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Giovanni Battista Giraldi (November[1] 1504 – 30 December 1573) was an Italiannovelist andpoet. He appended the nicknameCinthio to his name and is commonly referred to by that name (which is also rendered asCynthius,Cintio or, in Italian,Cinzio).
Cinthio was born inFerrara, then the capital of theDuchy of Ferrara. He was educated at theUniversity of Ferrara, and he became a professor ofnatural philosophy in 1525. Twelve years later, he succeededCelio Calcagnini in the chair ofbelles-lettres.
Between 1542 and 1560, he was a private secretary, first toErcole II and afterwards toAlfonso II d'Este; but having, in connection with a literary quarrel, lost the favour of his patron, he moved toMondovì, where he remained as a teacher of literature until 1568. Subsequently, on the invitation of theSenate of Milan, he occupied the chair ofrhetoric atPavia until 1573, when, in search of health, he returned to Ferrara, where he later died.
Besides anepic entitledErcole (1557), in twenty-sixcantos, Cinthio wrote ninetragedies, the best known of which,Orbecche, was produced in 1541. The bloodthirsty nature of the play, and its style, are, in the opinion of many of its critics, almost redeemed by occasional bursts of genuine and impassioned poetry.
His literary work was ideologically influenced by theCatholic Reformation. In the theatrical works there appears a vein of experimentation that anticipates some typical elements of taste of the modern European theatre, for example theElizabethan theatre andbaroque styles, where psychological violence and horror are used in function and dramatic action structured in real time.
Among the prose works of Cinthio is theHecatommithi orGli Ecatommiti, a collection of tales told somewhat after the manner ofBoccaccio, but still more closely resembling the novels of Cinthio's contemporary,Matteo Bandello. Something may be said in favour of their professed claim to represent a higher standard of morality. Originally published atMondovì in 1565, they were frequently reprinted in Italy, while a French translation appeared in 1583 and one in Spanish, with 20 of the stories, in 1590. They have a peculiar interest to students ofEnglish literature, for providing the plots ofMeasure for Measure andOthello. That of the latter, which is to be found in theHecatommithi, was almost certainly read byShakespeare in the original Italian;[2] while that of the former is probably to be traced toGeorge Whetstone'sPromos and Cassandra (1578), an adaptation of Cinthio's story, and to hisHeptamerone (1582), which contains a direct English translation. To Cinthio also must be attributed the plot ofBeaumont and Fletcher'sCustom of the Country.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Giraldi, Giovanni Battista".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 44.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Giovanni Battista Giraldi".Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Works by or aboutGiovanni Battista Giraldi atWikisource| Characters |  | |
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