VEGIO, MAFFEO. - Humanist, born at Lodi in 1407, died at Rome before 29 June 1458; he was buried in the chapel of St Monica in the church of Sant'Agostino.
At Pavia, whither he had gone to study jurisprudence, he met Lorenzo Valla and Antonio Beccadelli (il Panormita) and turned to the study of the classics. Among the poets he most admired was Virgil, for whom he even wrote a Supplementum to the Aeneid (1427), ending with the apotheosis of the Trojan hero. He also composed epigrams, elegies, mythological and epic poems (Astyanax, 1430; Velleris aurei libri IV, 1430, etc.) and an important little dictionary of juridical terms to illustrate the Digest (De verborum significatione, 1433). Unable to find a position in Lombardy, he entered the service of the Roman Curia and followed its peregrinations in the capacity of datary and abbreviator. At Bologna in 1437 he completed the poem Antoniados libri IV, begun at Pavia and inspired by episodes in the life of St Anthony the Abbot; a typical example of that Christian recreation of ancient epic which constitutes one of the most fervent motifs of Humanist literature, and at the same time a foreshadowing of the conversion that was to take place in him, chiefly under the influence of the Confessions of St Augustine. In 1443 he was appointed by Eugenius IV canon of St Peter’s. In 1455 he entered the Augustinian Order, and to the cult of the saint of Hippo and of St Monica he devoted his last years, which were soothed by the reading of the Psalms, which in his youth he had dismissed as mere old wives’ tales. Documents of the religious fervour that dominates the second part of his life are the De perseverantia religionis, composed in 1448 for a certain nun, and the De rebus memorabilibus Basilicae S. Petri (1455–57), in which he applies to Christian archaeology the methods followed by Poggio and Flavio Biondo for ancient Rome.
Vegio is a distinguished representative of that Humanist trend which, fusing classical and Christian ideals, finds in the harmony between sacred and profane letters the secret of every loftier spiritual formation.
GIOVANNI DA VERAZZE. - Cronista e poeta, n. a Verona verso il 1270, m. dopo il 1330. Fu notaio e visse a lungo a Venezia, dove fu in relazione con i maggiori rappresentanti della cultura veneta del tempo. Scrisse in latino e in volgare. Le sue opere più note sono il Carmen de regimine et sapientia sanctorum, il De terrae motu, il De miseria humanae conditionis e la Cronica di tutte le cose notabili occorse nel mondo, dalla creazione del mondo fino al 1333. Quest'ultima, che è la sua opera principale, è una compilazione di carattere enciclopedico, nella quale l'autore si propone di narrare la storia universale, con particolare riguardo alla storia di Venezia. In essa si trovano anche notizie di carattere scientifico, come quelle sui terremoti e sulle comete.
The first bishop of the united diocese was Antonio Sinti (1792–1837). Particularly meritorious for the organization of the diocese was Bishop Antonio Mahnić (1895–1920), who had already distinguished himself as the initiator and driving force behind the Catholic renewal in Slovenia, especially among students. As bishop of V. and author of theological-philosophical writings, he began a similar movement in Croatia, in the spirit of the directives of the contemporary popes Leo XIII and Pius X. He also made great contributions to the so-called Glagolitic liturgy, which had been in use in this diocese “ab immemorabili”; among other things, he was instrumental in the founding of the Paleoslavic Academy in V. (1902) for the study of the Paleoslavic liturgical language.