DOVIZI, BERNARDO

DOVIZI, BERNARDO. – Humanist, cardinal. Called Bibbiena after the place where he was born on 4 August 1470. His life was bound up with the fortunes of Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, later Pope Leo X: he successively served as his private secretary and general treasurer, and in 1513 was raised to the cardinalate. Leo X employed D. as an adviser both in organizing festivities and in political negotiations; he appointed him legate in 1516 to Charles V and, two years later, to Francis I. He died in Rome in 1520. The report that he was poisoned is unfounded.

His moral character (“amabilissimus homo,” Bembo called him) is conveyed by the portrait Castiglione drew of him in the Cortegiano, and his physical appearance by Raphael’s portrait in the Pitti Gallery. He was the author of many letters and of the comedy Calandria, in five acts, performed in 1513 at the court of Urbino and later (1518) in the Vatican. The work, variously judged for its vis comica, is literarily among the finest comedies of the sixteenth century; it develops through immoral episodes and jests and reflects not only the age in which it was composed, but also a particular conception of the pleasure-seeking life held by its author, as may be seen, among other things, in the subjects of Venus and Cupid by him

(courtesy of Prof. E. Josi)
DOWNSIDE – Aerial view of the abbey and college.

commissioned, based on a design by the Urbinate, for his “stufetta” (bathroom), in the Vatican. – Vedi tav. CXXII.