Giovanni Giorgio Trissino

Gian Giorgio Trissino (8 July 1478 – 8 December 1550), also called Giovan Giorgio Trissino and self-styled as Giovan Giꞷrgio Trissino, was a Venetian Renaissance humanist, poet, dramatist, diplomat, grammarian, linguist, and philosopher. He first proposed adding letters to the Italian alphabet to distinguish J from I, and V from U.

Biography

Trissino was born to a patrician family in Vicenza. He sided with Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian, whose army entered Vicenza in June 1509, accompanied by members of the Vicentine nobility, including the Thiene, Chiericati, and Porto families. When Venice reconquered Vicenza on 12 November 1509, Trissino was punished for his betrayal and sent into exile. He then travelled to Germany and Lombardy and was pardoned by Venice in 1516. He eventually came under the protection of Pope Leo X, Pope Clement VII, and Pope Paul III.

He had the advantages of a good humanistic training, studying Greek under Demetrios Chalkokondyles at Milan and philosophy under Niccolò Leoniceno at Ferrara. His culture recommended him to the humanist Pope Leo X, who in 1515 sent him to Germany as his nuncio; later on Pope Clement VII showed him special favour and employed him as ambassador.

In 1532, the Emperor Charles V made Trissino a count palatine. In spite of the banishment from Vicenza pronounced upon him in 1509 because his family had favoured the plans of Maximilian, he was held in high esteem throughout Italy. Wherever he made his home, it was a centre for gatherings of scholars, littérateurs, and the most cultured men of the time. His family life was far from happy, apparently through little fault of his own.