Zanobi da Strada

Zanobi da Strada
Born	1312 (1312) Strada, Florentine Republic
Died	1361 (aged 48–49) Avignon, Avignon Papacy
Occupation	Poet
Notable awards	Poet laureate

Zanobi da Strada (1312 – 1361 in Avignon), was an Italian translator, scholar and correspondent of Petrarch and a friend of Giovanni Boccaccio.[1]

He was born in Strata or Strada in Chianti, a hamlet or neighborhood within the town of Greve in Chianti, near Florence, Tuscany. He initially worked in Florence as a secretary for the King of Naples. He was responsible for some manuscript rediscoveries in the Monte Cassino monastery library to which he had access as secretary to the diocesan bishop and where he lived from 1355 to 1357.[2] Early Apuleius MS marginalia (including the so-called spurcum additamentum, a pornographic interpolation at Met. 10.21.1[3]) is in his hand.[2]

Zanobi da Strada was crowned poet laureate by Charles IV on May 15, 1355, at Pisa, to the great disgust of Boccaccio, who declined to recognise the degree as legitimate.[4] From there, Zanobi worked as an apostolic protonotary and secretary to pope Innocent VI. Zanobi would die in Avignon. Few of his verses survive. He was also a translator of some classic works, including the Morals by St. Gregory.[5]

Notes

1. Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia by Christopher Kleinhenz (Nov 2003) ISBN 0415939313 page 1174
2. Scribes and Scholars, L.D. Reynolds and N.G. Wilson, OUP 1991 (3rd ed.), p. 133
3. Hunink, Vincent. "The 'spurcum additamentum' (Apul. Met. 10,21) once again". Lectiones Scrupulosae: Essays on the Text and Interpretation of Apuleius' Metamorphoses in Honour of Maaike Zimmerman (Supplementum 6 to Ancient Narrative). pp. 266–279. Archived from the original on 22 May 2023.
4. Burckhardt, Jacob (1878). The Civilization Of The Renaissance in Italy. University of Toronto - Robarts Library: Vienna Phaidon Press. p. 106. Retrieved 9 March 2019.
5. Dizionario biografico universale, Volume 5, by Felice Scifoni, Publisher Davide Passagli, Florence (1849); page 200.