Editing Jacopo Sannazaro (section)

==Works==
[[File:Pervigilium Veneris codex V page 1.png|thumb|upright|Sannazaro's [[humanist minuscule]] hand in a collection of Roman poems he copied in 1501–1503]]
[[File:1602 Bogardus Duaci opera Iacobi Sannazarii 12,7 x 7,2 cm.JPG|thumb|upright|An edition of Sannazaro's collected works, printed in 1602]]
The ''Arcadia'' of Sannazaro was written in the 1480s, completed about 1489 and circulated in manuscript before its initial publication.  Begun in early life and published in [[Naples]] in 1504, the ''Arcadia'' is a  [[Romance (heroic literature)|pastoral Romance]], in which Sincero, the ''persona'' of the poet, disappointed in love, withdraws from the city (Naples in this case) to pursue in [[Arcadia (utopia)|Arcadia]] an idealized pastoral existence among the shepherd-poets, in the manner of the Idylls of [[Theocritus]]. But a frightful dream induces him to return to the city, traversing a dark tunnel to his native Naples, where he learns of the death of his beloved.  The events are amplified by extensive imagery drawn from classic sources, by the poet's languid melancholy and by atmospheric elegiac descriptions of the lost world of Arcadia.  It was the first ''[[pastoral]]'' work in [[Renaissance]] Europe to gain international success.  Inspired in part by classical authors who wrote in the pastoral mode— in addition to [[Virgil]] and [[Theocritus]] including comparatively obscure recently rediscovered Latin poets [[Calpurnius]] and [[Nemesianus]]— and by [[Giovanni Boccaccio|Boccaccio]]'s ''Ameto'', Sannazaro depicts a lovelorn first-person narrator ("Sincero") wandering the countryside ([[Arcadia (ancient region)|Arcadia]]) and listening to the amorous or mournful songs of the shepherds he meets.  In addition to its pastoral setting, the other great originality of the work stems from its novel structure of alternating prose and verse.

Sannazaro's ''Arcadia'' – coupled with the Portuguese author [[Jorge de Montemayor]]'s [[Diana (pastoral romance)|''Diana'']] (''Los siete libros de la Diana'', 1559),  itself indebted to Sannazaro's work – had a profound impact on literature throughout Europe up until the middle of the seventeenth century.

With the ''Arcadia'' behind him, Sannazaro concentrated on [[Neo-Latin|Latin works of classical inspiration]]. His [[Virgil]]ian bucolic works include the five ''Eclogae piscatoriae'', [[eclogue]]s on themes connected with the [[Bay of Naples]], which originated the genre of the [[piscatorial eclogue]]; three books of elegies; and three books of epigrams. Other works in Latin include three books of epigrams, and two short works entitled ''Salices'' [Willows] and ''De Morte Christi Lamentatio'' ["Lament on the Death of Christ"].

Sannazaro's now seldom-read sacred poem in Latin, ''De partu Virginis'', which gained for him the name of the "Christian [[Virgil]]",<ref>"The poem is as Virgilian as he could make it", his translator Ralph Nash observes (Nash 1996:13).</ref> was extensively rewritten in 1519–21 and appeared in print, 1526. It has been characterized as "his version of Mary's [[Magnificat]]".<ref>Nash 1996: "General Introduction" p. 10.</ref>

Among his works in Italian and Neapolitan are the recasting of Neapolitan proverbs as ''Gliommeri'' his ''Farse'', and the ''Rime'' (published as ''Sonetti et canzoni di M. Jacopo Sannazaro'', Naples and Rome, 1530), where the manner of [[Petrarch]] is paramount.  He also wrote some savage and caustic epigrams. Most famous is the one he wrote against Pope Alexander VI after the murder of Giovanni Borgia, eldest son of the Pope, whose body was recovered from the Tiber River—Sannazaro cheekily described Alexander VI as a "fisher of men" (playing on the Christ's words to Peter). This epigram caused immense grief to the Pope.

His portrait by [[Titian]], painted ca 1514–18, is in the [[Royal Collection]], part of the diplomatic "[[Dutch Gift]]" to [[Charles II of England|Charles II]], in 1660.

The first complete translation into English of the ''Arcadia'' is by Ralph Nash, ''Jacopo Sannazaro: Arcadia and Piscatorial Eclogues'' (Detroit: Wayne State University Press) 1966. Nash returned to translate into English prose and verse ''The Major Latin Poems of Jacopo Sannazaro'', (Detroit: Wayne State University Press) 1996. The distinguished Latinist [[Michael C. J. Putnam]] has recently published the first translation of all of Sannazaro's Latin poetry.<ref name="Putnam">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2NZpR3EmptkC&q=Latin+poetry+/+Jacopo+Sannazaro|title=Latin Poetry|first=Jacopo|last=Sannazaro|date=Aug 11, 2009|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=9780674034068 |accessdate=Aug 11, 2022|via=Google Books}}</ref>

Sannazaro has also a long-time correspondence with some Italian humanists. The beloved [[pen-friend]] was [[Antonio Seripando]], brother of the Augustinian friar [[Girolamo Seripando|Girolamo]] (1493–1563).<ref>{{cite book | author = Pierluigi Fiorini | title = Lettere inedite de Antonio Seripando, corrispondente prediletto di Jacopo Sannazaro | trans-title = Unedited letters of Antonio Seripando, the beloved correspondent of Jacopo Sannazaro | language = it | pages = 82 | publisher = M.A. State University of New York at Binghamton, Dept. of Romance Languages and Literatures | year = 1981 | url = https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/84285326 | oclc = 	84285326}}, a graduate dissertation.</ref>