Pier Paolo Vergerio, the Elder

Humanist, statesman, and canonist, b. at Capodistria, 23 July, 1370; d. at Budapest, 8 July, 1444 or 1445. He studied rhetoric at Padua, canon law at Florence (1387- 89) and at Bologna (1389-90); taught logic at Padua and Florence, and was tutor of the princes of Carrara at their court at Padua. After 1406 we find him at Rome as secretary to Innocent VII and Gregory XII. Later he became canon of Ravenna and took part in the Council of Constance in 1414. The next year he was one of the fifteen delegates who accompanied the Emperor Sigismund to Perpignan, where an endeavour was made to induce Benedict XIII to renounce his claims. From 1417 to his death he was secretary to the Emperor Sigismund. In July, 1420, he was the chief orator of the Catholic party at the Hussite disputation at Prague. Though never married and probably in minor orders, he was not a priest. The following of his works have been printed: "Pro redintegranda uniendaque Ecclesia", edited with introduction and notes by Combi in "Archivio storico per Trieste, l'Istria ed il Trentino" (Rome, 1882), 351-74; "Historia rincipum Carrariensium ad annum circiter MXXXLV", edited by Muratori, "Rerum ital. Script.", XVI, 113-184; "Vita Petrarcae", edited by Tommassini in "Petrarca redivivus", (Padua, 1701); "De ingenuis moribus ac liberalibus studiis" (Venice, 1472). His letters, 146 in number, were edited by Luciani (Venice, 1887). There are still in manuscript: a Latin version of Arrian's "Gesta Alexandri Magni"; a Life of Seneca; a panegyric on St. Jerome; a few comedies, satires, and other poems.

BISCHOFF, Studien zu P. P. Vergerio dem Aeltern (Berlin, 1909); KOPP, Pietro Paolo Vergerio der erste humanistische Padagog (Lucerne, 1894); BADUBER, P. P. Vergerio il seniore (Capodistria, 1866); WOODWARD, Vittorino da Feltro and other Humanist Educators (Cambridge, 1897); JACHINO, Del pedagogista Pier Paolo Vergerio (Florence, 1894); BUSCHBELL, Reformation und Inquisition in Italien und die Mite des 16. Jahrhunderts (Paderborn, 1910), 103-54.

MICHAEL OTT