Firenzuola, Agnolo

FIRENZUOLA, AGNOLO. - Man of letters, b. in Florence in 1493, d. at Prato on 27 June 1543. A friend of Aretino, then a Vallombrosan monk and procurator of his Order at the pontifical court, in 1526 he was dispensed from his religious vows, while retaining his ecclesiastical benefices. From 1543 he lived in Florence and Prato, afflicted by syphilis and, in his last years, by poverty. He founded the Accademia dell'Addiaccio, forerunner of the Arcadia.

He wrote lyrics, two comedies, the unfinished Ragionamenti d'amore, Delle bellezze delle donne, Della perfetta bellezza d'una donna, La prima veste degli animali (a reworking of the Panciatantra through the Directorium humanae vitae of Giovanni da Capua and the Spanish vulgarization Esemplario contra los engaños y peligros del mundo). He translated, with subjective transfiguration, Apuleius's Golden Ass, and opposed Trissino's orthographic innovations with the Discacciamento delle nuove lettere inutilmente aggiunte nella lingua toscana, a discourse appreciated by Clement VII.

In his free life and in his writings he could not raise himself above an elementary sensuality, which made him seek and fix upon only an eclectic exterior perfection in woman and which his imaginative elaboration oriented, by preference, toward the instinctive animal world. The moral problems, sometimes pursued, vanish in his graceful and often licentious storytelling, even if beneath F.'s sensuality has been perceived that weary sadness which, for better-endowed spirits, is a beginning of overcoming through sorrow.

Enzo Navarra