ALCIONIO, PETER, a learned Italian, was born of poor parents, between die years 14.90 and 1500. As he uniformly chose to throw a mystery over the place 01 his birth, with the hopes, it was alleged, that several ci ties would contend for that honour, it cannot now be eN activ ascertained, though the presumption is in favour of Venice. After finishing his studies in the Creel: and Latin, he found it necessary to seek a livelihood as a corrector of the press, and in this capacity it is said he served Aldus Manutins for several years, contributing not a little to the remarkable accuracy of that cc lebrated printer. He afterwards studied medicine, lint felt his inclinations too strongly devoted to classical litera ture to admit of his pursuing that profession with advan tage.
In 1517 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Greek chair at Venice. Five years after, through HI, interest of cardinal Julius de Medicis, he was made professor of Greek at Florence, with a liberal salary and many privileges; and he was also employed by this same prince in translating Galen's Ns or}; De Partibv, .thzimallum, for which he was paid at the rate of ten du cats a-month. His patron being raised to the papal throne, by the name of Clement VII. Alcionio was in flamed with the hopes of advancing his fortune and reputation under his auspices, and repaired to Rome without of the permission of the Florentines.. whom he ungratefully abandoned before they could provide a successor. His reception at Rome by no means corresponded with his expectations.—All that lie could obtain was the chair of eloquence, where emoluments and advantages well: not to be compared with those which he enjoyed at Florence ; and in the second year after his arrival, his property and apart ments in the apostolic palace, were destroyed by the troops of the cardinal Colonna, who were then besieging the city. In 1527, Rome was taken by Charles V. and while flying into the castle of St Angelo, Alcionio re ceived a wound in the arm w ith a musket. On the re storation of tranquillity, irritated by the appearance of neglect on the part of the pontiff, lie abandoLed his party and went over to cardinal Coloona, in whose Louse he died some months after.
In the personal character of Alcionio there is indeed nothing to admire. Ilis vanity and arrogance became proverbial, and they were displayed equally in extolling his own writings, and in detracting from the merits of his contemporaries. :This conduct, with his brutish manners, his ungrateful and avaricious disposition, ren dered him the object of general hatred. It is said
also, that the cardinal de Medic.is was guilty of en couraghT,- and enjoying the feuds of literary men; and that, in wrticular, he took pleasure in work lug on the irritability of Alcionio to involve him in perpetual quar rels. The most disgusting stories arc related of hi., intemperance and gluttony ; but these perhaps we may Ise :WOW C CI 1.0 Call in though there seems little doubt that such %ices also disgraced his character.
His translations From Aristotle arc allowed to bo ele gant; but not being sufficiently accurate, they were at tic ked and exposed with such dexterity by Sepulveda, a learned Spaniard and translator of the same works, as inflicted the severest punishment on the vanity of Alcio nio, who displayed his rage and completed his disgrace, by purchasing and destroying every copy of his rival's work he could find.
His dialogue, De Rxilio, needs no other panegyric, than that Alcionio's bitterest enemies accused him of having drawn the finest passages of it from a work of Cicero's Dr Gloria, the manuscript of which, it was said, lie had stolen from a nunnery, where he was phy sician ; and lest his plagiarisms should afterwards be detected, committed it to the flames. In refutation of this charge, it seems only necessary to observe, that it was at first propagated by Paul JON ius, his avowed rival, be fore the publication of Alcionio's eloquent orations against Chalks the Fifth, after the taking of Rome, which are acknowledged to be worthy of the genius displayed in the work De ; the uniformity of the style, the strict adaptation of the language and sentiments to the speakers (who were three of the Medicxan family) and to the subject, in neither of which could there be any coincidence with a work of Cicero's De Gloria, furnish additional internal evidence that it was a genuine pro duction of Alcionio's. Even the existence of the manu script at this time seems doubtful. No one had ever seen it, and the whole evidence consisted in the title of such a work being observed in the catalogue of' the library of Bernard Justinian, w hick had been bequeath ed a long time before to a in Italy, but had not since been discovered.
The printed works of Alcionio are, 1. .9ristotrlis °Jura varia Latine, Venet. 1521. 2. Medic-es Legatos, seu De Exilio, libri duo, \Tenet. 1522. He left in manu script a variety of works, a list of which will be found in Mazzuchelli. (c)