Giason Denores

Giasone Denores or De Nores (c. 1530 — 1590) was an Italian philosopher of the Renaissance.

Biography
Giasone De Nores was born around 1530 at Nicosia, in the island of Cyprus. His family, which hailed originally from Normandy, was one of the most powerful in the island. His grandmother was the sister of the powerful Cardinal Prodocator. Of her sons, one, Pietro De Nores, was apparently Giason's father, while another, Giovan De Nores, had a distinguished career as a lawyer and diplomat.

In the late 1540s De Nores was sent to study at the University of Padua. In this centre of Aristotelian philosophy - Padua was the one city which had adhered loyally to Aristotelianism even when it had fallen into disrepute during the Renaissance - he studied letters and the sciences under the direction of the famous humanist Trifone Gabriel. A close intimacy sprang up between professor and student. Towards the end of his life, De Nores recalled with pride that Gabriel, 'in spite of the fact that he could have followed princes and cardinals,' had not scorned to dwell for many months in his student's house. The second person under whose influence De Nores came was Sperone Speroni, professor of Logic and Philosophy in the University of Padua and leader of the Accademia degli Infiammati.

After receiving his doctorate, De Nores returned to Cyprus. It was shortly after this, in 1553, that, hearing of the death of Trifone Gabriel, he issued his first work - a commentary on Horace's Ars Poetica based on Trifone Gabriel's talks on the subject.

In 1570, Cyprus, which had been under the sway of Venice since 1489, was subdued and conquered by Selim II. Nicosia, and the city capitulated after resisting for 44 days. Twenty thousand of the inhabitants were slaughtered by the invaders. De Nores found asylum in Venice, where he became a member of the Accademia dei Pellegrini. For some years he worked as tutor in the palaces of various noble Venetian families.

In December 1573, the academy of the 'Rinascenti' was inaugurated in Padua, and De Nores was appointed reader in Rhetoric, with the annual emolument of 50 ducats.

In 1577 his fellow-refugees chose him to plead their cause before the new Doge Sebastiano Venier. The oration that he delivered on this occasion - afterwards inserted in his Rhetorica - had a double effect. To the Cyprians was conceded the right to inhabit with many privileges the city of Pula; and to De Nores was offered the Chair of Moral Philosophy at Padua. This professorship, which had not been filled since the death of Francesco Robortello ten years earlier, carried with it an annual stipend of 200 florins, increased to 300 in 1589.

Relieved from financial worries, De Nores could devote himself to his philosophical and literary pursuits: in the remaining thirteen years of his life he wrote eleven of his fourteen works. His Discorso (1587) and Poetica (1588) by their adverse criticism of pastoral tragicomedy involved him in a bitter polemic with Giovanni Battista Guarini, the author of Il pastor fido. In the midst of the controversy De Nores died, in 1590, at the age of about 60 years.