LA LEGNAME, GIOVANNI FILIPPO. — Scholar, born at Messina into a noble Sicilian family around 1428, died perhaps in Spain after 1491, the year in which he is recorded as being in the service of King Ferdinando il Cattolico. Brought up at the court of Alfonso of Aragon, he lived on familiar terms with Ferdinando, the king’s illegitimate son and his successor to the throne of Naples.
NE EQUITIS SICVILAD SIX. III. PON. MAX. PREFATIO.
Emper ego a paruulo studui
D.P. ut cum claris & illustri
bus uicis cōfuckerem: ne cō
liter a maioribus meis quos
uerius possum qixantus
inter magnificos & inligues
connumerare degenerarem
Horum enim cōfueudine uirtutibus: moribus
graeris mei nobilitatem cogitabam non solum
tueri & conferare: uerum etiam augere & dari
orem reddere. Cōq bis opibus & fortunis par
esse nō possess: ut uari sunt hominum casus &
euentus: dedi operam ne ociosus essem: dedida
q & ignauia marteserem: qua re nibi esse pōc
apud igenuos & qbe nurelos homines magis
alienum. Sumpſiq laborem hulucemodii & in
dustriam nō illaudabdem apud me meq apud
posteros inutilam: ut mea opera atq ingenio li
bri elegantes imprimeretur. Atq ita qplurimus
de me bone meritis essem non ingratus: praxta
(Ist. Enc. Catt.)
LA LEGNAME, GIOVANNI FILIPPO — Ph. De Barberis, *Opuscula
de adventu Christi et de Sibyllis*, with a preface by G. F. L. L.,
Rome, 1481 — Copy in the Biblioteca Casanatense.
In 1469 he was in Rome, and perhaps in that very year he pub-
lished some books, having established a printing press in his
own house; the first volumes certainly dated, however, are
from the following year. About fifty publications are recalled
under the name De Lignamine (as La L. had himself latinized
his name), not all of them identified, dating from the years
1470–76 and 1481. It seems established that his activity was
that of a publisher, but not of a printer: in some pamphlets
bearing his name, the type of Han, Giorgio Teutonico, and
others has been recognized. Legendary is the tradition that
makes him professor of medicine at the University of Perugia
and subsequently archiater to Sixtus IV. It is certain, however,
that this pontiff held him in high regard and showered him
with many benefices, among them the privilege of using the
surname and heraldic insignia of the Della Rovere family: a
privilege also enjoyed by La L.’s son, Antonio, archbishop of
Messina.
He wrote: Incliti Ferdinandi regis vita et laudes (1472); the
continuation, from 1316 to 1469, of the *Cronica Summo-
rum Pontificum* attributed to Riccobaldo da Ferrara (1474),
which some attribute to the Dominican Filippo de Lignamine,
his relative; a study of the sect of the disciplinati and another
on illustrious women, both lost, whose title and precise date
are unknown. In addition, he wrote prefaces, dedications,
and Latin verses, which reveal him as a humanist of good taste.