. Quintarelli, Il Tacito fiorentino, Verona 1895; G. C. Noaro, La teoria dei rambi esteri di B. D., Roma 1920; F. Flora, Storia della lett. ital., II, 1, Milano 1948, pp. 238-42.