GIOVIO, PAOLO. – Historian, born in Como on 19 April 1483, died in Florence on 10 December 1552. He was bishop of Nocera de' Pagani from 13 January 1528.
He owes his fame to: Historiarum sui temporis libri XLV (Florence 1550–52); Commentarii delle cose dei Turchi (Venice 1531); numerous biographies (the Visconti, Muzio Attendolo Sforza, Alfonso d'Este, Leone X, Adriano VI, etc.), as well as Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium and Elogia virorum litteris illustrium. The image of a P. G., spiritual brother of Aretino, a “reporter” ready to maneuver between the wishes of his clients and those of the general public, with an easy and blackmailing pen, as defined by Fueter, has been abandoned by subsequent criticism: Croce sees in G. a generally truthful describer of military and cultural matters, though not very sensitive to ethical-political history, because G.’s political sentiments “did not develop and intensify into a passion for political affairs, into the worship of an ideal, into the anxious interrogation of history in order to link the hoped-for future to the past” (op. cit. in the bibliography, p. 31); Croce himself defines G.’s work as “grandiose anecdotal history.”