6. Agostino (1470-1536) was born at Genoa, and spent some wild years in Valencia, Spain. Having in 1487 joined the Dominican order, he gave himself with great energy to the study of Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee and Arabic, and in 1514 began the preparation of a polyglot edition of the Bible. As bishop of Nebbio in Corsica, he took part in some of the earlier sittings of the Lateran council (1516-1517), but, in consequence of party complications, withdrew to his diocese, and ultimately to France, where he became a pensioner of Francis I., and was the first to occupy a chair of Hebrew and Arabic in the university of Paris. After an absence from Corsica for a period of five years, during which he visited England and the Low Countries, and became acquainted with Erasmus and More, he returned to Nebbio, about 1522, and there remained, with comparatively little intermission, till in 1536, when, while returning from a visit to Genoa, he perished in a storm at sea. He was the possessor of a very fine library, which he bequeathed to the republic of Genoa. Of his projected polyglot only the Psalter was published (Psalterium Hebraeum, Graecum, Arabicum, et Chaldaicum, Genoa, 1616). Besides the Hebrew text, the LXX. translation, the Chaldee paraphrase, and an Arabic version, it contains the Vulgate translation, a new Latin translation by the editor, a Latin translation of the Chaldee, and a collection of scholia. Giustiniani printed 2000 copies at his own expense, including fifty in vellum for presentation to the sovereigns of Europe and Asia; but the sale of the work did not encourage him to proceed with the New Testament, which he had also prepared for the press. Besides an edition of the book of Job, containing the original text, the Vulgate, and a new translation, he published a Latin version of the Moreh Nevochim of Maimonides (Director dubitantium aut perplexorum, 1520), and also edited in Latin the Aureus libellus of Aeneas Platonicus, and the Timaeus of Chalcidius. His annals of Genoa (Castigatissimi annali di Genova) were published posthumously in 1537.
The following are also noteworthy:—
7. Pompeio (1569-1616), a native of Corsica, who served under Alessandro Farnese and the marquis of Spinola in the Low Countries, where he lost an arm, and, from the artificial substitute which he wore, came to be known by the sobriquet Bras de Fer. He also defended Crete against the Turks; and subsequently was killed in a reconnaissance at Friuli. He left in Italian a personal narrative of the war in Flanders, which has been repeatedly published in a Latin translation (Bellum Belgicum, Antwerp, 1609).
8. Giovanni (1513-1556), born in Candia, translator of Terence’s Andria and Eunuchus, of Cicero’s In Verrem, and of Virgil’s Aeneid, viii.
9. Orsatto (1538-1603), Venetian senator, translator of the Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles and author of a collection of Rime, in imitation of Petrarch. He is regarded as one of the latest representatives of the classic Italian school.
10. Geronimo, a Genoese, flourished during the latter half of the 16th century. He translated the Alcestis of Euripides and three of the plays of Sophocles; and wrote two original tragedies, Jephte and Christo in Passione.
11. Vincenzo, who in the beginning of the 17th century built the Roman palace and made the art collection which are still associated with his name (see Galleria Giustiniana, Rome, 1631). The collection was removed in 1807 to Paris, where it was to some extent broken up. In 1815 all that remained of it, about 170 pictures, was purchased by the king of Prussia and removed to Berlin, where it forms a portion of the royal museum.
GIUSTO DA GUANTO [Jodocus, or Justus, of Ghent] (fl. 1465-1475), Flemish painter. The public records of the city of Ghent have been diligently searched, but in vain, for a clue to the history of Justus or Jodocus, whom Vasari and Guicciardini called Giusto da Guanto. Flemish annalists of the 16th century have enlarged upon the scanty statements of Vasari, and described Jodocus as a pupil of Hubert Van Eyck. But there is no source to which this fable can be traced. The registers of St Luke’s gild at Ghent comprise six masters of the name of Joos or Jodocus who practised at Ghent in the 15th century. But none of the works of these masters has been preserved, and it is impossible to compare their style with that of Giusto. It was between 1465 and 1474 that this artist executed the “Communion of the Apostles” which Vasari has described, and modern critics now see to the best advantage in the museum of Urbino. It was painted for the brotherhood of Corpus Christi at the bidding of Frederick of Montefeltro, who was introduced into the picture as the companion of Caterino Zeno, a Persian envoy at that time on a mission to the court of Urbino. From this curious production it may be seen that Giusto, far from being a pupil of Hubert Van Eyck, was merely a disciple of a later and less gifted master, who took to Italy some of the peculiarities of his native schools, and forthwith commingled them with those of his adopted country. As a composer and draughtsman Giusto compares unfavourably with the better-known painters of Flanders; though his portraits are good, his ideal figures are not remarkable for elevation of type or for subtlety of character and expression. His work is technically on a level with that of Gerard of St John, whose pictures are preserved in the Belvedere at Vienna. Vespasian, a Florentine bookseller who contributed much to form the antiquarian taste of Frederick of Montefeltro, states that this duke sent to the Netherlands for a capable artist to paint a series of “ancient worthies” for a library recently erected in the palace of Urbino. It has been conjectured that the author of these “worthies,” which are still in existence at the Louvre and in the Barberini palace at Rome, was Giusto. Yet there are notable divergences between these pictures and the “Communion of the Apostles.” Still, it is not beyond the range of probability that Giusto should have been able, after a certain time, to temper his Flemish style by studying the masterpieces of Santi and Melozzo, and so to acquire the mixed manner of the Flemings and Italians which these portraits of worthies display. Such an assimilation, if it really took place, might justify the Flemings in the indulgence of a certain pride, considering that Raphael not only admired these worthies, but copied them in the sketch-book which is now the ornament of the Venetian Academy. There is no ground for presuming that Giusto ad Guanto is identical with Justus d’Allamagna who painted the “Annunciation” (1451) in the cloisters of Santa Maria di Castello at Genoa. The drawing and colouring of this wall painting shows that Justus d’Allamagna was as surely a native of south Germany as his homonym at Urbino was a born Netherlander.