VERGERIO, Pier Paolo the Elder. - Scholar and diplomat, b. at Capodistria around 1370, d. at Budapest on 8 July 1444.
He studied at Padua; in 1386 at Florence he became friends with Coluccio Salutati; in 1388-90 he taught logic at Bologna and composed the comedy Paulus. In 1390-96 he was at Padua in the service of the lords of Carrara, at a time when the fame of Petrarch was still vivid there, and he published Petrarch's poem the Africa; he addressed two discourses to Francesco Novello and composed 7 Orationes pro s. Hieronymo. In 1398-99 he studied Greek at Florence with Chrysoloras. Having returned to Padua in 1400, in 1402 he composed the treatise De ingenuis moribus et liberalibus studiis for the education of young nobles, which he dedicated to Ubertino of Carrara, on account of which he is ranked among the pedagogists. He compiled a Vita Petrarca (printed by A. Solerti in Le vite di Dante, Petrarca e Boccaccio, Milan, n.d., p. 294 ff.) and a Historia Principum Carrarensium (in RIS, Scriptores, XVI, 113-84); moreover, in March 1405 he took his doctorate in arts, medicine and law. When the Carrara fell in that year he moved to Rome, to the Curia, where he turned to ecclesiastical subjects and composed two discourses on the schism. In 1414 he was at Constance with John XXIII and entered the Chancery of the emperor Sigismund, who created him poeta laureatus; he was with him at Perpignan in 1415 and then in July 1420 he attended at Prague the disputation with the Hussites. A work of his, Pro reintegranda uniendaque Ecclesia, is in Archiv. storico per Trieste, Istria, Trentino (1882, pp. 351-74); he was never a priest. After leaving Constance in 1418 he did not return to Italy.
Bibliography4 works
Pio Paschini
PEDAGOGY
The De ingenuis moribus de liberalibus studiis adolescentiae* of V. is the first pedagogical treatise of humanism, all the more remarkable in that it precedes the discovery and dissemination of the most ancient pedagogical works of Plutarch, Quintilian, Xenophon, Cicero and Plato. Following the current of Christian humanism, V. wishes the liberal studies founded on the classics and good morals founded on the knowledge and practice of religion to be joined together and fused in pleasant harmony: and he aims at the formation at one and the same time of the Italian condottiero, capable of replacing the mercenary condottieri, and of the governor of the people, who must have in his favor not only blind force, but also culture, refinement, polish, and above all that experience of the past which confers maturity of judgment and sureness in deciding. Letters must not be cultivated only for the delight they bring, but especially for the light of the past that they cast upon present times and because from the experiences of other princes and peoples they derive that wisdom which preserves from errors. Therefore a fundamental element is religion, followed by literature, history, drawing, music, gymnastics, sciences and the military arts with their exercises. Hence an encyclopedic and harmonious education, into which flow the energies of religion, the chivalric traditions, made up of hard gymnastic and military training, Greek and Roman culture, the seven liberal arts, the medical and juridical doctrines of the universities; all this, however, imparted with a mind vigilant to the kinds of knowledge that have greater importance for social life, because erudition shut up in its ivory tower is useless egoism, and force alone is not enough to govern a State well.
Bibliography5 works
Celestino Testore