Albertino Mussato
Encyclopedia
Albertino Mussato was an Early Renaissance Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 statesman, poet, historian and dramatist credited with providing an impetus to the revival of literary Latin.

A native of Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...

, a major city in the northern Veneto
Veneto
Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...

 region, Mussato was a chronicler of his times, whose 1315 Latin verse play Ecerinis, based on the tyrannical career of Ezzelino III da Romano
Ezzelino III da Romano
Ezzelino III da Romano was an Italian feudal lord in the March of Treviso who was a close ally of the emperor Frederick II and ruled Verona, Vicenza and Padua for almost two decades...

, was the first secular tragedy written since Roman times, and so is considered the first Italian tragedy identifiable as a Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 work. Its literary and political qualities earned Albertino a crown as Poet Laureate
Poet Laureate
A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...

, a revival of an antique custom, partly at the prompting of Rolando della Piazzola.

In addition to his prolific writings, he is also remembered in contemporary accounts as a champion of poetry which he defended in a 1317 polemical exchange of letters with a Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...

 friar, Giovannino of Mantua.

Albertino Mussato died in Chioggia
Chioggia
Chioggia is a coastal town and comune of the province of Venice in the Veneto region of northern Italy.-Geography:...

in the year of his 68th birthday.

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