MANETTI, GIANNOZZO. — Politician and humanist, born in Florence on 5 June 1396, died in Naples on 25 October 1459. From commercial studies and banking activity he passed to the life of the humanist world, and through his qualities as an orator and diplomat he held important offices and undertook embassies to Pistoia, Scarperia, Genoa, Rimini, Venice, and Siena.
A man of very broad culture and profound religious faith, who affirmed that « the doctrine of the Church is as true as a mathematical axiom », he learned Greek from the Camaldolese monk A. Traversari and Hebrew from Immanuel ben Abraham of San Miniato, in order to devote himself to the study of the Holy Scriptures, which he cultivated throughout his life, both at the court of Niccolò V, who had summoned him to Rome in 1453 and appointed him apostolic secretary, and at that of King Alfonso of Naples.
In addition to the Adversus Induros in 10 books, he left an important translation of the Psalter from Hebrew—he transcribed in three columns the Septuagint version, that of s. Jerome, and his own—and prepared an original version of the New Testament from Greek, which has remained unpublished (cf. U. Cassuto, I manoscritti palatini ebraici della Bibl. Apost. Vat. e la loro storia [Studi e testi, 66], Città del Vaticano 1935, pp. 44-47; Codicee Urbinates latini, edited by C. Stornajolo, I, Rome 1902, p. 160). In the Apologetico, in 5 books, he defended his version: after a general introduction to the Bible, he retraced the history of the Greek and Latin translations, commenting extensively on the Hieronymian version, and in the final book explained the principles « of translating well ». He venerated the great writers of the fourteenth century and, for scholars, composed a Specimen historiae litterariae Florentinae saec. XIII ac XIV sive vitae Dantis, Petrarchae, Boccaccii (Florence 1747). He entrusted his humanistic conception of life to the De dignitate et excellentia hominis (Basel 1532). Among his notable historical works are the Chronicon Pistoiense and the Vita di Nicolò V.