Pietro Lauro
Pietro Lauro was one of the most well-known Italian polymaths of the 16th century. His work includes translations from Latin, Ancient Greek, and Spanish, covering texts by classical, foreign, and Protestant authors. Lauro demonstrated skill in handling texts on diverse topics, such as philosophy, architecture, medicine, gardening, agronomy, biological sciences, history, theology, and astronomy. He also ventured into writing a chivalric romance in the style of Spanish works, the , his magnum opus in this regard.
An adherent of the Protestant Reformation, although his translations were criticized by his contemporaries for being overly literal, crude, and impartial, Lauro is credited with completing the translation into the vernacular of numerous classical, scientific, and epistolary texts. His works achieved significant circulation, not only among the Venetian literati of his time but throughout Italy, to the extent that some of his translations are still reprinted in new editions today.
Biography
Youth
Little is known about Lauro’s life, and few biographical details are certain. It is presumed that he was born around 1510, possibly from a family of humble origins. The only reference to his youth is a testimony by Lodovico Castelvetro, his contemporary and fellow Modenese, later recorded in writing by Girolamo Tiraboschi:This testimony, however, is contradicted by other sources; Tiraboschi himself doubts some of its suggestions, such as the possibility that Lauro became a friar. He likely received a fragmented and not particularly advanced education; it is believed he may have pursued university studies at Bologna or Padua, although his name does not appear in the Acta graduum of either institution. Considering his scientific dissemination work in the medical field, it is thought he may have attended university courses in medicine, but this is not supported by reliable sources. It is almost certain, however, that like many future scholars born in the 1510s of the 16th century, such as Lodovico Dolce, Anton Francesco Doni, Girolamo Ruscelli, and Niccolò Franco, Lauro came into contact with the works of Erasmus of Rotterdam, including Adagia, De conscribendis epistolis, and De duplici copia verborum ac rerum.
First Venetian period (1539–1546)
Employment
Like other Italian scholars, Lauro was drawn to the job opportunities offered by the Venetian printing industry, settling in the lagoon city perhaps in the early 1540s. However, his first work, printed in the same city, is dated 1539: the Petri Lauri Mutinensis Preludium ad copiam dicendi, ubi et obiter muliebre ingenium mobile et uarium, porut copia dicendi potuit, exprimitur, of which a single copy survives today, included in a miscellaneous volume, preserved at the Vatican Library. In style and structure, it is an educational text, possibly compiled during teaching activities; this may explain Castelvetro’s statement:But here too, Tiraboschi says:
Lauro was likely not merely a grammarian limited to teaching the basics of Latin to children or youths but a true professor who taught students engaged in more advanced studies. Alongside this teaching activity, he undertook other remunerative tasks to support his large family, such as writing on commission or working as a copyist. In Venice, Lauro is also recorded as a schoolteacher in documents from 1561, an employment further evidenced by a letter addressed to him by Lucrezia Gonzaga di Gazzuolo in 1552. Beyond this information, it is nearly impossible to reconstruct Lauro’s biography before 1542 with certainty. From his letters, it is known that he lived in near poverty throughout his life, despite the help and financial support from acquaintances and friends, often foreign, in addition to the income generated by his works.
It was his activity as a vernacular translator of classical texts that made him most famous: between 1542 and 1568, there were prolific entrepreneurial initiatives to print Latin or Greek texts in the Italian vernacular. Primarily, this activity was undertaken by Venetian printers such as Gabriele Giolito de' Ferrari, who, in 1542, four years after inheriting his father’s business, surrounded himself with numerous scholars employed in assembling, editing, and vernacularizing classical and European texts. The category of polygraphs, of which Lauro became a part, consisting of writers and translators who dealt with varied and sometimes significantly different topics for dissemination purposes, experienced its most intense phase during this period.
First translations
Although the publishing program of printing houses was subject to the approval of their owners, they allowed considerable freedom for the proposals and advice of their collaborators. Lauro thus began his career as a translator in 1542, proposing and completing the first vernacular translation of the Oneirocritica by Artemidorus of Daldis for Giolito, titled Dell'interpretatione de sogni, dedicated to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza y Pacheco, the Spanish ambassador in Venice. Even today, some Italian editions of this text use this version, based on the 1547 reprint. This was soon followed by the De' notevoli et utilissimi ammaestramenti dell'agricoltura, a translation of the Geoponica, a Byzantine work then attributed to the emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, now to Cassianus Bassus, an author who lived between the 6th and 7th centuries. After these initial works, which, as confirmed by examinations of the prefaces, were the result of his personal initiative in selecting texts, Lauro caught the attention of other printers, such as, with whom he began collaborating concurrently. Tramezzino entrusted him with the translation of the Chronica by the German astronomer Johann Carion. These historical-annalistic texts were highly successful at the time, and Lauro, again for Tramezzino, translated another the following year, the Catalogo de gli anni et Principi de la creatione de l'huomo sin a 1540 dal nascere di Christo by Valerius Anshelm.Between 1543 and 1545, Lauro established himself in various fields of specialized literature, translating works from Latin and Greek across diverse genres. Notably, he published a vernacular translation of the historical collection Della guerra troiana: this was the Italian edition of the successful pseudo-ancient anthology Auctores vetustissimi, published in 1498 by the Dominican Annius of Viterbo; in 1550, it was reissued, revised as I cinque libri de le antichità de Beroso sacerdote caldeo. He also translated other works by Greek historians, such as the De i fatti del Magno Alessandro re di Macedonia, a vernacularization of the Anabasis of Alexander by Arrian, followed by Flavius Josephus’s De l'antichità giudaiche and the Historia d'Egesippo by Saint Jerome; he then worked on agricultural texts, such as Le herbe, fiori, stirpi, che si piantano ne gli horti by Charles Estienne, and a medical text from the Corpus Hippocraticum, Opere utilissime in medicina di Polibio illustre medico. In 1546, he translated the De re aedificatoria by Leon Battista Alberti, titled I dieci libri de l'architettura. Although Lauro’s was the first vernacular translation of Alberti’s work and enjoyed some popularity, the translation that gained more recognition at the time was the subsequent one by Cosimo Bartoli, published in Florence in 1550, which completely overshadowed Lauro’s in later editions. This was due to several factors: not only was the Italian rendering of the text better and less literal, but the Tuscan edition was also better curated, featuring a good number of illustrations. Nonetheless, Lauro’s translation remains historically significant as the first vernacular version of the first "modern" book on architecture. Additionally, the edition, given the small size of the volume, almost considered "pocket-sized," was designed to appeal to a broader audience than the Latin version.
In addition to classical languages, during the first part of his career, Lauro also translated from Spanish. The most significant of these were works of pure entertainment, such as the Historia del valorosissimo cavallier della Croce and De l'ufficio del marito, come si debba portare verso la moglie by Juan Luis Vives, dedicated to Eleanor of Toledo. Of notable historical importance during this period are the vernacular translations of two works later placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum: the only complete Italian translation of 1543 of the De inventoribus rerum by the humanist from Urbino, Polydore Vergil,, published as De l'origine e de gl'inventori de le leggi, costumi, scientie, arti, et di tutto quello che a l'humano uso conviensi, and the first vernacular translation of the Colloquies by Erasmus of Rotterdam, printed at the workshop of the French Vincenzo Valgrisi in 1545 and reprinted four years later with revised text. The Italian translation of this work, which likely inspired for the composition of his poem Il sogno dil Caravia, attracted the interest of many scholars, including Benedetto Croce. In the reprint, Lauro’s dedication is addressed to Renée of France, wife of Ercole II d'Este, likely at the request of the duchess herself, to align with a highly fashionable author in Europe at the time and better integrate into the intellectual élite of Ferrara.
Second Venetian period (1550–1568)
No further information about Lauro is available, possibly due to his absence from Venice, until 1550, when he published the aforementioned Beroso sacerdote caldeo. This was a vernacular translation of the 1498 text by Annius of Viterbo, Commentaria super opera diversorum auctorum de antiquitatibus loquentium, in which Annius claimed to have rediscovered lost texts attributable to Berossus. The rediscovered texts were later revealed to be forgeries, likely created ad hoc by Annius himself: it was common practice for many authors to attribute their works to the Babylonian astrologer to lend them prestige. Lauro’s translation achieved widespread success, much like the original text, so much so that the following year it was followed by an incomplete translation of the Moralia by Plutarch, titled Le piacevoli et ingeniose questioni di Plutarcho. Finally, in 1552, Tramezzino published the first book of De le lettere di m. Pietro Lauro modonese, which saw a second reprint in 1553; in 1560, a second book was published, without indication of the printer but attributable to the workshop of Comin da Trino.Spanish, theology, and chivalric books
In 1555, he returned to work for Giolito, specializing for him in translating theological and devotional texts from Spanish: two examples are the translations of works by Antonio de Guevara, such as the Oratorio de religiosi, et esercitio de virtuosi and La seconda parte del libro chiamato Monte Calvario, both reprinted multiple times in subsequent years due to their popularity. These were commissioned works, followed by the Tutte l'opere del reverendo padre fra Luigi di Granata by Luis de Granada, also known as the Ghirlanda spirituale, of which he translated three volumes, published in 1568 but the result of several years’ work. The extraordinary commercial success of this collection in Italy is evidenced by over ten reprints in various formats of the same edition; this highlights Giolito’s entrepreneurial skill in meeting market expectations. For this collection, Lauro collaborated with other translators, and it was the last work published with a translation by him. Among his interests during this period was the genre of chivalric romance, begun with the translation of the ' by Alonso de Salazar from 1521, published in 1544; this version was highly successful, reaching eleven editions by 1629. After years of apparent disinterest, with no other translations of this genre published, translations of ' by as Il cavallier del Sole in 1557 and the Historia di Valeriano d'Ongaria from the ' by, printed in two books by the publisher Bosello between 1558 and 1559, appeared on the Venetian publishing market. As Lauro approached his fifties, there seems to have been a renewed interest in Iberian chivalric stories by the polygraph, so much so that these were followed by the Historia delle gloriose imprese di Polendo figliuolo di Palmerino d'Oliva, published by Giglio in 1566. Although the incipit states that it is a translation from a Spanish original, it is well-known that this text was Lauro’s own work: he aimed to continue the highly successful Palmerin de Olivia series, begun in Spain in 1511. A further novel, a direct sequel to this one, was likely planned, but it was never published, likely due to the author’s death. Another translation, the ', published in 1560, was previously considered an original work by Lauro, as the Spanish original was unknown, with only a 1563 Castilian edition called Leandro el Bel known. Even in 1917, the bibliographer English Henry Thomas sought to demonstrate that the differences between the two versions and the evident errors in the Spanish version were the result of a poor translation from Italian. Only in the early 2000s, the linguist Anna Bognolo rediscovered a letter by Pedro de Luján, a Spanish writer, containing the dedication of this work to, 11th Count of Niebla. From this rediscovery, the composition of Leandro is dated between 1550, the start of the author’s activity, and the death of de Guzmán in 1556.The specific reasons that prompted Lauro to begin translating texts from Spanish are not clearly known, but for vernacularizers of classical languages contemporary to him, the Spanish language was considered a "gateway" to Latin: for other intellectuals like Pietro Aretino, this language was easily comprehensible for those with a good knowledge of Latin.
Medical texts and death
Between 1556 and 1559, he engaged in translations of medical and alchemical texts: the first was the Tesauro di Euonomo Filatro de rimedii secreti, a manual for the distillation of medicines, published under a pseudonym by Conrad Gessner, which in the Italian version was accompanied by a remarkable series of woodcut illustrations. This was followed by the De' secreti di natura o Della quinta essentia libri due by Ramon Llull and the De cose minerali et metalliche in 1557, followed by Niccolò Mutoni, Il luminare maggiore, utile e necessario a tutti li medici, et speciali… con un breve commento di Iacopo Manlio and, from Spanish the following year, the short work by, Libro delle quatro infermità cortigiane, che sono catarro, gotta, artetica, sciatica, mal di pietre et di reni, dolore di fianchi et mal francese, et altre cose utilissime.He likely died in Venice in 1568 or the years immediately following, leaving his wife Gioconda and his children. The exact number of his children is unknown: according to his letters, he first had two children named Paolo and Angela, and at least two younger children named Cipriano and Concordia. Lauro also made a generic reference to other "daughters" and mentioned another son, Vincenzo, without providing further details.
Connections with the Reformation
Lauro’s heterodox interests were likely influenced by contact with German reformed circles, also hinting at interactions with those in Northern Italy, confirmed by depositions in some trials for heresy., former almoner to Renata of France, during his trial before the Inquisition in Rome, which led to his death in 1557, stated:In another trial, an accused named Ettore Donati declared that “In Venice, I heard it said that Messer Lauro was infected.” In a letter dated November 11, 1561,, a prominent figure among the pro-Calvinist Venetians and a leader of the Protestants in Rovigo, promised Lauro to supplement the dowry of one of his unmarried daughters by 10 ducats, on the condition that she marry a young man with “knowledge of the true faith.” Roncalli formalized this commitment in his will drawn up shortly after, in the same year, 1561. Lauro was also on excellent terms with Ortensio Lando: the latter, who was close to Lucrezia Gonzaga di Gazzuolo for a period, convinced her to write to the Modenese polygraph. Given the suspicions and accusations of heresy that the noblewoman and scholar aroused during her life, some allusions in Lauro’s letters to “many troubles that have kept me in quite unpleasant exercise” and to his “affairs” that caused concern to his correspondent may have stemmed from a fear of attracting the attention of the Inquisition through his correspondence. In these same letters, he also confessed to being afraid of leaving the Venetian Republic for religious reasons, stating that those who left the state were “suspended and doubtful.”
The polygraph’s beliefs also influenced his translations, in which some passages were deliberately altered in Italian to better align with reformed ideals. An example can be found in the De inventoribus rerum by Polydore Vergil, where an entire chapter was completely modified and censored: while the original author intended to advocate for the confirmation of celibacy for priests and presbyters, Lauro omitted some sentences and reversed the meaning of others to suggest and promote an ideal closer to the preachings of Martin Luther.
Epistolary works
Lauro became famous in his time for two books containing his correspondences and letters, printed respectively in 1552 and in 1560 by Giolito and Comin da Trino. It is thanks to these texts that his numerous contacts with some of the major exponents of Italian humanism are known, both those residing in Venice, such as Lazarus Buonamici, Natale Conti, and, and those living in other cities of the peninsula, such as. Other letters were addressed to his publishers or to theologians, most of whom were Dominican friars from the convent of the Basilica of Saints John and Paul, where Remigio Nannini took vows during that period. About half of the letters were addressed to foreigners, mostly Germans, confirming his association with reformed circles. The content of the epistolary exchanges ranged from matters concerning morality and politics, but also economics, the arts, personal matters, and society. The collection is not arranged chronologically but by “concepts”: Lauro sought to organize them by topic, attempting to group them to outline his ideals; however, this arrangement makes the work not always coherent or continuous.The collection has a didactic structure, as evidenced by the absence of tables listing the recipients’ names; however, there is an index of the topics covered in each letter. From these, not only can valuable information about Lauro’s life and personality be gleaned, but also about the various recipients and senders of the letters, thanks to the frequent revelation of their ideals and concerns. According to, the work may actually be a fictional epistolary and a rhetorical exercise, imitating the Paradossi by Ortensio Lando. This is suggested by how Lauro responded to Lucrezia Gonzaga di Gazzuolo, comforting her for the loss of her husband, and how she, in turn, responded in highly laudatory tones toward the Modenese. According to Sanesi, the letters from Gonzaga herself were likely written by Lando, given the similarities in language with the works of the Milanese humanist.
These exchanges of correspondence are also significant in the context of religion: they reveal many connections between intellectuals of the time suspected of harboring reformist sympathies. Among the notable figures in the collections are Girolamo Molin, Nicolò Da Ponte, Jacopo Zane, Giorgio Gradenigo, the aforementioned Erizzo and Contile, and, above all,, one of the most suspected of sympathizing with reformist currents.
The polygraph wrote to his friend that he was not convinced about publishing the collection, as he was unsure of the actual interest it would garner. The first book was dedicated to the Florentine nobleman Francesco Chimenti, while the second was dedicated to the German banker Johann Jakob Fugger, a member of the Fugger family and nephew of Anton Fugger. The latter distinguished himself with almost reckless patronage, which led to the financial ruin of the family business, while supporting Lauro and some of his intellectual friends financially.
''Polendo''
Historia delle gloriose impresi di Polendo, figliuolo di Palmerino di Oliva, e di Pompide figliuolo di don Duardo re d'Inghilterra, more commonly known by its abbreviated title Polendo after one of its protagonists, is a chivalric romance written by Lauro and published in 1566. It is a continuation of the by, the second book in the Iberian cycle of the Palmerins, as well as the last book in the cycle overall.The story recounts the heroic deeds and adventures of many characters: Polendo, son of Primaleon and king of Thessaly, sets out to rescue his kidnapped son Franciano, leaving his homeland, where his wife Francelina is killed during his absence. He remarries the princess of Armenia, Diamantina, after rescuing his son and avenging his first wife. Meanwhile, Pompide discovers he is the illegitimate son of Don Duardos, king of England, and sets out to find him to persuade him to become a knight. Upon reaching Scotland, he falls in love with Queen Drusilla and, after saving her from a kidnapping, marries her, fathering a son named Ricadoro. From here, the stories of other characters, either drawn from previous books or entirely invented by Lauro, begin to be told, following the growth of the two sons, Franciano and Ricadoro, in their first adventures as knights.
Despite some inconsistencies with the other books, the Polendo showcases Lauro’s narrative abilities for the first time outside the realm of translation. Likely inspired by the success of the series, his handling of characters is particularly appreciated: the book features an intricate interplay of stories involving a considerable number of protagonists, forming a highly complex narrative. This was achieved by drawing on ideas from other titles in the Palmerins cycle; he is also credited with developing and deepening the stories of some characters who were present but neglected in other stories. Lauro intended to produce a second part to his work, as mentioned multiple times throughout the text and in the conclusion, where it is written:
Lauro never published the continuation of the story, possibly due to his death in 1568, which occurred two years after the publication of Polendo.
Translations
Lauro’s translations elicited mixed judgments, so much so that even during his lifetime, numerous criticisms were raised regarding his works. Castelvetro states that he “dared to translate Columella and other Latin authors,” despite knowing only the rudiments of the Latin language. Even Tiraboschi in the 18th century, while attempting to defend the Modenese’s position and work, admitted that despite his vast output, Lauro likely did not possess a particularly extensive education: this can be inferred both from the trivial errors made in simple translations and from those in the exposition of certain concepts. According to George Francis Hill, an American numismatist who cataloged the medal bearing the only known portrait of Lauro, this inadequacy is represented on the medal itself. Indeed, the reverse bears the inscription:According to Hill, this would be a reference to the poor quality of his translations. In the 16th century, however, prominent figures such as Lucrezia Gonzaga and Ortensio Lando praised him, describing him as an elegant and refined writer, but these opinions may have been biased by their personal acquaintance with the individual in question.
Repercussions
Modern scholars tend to be more lenient toward Lauro’s work: he had to work tirelessly to secure as many texts as possible from the publishers-printers of the time, often translating multiple works simultaneously under exhausting workloads. His employers, who imposed tight deadlines, required translations to cater to public tastes, overlooking the quality and revision that a literary work would typically require. Moreover, for years after the invention of printing, translators received no protections whatsoever.For this reason, in some works, such as the Colloquia familiaria, his attempts to make certain terms and expressions used by Erasmus of Rotterdam more familiar to the Venetian public are appreciated, employing vocabulary, proverbs, and idioms distinctly characteristic of Northeastern Italy or word forms that, while not entirely correct, were designed to facilitate understanding due to their descriptive function, as well as the simplification of complex themes through streamlined reformulations, omitting accessory descriptions to make the text leaner and the reading smoother. Even some of his deliberately partial and voluntary changes have been described as functional within the broader context of his work.
As his texts were aimed not only at the Venetian aristocracy but also at the newly enriched class that did not know Latin, these works decisively contributed to the dissemination of knowledge of both classical texts and scientific knowledge, thanks to the use of a popular-toned language. He is also credited with a certain dexterity in tackling very diverse topics, as well as a keen sense of selection in personally choosing the titles to translate.
Nevertheless, the deliberate omissions of even important parts of the original text, not included in his adaptations or even censored and the literal translations of entire pages, which make some passages awkward, imprecise, and relegated to the background despite their importance in the original work, remain the subject of negative scrutiny by scholars today.