TRISSINO, GIAN GIORGIO. — Man of letters, born in Vicenza on 8 July 1478, died in Rome on 8 December 1550. Alternating his studies with the duties of a courtier, he spent his life between courts and literary circles: in Milan (where in 1506 he studied Greek under Demetrio Calcondila), in Ferrara, in Florence, in Venice, in Padua, and finally in 1545 on the islet of Murano, courted there by the scholars of Venice.
A precursor of literary Aristotelianism, T. sought to ennoble the vernacular with the forms of Greek poetry. In Rome, where Ciceronians and Virgilians held sway, in 1515 he wrote the *Sofonisba*, a pedestrian imitation of Greek tragedy, whose spirit he did not grasp: historically important nonetheless as the first example in Europe of a “regular” tragedy. With the same aim of an erudite poet, he set about imitating the *Iliad* in a “regular” heroic poem, *L’Italia liberata dai Goti*, in monotonous and languid blank verse, published in 1547–48 after twenty years of laborious work. In 1529 he had published the first three parts of his *Poetica*, of a strictly grammatical character; the fourth part, like the fifth and sixth, published posthumously in 1563, reflects the Aristotelian questions then under debate. In matters of language, T. shared Dante’s ideal of a lofty vernacular: in 1529 he published the first public edition of Dante’s *De vulgari eloquentia*, albeit an unfaithful one, and he wished to ennoble Italian by introducing new letters into the alphabet.
«TRISTES ERANT APOSTOLI.» — Hymn for Vespers and Matins of the Common of the Apostles in Eastertide, deriving from the ancient Benedictine tradition and preserved in Irish-origin hymnals. The oldest manuscripts date from the 9th century.
It is a faithful narrative of the events following Christ’s death as reported by the Evangelists: the Apostles’ sorrow, their bewilderment, the message of the pious women, the journey to Galilee, and the appearance of Christ.