User talk:Liceocotta

GIOVANNI COTTA'S LIFE
Giovanni Cotta was probably born into a well-off family of farmers in 1480 in Vangadizza, a small town on the river Adige, in the North -East of Italy. He attended the Humanistic School run by Enrico Merlo, where he studied Classical Languages and Mathematics but he also carried on his studies with private teachers both in Legnago and in Verona. Between 1500 and 1502 he worked for the Town Hall in Verona thanks to his knowledge of Latin. Towards the end of 1502 Giovanni Cotta went to Lodi to live with his aunt and where he also set up a school. He met Filippo Bononi there (mid 1400-1518), Minister of the Kingdom of Naples who taught him how to appreciate “L’Arcadia” by Jacopo Sannazzaro (1457-1503).

In 1503 Giovanni Cotta went to Naples to meet the famous humanist Giovanni Pontano (1429-1503) who took him under his wing and admitted him to the renowned Pontanian Academy attended by the most important scholars of that period. Eight of his “Carmina” were probably written then. Between the end of 1506 and the first months of 1507 he met the great Umbrian leader Bartolomeo D’Alviano (1455-1515) who was working for the Venetian Republic and who wanted Cotta as his personal assistant. In 1508 Giovanni Cotta wrote a poem in honour of  Bartolomeo D’Alviano’s triumph over Massimiliano d’Asburgo army.

In March 1509 the war against France broke out on the Lombard front and on the 14th May Alviano was defeated in Agnadello(Cremona). He was wounded, captured and imprisoned in Milan. Cotta barely saved his own life but lost all of his manuscripts. He tried to deal with Alviano’s release on several occasions but without success. Finally, during a further attempt in 1510 to have Alviano set free, he fell ill and died of plague. He died at the age of thirty and was presumably buried in the church of San Francesco in Viterbo.

Works

There is a record of his 15 most famous Carmi and speeches which  have been collected  from  various sources  and  documents that may have belonged to him. Cotta’s poems were also appreciated by eminent scholars like  Niccolò Tommaseo and  Benedetto Croce.