Benvenuto da Imola

The work of Benvenuto da Imola (c.1330-c.1387) testifies to the remarkable level attained in Emilia by early Humanism in the mid-fourteenth century. Benvenuto carried out his early studies in Grammar and Law in the private school run by his father, a notary public. In 1361-62 he was in Bologna in the service of the Governor Gomez Albornoz, during which time he wrote his Romuleon, a compendium of Roman history. He made his name as a private reader of both classical and modern authors such as Virgil, Lucan and Petrarch. It was during these years in Bologna that he drew up the outline for his masterpiece, Commentum super Dantem, which he continued to work on until about 1383 and which even today is still admired for its analytical precision and intuition. His scholastic, medieval Latin, however, reveals that he was still tied to the pre-Humanistic mentality. Benvenuto made a comparison between Petrarch, whom he knew personally and exalted, in a Humanist fashion, for being copiosior in dicendo, and Dante, who was a maior poeta because he knew how to combine tragedy, satire and comedy. As a result of professional rivalry Benvenuto was forced to spend the latter part of his life under the protection of Niccolò II d'Este in Ferrara, where he worked on commentaries on Virgil, Lucan and Seneca. He also produced Augustalis libellus, a study of emperors from Julius Caesar to Wenceslas (continued at a later date down to Maximilian by Enea Silvio Piccolomini). In Ferrara he read Valerian Maximus in public and attained recognition as one of the leading figures of fourteenth-century Humanism.