[440] Ton. Tr. tom. ii. p. 161.
[441] Matteo Palmerio was a Florentine citizen, descended from an illustrious family. Passing through the different gradations of civic honours, he was at length called to fill the highest offices of the state. He was an elegant scholar, and composed many works, amongst which the most distinguished was an Italian poem in terza rima, entitled Città di vita. This poem, in which are recounted the adventures of a human soul, which the author supposes to have been liberated from the prison of the body, was condemned by the inquisition as heretical.—Zeno Diss. Voss. tom. i. p. 100 et seq.
[442] Poggii Opera, p. 86-131.
[443] Poggiana, tom. ii. p. 162.
[444] Poggio’s History of Florence, as edited by Recanati, has been republished in the magnificent historical collections of Grævius and Muratori.
[445] By his wife, Poggio had five sons; Pietro Paulo, Giovanni Battista, Jacopo, Giovanni Francesco, and Filippo. Pietro Paulo was born in the year 1438. He entered into the fraternity of the Dominicans, and was promoted to the honourable office of Prior of Santa Maria ad Minervam, in Rome, which office he held till the time of his death, which happened September 6th, 1464.
Giovanni Battista, who was born in the year 1439, took the degree of doctor of civil and canon law, and attained the several dignities of Canonico of Florence, and of Arezzo, Rector of the Lateran church, Acolyte of the pontiff, and assistant clerk of the chamber. He composed in the Latin language the lives of Niccolo Piccinino, and Dominico Capranica, cardinal of Firmiano. He died anno 1570.
Jacopo, born anno 1441, was the only one of Poggio’s sons who did not enter into the ecclesiastical profession. He was a scholar of distinguished accomplishments. His Italian translation of his father’s History of Florence, and of his Latin version of the Cyropædia, have already been noticed. He also translated into Italian the lives of four of the Roman emperors. Nor did he confine his literary exertions to translations. He composed a commentary on Petrarca’s Triumph of Fame, which he dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici; a treatise on the origin of the War between the English and the French; and the life of Filippo Scolario, vulgarly called Pipo Spano. Entering into the service of cardinal Riario, he was involved in the guilt of the Pazzi conspiracy, and was of the number of the criminals who were suspended from the windows of the town hall of Florence, in the year 1478.
Giovanni Francesco, who was born anno 1447, after holding the offices of Canonico of Florence, and Rector of the Lateran church, went to Rome, where he became chamberlain of the pontiff, and abbreviator of the apostolic epistles. He was highly esteemed by Leo X., who appointed him his secretary, in the enjoyment of which office he died at Rome, July 25th, 1522, and was buried in the church of St. Gregory, where there still exists a monument erected to his memory.
Filippo was born anno 1450. When he had attained the twentieth year of his age he was created Canonico of Florence. But quitting the ecclesiastical life, he married a lady of an illustrious family, by whom he had three daughters.