Vergerius, Peter Paul

, one of the most learned men of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was born in 1349 at Justinopolis, now Capo d'Istria, a town situated at the extremity of the Adriatic gulph, not far from Trieste. Of his preceptors we only know that he learned Greek of Chrysoloras at Venice, and canon law of Francis de Zabarelia at Florence. -He is said to have composed the inscription on the monument of Chrysoloras in the Dominican monastery at Constance, where that eminent scholar died | in 1415. After visiting several cities in Italy, where he displayed his knowledge of philosophy, civil law, mathematics, Greek, &c. he assisted at the council of Constance, and went thence to Hungary, to which it was thought he was invited by the emperor Sigismond. The prince of Carrara, then in possession of Padua, chose him for preceptor to his children. He is supposed to have died about 1431; Saxius says 1428. In his last days his faculties experienced a total decay, nor did he appear to have any enjoyment of his reason but at short intervals.

He wrote a history of the princes of Carrara, which is inserted in Muratori’s collection, vol. XVI. published at Milan 173iQ, who did not know that it had appeared eight years before in the “Thesaur. Antiq. Ital.” vol. VI. part III. published at Leyden. He wrote also alife of Petrarch, which may be seen in Tomasijii’s “Petrarcha Redivivus;” an elogium on St. Jerorn; a treatise de “Republica Veneta,” published at Rome in 1526; and testified his zeal for the honour of classical learning, by publishing an invective against Malatesta, who, by a misguided zeal, had removed from the market-place of Mantua a statue of Virgil. One of his most celebrated treatises was that “Deingenuis moribus,” composed for the use of the prince of Carrara’s children. This, which was so popular as to become a school-book, aod as such Paul Jovius mentions its being put into his hands when a youth, was first published, with other treatises of the same kind, at Milan in 1474, 4to, and reprinted in 1477. Brunet, however, mentions an edition prior to either of these, which he supposes printed about 1472, with the title “Ad Ubertinum Carariensem de ingenuis moribus opus e Magno Basileo, et e Xenophonti de tirannide Leonardi Aretini traductio.” Brunet also mentions, that the editions of 1474 and 1477 are to be found separate from the other treatises; but it was certainly afterwards printed with them, at Venice: for example in 1502, with Bonardus and others on the subject of education; and at Basil in 1541, with Vitruvius Roscius “de docendi studendique modo,” &c. Vergerius translated into Latin Arrian’s history of the expedition of Alexander the Great, and it is said purposely avoided any particular elegance of style, lest his royal reader should stand in need of the assistance of an interpreter. If this be true it cannot be a matter of much regret that such a translation was not printed. Vergerius is likewise said to have written | poetry, and even a Latin comedy, which is preserved in manuscript in the Ambrosian library. It was the production of his youth, and is entitled “Paulus.” Sassi, in his typographical history of Milan, has printed the prologue. ¹