Forteguerri, Niccolò

FORTEGUERRI, NICCOLÒ. - Born on 6 Nov. 1674 in Pistoia, died in Rome on 17 Feb. 1735. Having completed his studies in Siena and Pisa, in 1700 he was in Rome, chosen to deliver the funeral eulogy of Innocent XII in the Vatican Basilica; then he went to Spain, with the nuncio Monsignor Zandodari, to the court of Philip V. Returning to Italy, he received Holy Orders: in 1712 he held the canonry of St. Mary Major and of St. Peter's, and subsequently the offices of referendary of both Signatures of Justice; for ten years he was a member of the Holy Consulta, and in 1720 he was appointed by Clement XIII secretary of Propaganda Fide.

At his death he wished his writings to be burned: nevertheless there appeared posthumously, under the name of M. Carterònaco, in Venice (1738), the Ricciardetto, in which, with Tuscan purity of language, he reworks the subject matter of Pulci, Boiardo and Ariosto; but in his sarcastic mockery of the world of chivalry he betrayed the original intentions of the work, combining, in the thirty cantos of the burlesque poem, within a single framework, along with a certain parody of the clergy and the curia - as already in the Capitoli (Genoa 1765-77) - also certain motifs of the Church's liturgy. F. also composed a sacred drama for music, L'Atalia (Siena 1694), a Latin Oration for the translation of the body of St. Leo the Great (Rome 1715), and from the Archive of Propaganda he extracted the Memorie intorno alle missioni di Asia, Africa e America, published in Rome only in 1831. The Ricciardetto is on the Index by decree of 12 Jan. 1739.