VITTORINO (dei Rambaldoni) da Feltre. - Educator and humanist, b. at Feltre, most probably in 1373, d. at Mantua on 2 February 1446.
At the age of eighteen he went to Padua, where at the University he had distinguished masters: Giovanni di Conversino and Gasparino Barzizza for letters, Paolo Veneto for philosophy, Jacopo da Forlì for the physical and astronomical sciences, Biagio Pelscani da Parma for mathematics. Having obtained the degree of doctor, he went to Venice to perfect himself in Greek under Guarino; then, having returned to Padua and being called to teach at the University, he accepted the invitation of the citizenry, who admired his method and his goodness, to open a private school; but, disgusted by the carelessness of the Paduan youth, he moved to Venice and there founded a new school, to which the sons of Venetian patricians and pupils from all over Italy flocked; and there the invitation reached him from Gian Francesco Gonzaga, lord of Mantua, to accept the post of tutor to his sons.
V. consented and thought to realize at Mantua, in fullness and depth, his lofty and Christian ideal as an educator, both in the sumptuous suburban building of the « Gio-ious" - which, however, he wished to change to "Giocosa" the better to make clear that play, that is, the ludus (taken in the sense of delight and at the same time of school as a discipline of the mind and of morals) was to be the emblem of the new institute - whether in the two other institutions founded by him, the one for the sons of the most prominent families who flocked from Italy and abroad, the other for young scholars without means, whom he maintained at his own expense. V. left no pedagogical writings of importance; but his method and its effectiveness can be gathered amply from the memoirs left by grateful pupils and by the learned men who visited his work.
The first characteristic trait of Vittorino's pedagogy is the part given to physical education, taken in its broadest meaning. To begin with, he radically banished delicate foods, the luxury of gold and silver furnishings, the heaviness of clothing, excessively prolonged sleep, and carefree servants and playmates; he wished everything to be marked by a lordly simplicity. Persuaded, moreover, that a healthy and vigorous organism exercises a salutary influence on the soul, he gave great importance to everything that serves to develop muscular strength, suppleness, grace and beauty of the body and at the same time to temper the energy and readiness of character. Therefore study was interspersed with physical exercises carried on in the open air, in cold and heat, in wind and rain: games, dancing, horsemanship, fencing, wrestling, hunting, fishing, warlike actions and assaults; and he also wished to cultivate the timbre and sweetness of the voice and the fluency of the tongue through reading aloud and lively discussions.
In the intellectual field, the program of study, marked by a sound encyclopedism, was to neglect nothing (and in this V. had to struggle against harsh adversaries of very backward ideas): Latin and Greek on the classics not only Christian but also pagan (preferably, though without excluding the others, Virgil, Cicero, Quintilian, Hesiod, Xenophon, Plato, Plutarch), mathematics, of which V. was a distinguished cultivator, astronomy, rhetoric and philosophy, moral science and music. The method was as didactic as one could wish: exact pronunciation and a clear voice for the little ones; for the older ones: translations, literary exercises in prose and verse, learning by heart ample passages of authors (which he esteemed of extraordinary effectiveness also for life), changing of subject matter to remove the boredom of monotony and to make the intelligence more supple.
Yet V.'s greatest merit is not that of having been a learned humanist and a skillful teacher, but that of having known how to permeate his humanism with a vivid Christian spirit, which did not mortify it at all, and with an assiduous vigilance in forming characters for life and for the various circumstances in which the pupils would later have to pursue it. Religion therefore held the first place; he himself led the pupils every day to Mass, which he attended with a recollected and devout demeanor; monthly confession and communion; he reserved for himself the daily religious instruction, to which he made serve even the passages of the pagan authors themselves, whose incorrectness and inadequacies he demonstrated. Equally solicitous was the moral part of education: study of characters in order to win their confidence; study also of the families to which the pupils belonged, in order to identify their hereditary and environmental influences and the better to forestall their consequences and direct their activities; discipline founded on understanding and on the effectiveness of self-education and self-mastery, rather than on corporal punishments, to be avoided as far as possible; encouragement of praise and of a healthy self-esteem. No improper talk, nor slovenly and unbecoming manners; but always, everywhere and with everyone, purity of thought and speech, easy elegance and distinction of bearing.
These are the aspects under which V.'s work and educational style present themselves; on the one hand: vibrant sympathy for the child's soul, smiling freshness in manner, ready understanding of the need it has for movement, play and joy; on the other: severe personal discipline, a high conception of life, a conscious pursuit of moral perfection, insofar as it is Christian perfection; aspects that did not mortify one another but blended harmoniously. The fact is that V. regarded the teacher's educational apostolate as a priesthood, a vocation fixed for him by God, which imposed on him first of all an irreproachable temperance to be transformed into an effective mission of charity and love. Nor should it be omitted that, despite his intense activity as tutor and educator, V. still found time to visit orphans and widows, the sick and prisoners, dispensing consolations and aid everywhere, so that he died with his goods burdened by so many debts that the heirs refused the inheritance and he had to be buried at the expense of the marquises of Mantua.
Moreover, "the good fruits of the 'Casa gioiosa' were seen not only in Mantua but also elsewhere, since for a long time V.'s pupils were recognized by a loyalty of character that made a singular contrast with the general corruption of the time" (P. Villari, N. Machiavelli e i suoi tempi, I, 3rd ed., Milan 1912, p. 161).
His school in fact, continued still for 20 years under the guidance of his disciples, Ognibene da Parma first, and then Bartolomeo Sacchi, called il Platina, was a true forge where men were tempered not so much as men of letters, but as men effectively prepared for life, as the Gonzaga and the Montefeltro, heads of state, showed themselves to be; Sassolo da Prato, Nicolò Perotto, Giov. Andrea Bussi, prelates; and others, condottieri, humanists, scientists (cf. Gerini, op. cit. in bibl., pp. 67-73). Pisanello on the medal in honor of V. wrote: "Victorinus Feltrensis summus mathematicus et omnis humanitatis Pater". In 1868 a monument to V. was erected at Feltre with the inscription: "Al suo V. principe degli educatori".
Bibliography13 works
Celestino Testore