Francesco Rondinelli

Italian scholar (1589–1665)

Writer
Scholar
Academic
Librarian

Parent(s)Raffaello Rondinelli
Ortensia RondinelliWriting careerLanguageItalianLiterary movement

Baroque
Neoclassicism

Notable worksRelazione del contagio stato in Firenze l’anno 1630, e 1633

Francesco Rondinelli (4 October 1589 – 30 January 1665) was a Florentine scholar and academic of the Seicento.

Biography

Francesco Rondinelli was born in Florence on October 4, 1589 to Raffaello and Ortensia Rondinelli. He studied at the University of Pisa.^[1] Rondinelli was a prominent member of the Accademia Fiorentina and of the Accademia della Crusca.^[2] He participated in the drafting of the third edition of the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca (Vocabulary of the Members of the Accademia della Crusca, 1691). Rondinelli was also a member of the Accademia degli Svogliati, founded in Florence by Jacopo Gaddi, and of the Accademia degli Apatisti.^[2] In 1635, Ferdinando II de' Medici awarded him the position of Librarian of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and appointed him tutor to the future Grand Duchess, Vittoria della Rovere.^[2] Rondinelli was a close friend of Alessandro Adimari, Gabriello Chiabrera, Fulvio Testi, Carlo Roberto Dati and Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger.^[1] He devised the programme for Pietro da Cortona's fresco cycle in the so-called Planetary Rooms at Palazzo Pitti.^[3]

Works

Rondinelli’s masterpiece is the Relazione del Contagio Stato in Firenze l’anno 1630 e 1633, an account of the epidemic that struck Florence in the early 1630s.^[2] The work was commissioned to Rondinelli by the Grand Duke Ferdinando II and is based official records and interviews with survivors.^[4] A carefully crafted narrative written in an elegant Italian prose, the Relazione was first published in 1634 and reissued in 1714.^[2] The second edition contained additional material on all the major epidemics which had occurred throughout the world. The Preface of this later edition contains a brief biography of Rondinelli.

Rondinelli wrote a biography of the Florentine humanist Bernardo Davanzati, published at Florence in 1638 and reissued several times thereafter.^[5]

List of works

Relazione del contagio stato in Firenze l'anno 1630, e 1633. Florence: per Gio. Batista Landini. 1634.
Relazione delle nozze degli dei fauola dell'abate Gio. Carlo Coppola rappresenta nelle nozze de' sereniss. gran duchi di Toscana Ferdinando II e Vittoria principessa d'Urbino. Florence: nella nuoua stamperia del Massi, e Landi. 1637.

Notes

^ ^a ^b Elogj 1774, p. 402.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Mirto 2017.
^ Wittkower, Rudolf (1980). Art and Architecture in Italy, 1600 to 1750. Penguin Books. p. 253. ISBN 9780140561166.
^ Calvi 1989, pp. 1–3.
^ Zaccaria, Raffaella (1987). "Davanzati, Bernardo". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 33: D'Asaro–De Foresta (in Italian). Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. ISBN 978-8-81200032-6.

Bibliography

"Elogio di Francesco Rondinelli". Elogj degli uomini illustri Toscani. 4. Lucca: Giuseppe Allegrini: 401–405. 1774.
Santi, Vincenzo (1912). Vita e opere di Francesco Rondinelli (1589-1664). Bologna: tip. Salesiana.
Calvi, Giulia (1989). Histories of a plague year. The social and the imaginary in Baroque Florence. Translated by Dario Biocca and Bryant T. Ragan Jr. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520057999.
Mirto, Alfonso (2017). "RONDINELLI, Francesco". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 88: Robusti–Roverella (in Italian). Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. ISBN 978-8-81200032-6.