MANETTI, GIANNOZZO. — Statesman and humanist, born in Florence on 5 June 1396, died in Naples on 25 October 1459. After studying commerce and working in banking, he turned to the life of the humanist world, and by virtue of his qualities as an orator and diplomat he held important offices and served as ambassador in Pistoia, Scarperia, Genoa, Rimini, Venice, and Siena.
A man of vast learning and profound religious faith, he maintained that “the doctrine of the Church is as true as a mathematical axiom.” He learned Greek from the Camaldolese A. Traversari and Hebrew from Immanuel ben Abraham of San Miniato, in order to pursue the study of the Holy Scriptures, which he cultivated throughout his life, both at the court of Nicholas V, who had summoned him to Rome in 1453 and appointed him apostolic secretary, and at that of King Alfonso of Naples.
Besides the *Adversus Judaeos* in 10 books, he left an important translation of the Psalter from Hebrew—on which he transcribed in three columns the Septuagint version, that of St Jerome, and his own—and he prepared an original version from the Greek of the New Testament, which remained unpublished (cf. U. Cassuto, *I manoscritti palatini ebraici della Bibl. Apost. Vat. e la loro storia* [Studi e testi, 66], Vatican City 1935, pp. 44–47; *Codices Urbinates latini*, ed. C. Stornajolo, I, Rome 1902, p. 160). In the *Apologeticus* in 5 books, he defended his translation: after a general introduction on the Bible he recounted the history of Greek and Latin translations, commenting at length on the Hieronymian one, and in the final book he explained the canons of good translation. His admiration for the great writers of the Trecento and for learned men is evident in the *Specimen historiae litterariae Florentinae saec. XIII ac XIV sive vitae Dantis, Petrarchae, Boccaccini* (Florence 1747). He set forth his humanist conception of life in *De dignitate et excellentia hominis* (Basel 1532). Notable among his historical works are the *Chronicon Pistoiense* and the *Life of Nicholas V*.