Ludovico Tizzone

Tizzoni (Ludovicus Ticionus, Titionus, Tizzonus, de Ticionibus, etc.)

(c.1456-1525)

signore of Desana (1483); first conte of Desana and vicario imperiale (1510).

Visited Pomponio during his stay in Rome in early 1493 as a member of the legation of Bonifacio III Paleologo, marchese del Monferrato, to Pope Alexander VI.

(1) Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, J III 13, f. 122^r:

After 16 VI 1503, judging from the date in the colophon of the preceding text, Xenophon's De aequivocis temporum: "1503 die 16 Iunii, Gal<l>is in Neapolitano Regno Laborantibus".

(2) Ibid., f. 341^r-^v (transcribed from Gazzera 1842, "Appendice," N. 9, pp. 163-64)

 

Ludovico (II) Tizzone (or Tizzoni), second son of Antonio, inherited his family's property and title to the signoria of Desana (in the diocese of Vercelli) in 1483. An old and wealthy family of Vercelli, with land holdings not only in Desana, but in Monferrato and neighboring areas, the Tizzoni had long been supporters of the parte Ghibellina and, in particular, of the marchesi del Monferrato, who in 1411 rewarded their services with the grant of the signoria of Desana. In 1485 the emperor Frederick III confirmed Ludovico's feudal rights over Desana and in 1510 Maximilian invested him with the title of (first) count of Desana and vicarius imperialis. Shortly afterwards Ludovico established a mint, issuing gold, silver, and copper coins with the name Ludovicus Ticionus comes Decianae imperialis vicarius and the family coat of arms. (The mint continued to operate, with various interruptions, into the late 17th century.) During the recurrent warfare in northern Italy between French and imperial forces, however, Ludovico's fortunes declined rapidly. His lands were repeatedly ravaged, and after the French victory at Marignano in 1515 Desana itself fell under the control of a series of 'usurpers'. Ludovico, who remained loyal to the Empire, spent his last years in exile, dependent on other branches of the Tizzoni family, on the counts Valperga di Masino, and on his son Giovan Bartolomeo, imperial governor of Asti and of Trieste, for protection and hospitality. Only in early 1525, after the defeat of Francis I at Pavia by the imperial army, was he able to return to Desana where he died a few months later. He was succeeded by Giovan Bartolomeo (1525-33) and, in turn, by another son, Caio Cesare (1533-41).

 

Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, J III 13.
The Turin codex is a large miscellanea umanistica of 517 folios in two volumes, written on parchment in what appears to be the same, neat, humanist hand throughout, probably that of Tizzone himself, since marginal notes are in the same hand. It contains a vast collection of classical and humanistic writings: copies of works or extracts from ancient philosophy, mythology, geography, and history, Roman topography and inscriptions; copies of letters to and from a number of late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Italian humanists, including Campano, Ficino, Pico, Poliziano, and Bernardo Rucellai; wedding and funeral orations composed by Ludovico; numerous letters to and/or from fellow letterati, friends, and statesmen of Ludovico, including Iacopo Antiquario of Milan, Guglielmo Varone of Vercelli, Guglielmo Lignana, abbot of Casanova, Matteo Bandello (who addressed the 25th novella of his first volume to Ludovico), Johann Kollauer (Ioannes Collaverus), secretary to Maximilian I, Mercurino di Gattinara, Tommaso and Giovanni Francesco Valperga di Masino; and letters to and from Massimiliano Sforza and the emperors Maximilian and Charles V. Individual entries and letters to or from Tizzone bear dates between c.1503 and c.1517, but they may have been transcribed towards the end of, or even after, this period. For partial descriptions of the contents, see Bibliography on the manuscript, below.

 

Selected contents:
ff. 4^v-5^r, De nominibus mensium, a list of the names of the months in ancient civilizations.
ff. 5^v-7^v, De triumpho et ovatione: extracts from Pomponius Laetus, Romanae Historiae compendium (see Niutta 2002, 329 and n. 30).
ff. 122^r-123^v, De nominibus mensium (cf. ff. 4^v-5^r), introduced by a preface by Ludovico (see Testimonia) and by Pomponio's dedicatory letter to Vasino Gamberia (cf. Modena, Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, gamma B.6.25, ff. III^r-V^v; see Osmond 2008, Vasino Gamberia, and forthcoming, cited in Bibliography, below).
ff. 132^v-133^v, inscription of the magistri vicorum of the city of Rome dedicated to the Emperor Hadrian (see Valentini-Zucchetti 1953, 37-38 and cf. text, 38-47).
ff. 133^v-135^r (circa), various inscriptions (cf. Rome, Biblioteca Angelica, MS 1348, ff. 112^r-114^v, written by Paolo Pompilio).
ff. 136^r-141^r, P. Victoris de regionibus Vrbis Romae libellus unicus aureus, an interpolated version of the catalogue of the fourteen regions of Rome (cf. the edition published by Aulo Giano Parrasio [Milan 1503]; see Valentini-Zucchetti 1953, 201-03 and notes to the text of Pomponio's "descrizione interpolata," 207-58, passim. On Pomponio and the regionary catalogue, see also Accame 1997, 187, n. 1). This "integral" version, as Ludovico calls it, is mentioned in a letter to Kollauer of 26 April 1507: "Ludovicus Ticionus Decianae Magnifico Iurisconsulto ac e secretis Caes. Ministro, D. Io. Collavero sal. [. . .] Retulit mihi Io. Bartholomeus in manibus tuis vetustissimum devenisse librum multarum antiquitatum refertum, in quo inter cetera Publius Victor de 14 urbis regionibus continetur. Si integer est sat est, si non a me integrum habebis, cum non nullis de urbis magnitudine ac dignitate annotationibus, a gravissimis auctoribus tum graecis tum latinis. [...] Decianae 26 apr. 1507 (transcribed from Gazzera 1842, "Appendice," N. 9, pp. 164-65).
ff. 401^r-412^r, Pomponius Laetus, De magistratibus urbis & sacerdotiis et de legibus [cf. Rome 1474]
ff. 464^v-474^r (circa), Pomponius Laetus, Romanae historiae compendium, extracts (from the death of Jovianus to the descendants of Heraclius (cf. the editio princeps by M.A. Sabellico, Venice, 1499; I thank Francesca Niutta for identifying these portions of the text, which, as she observes, seem to have been copied from the printed edition).

 

l'istoria de' suo' tempi; delle lodi di Mercorino Gattinara gran cancelliere di Carlo quinto imperatore, e di quelle di Mercorino Ranzo presidente in Torino per l'Altezza di Savoia (Scrittori piemontesi savoiardi nizzardi registrati nei cataloghi del vescovo Francesco Agostino della Chiesa e del monaco Andrea Rossotto. Nuova compilazione di Onorato Derossi [Turin 1790], 86 [93?], cited in Indice biografico italiano (see Bibliography).

 

Life and works: Gazzera 1842; Indice biografico italiano, 4th ed., ed. T. Napo (Munich 2007), vol. 10, s. v. "Tizzone, Lodovico," I, 951, 254-257 (= O. Derossi, Scrittori piemontesi, savoiardi, nizzardi [1790]; C. Dionisotti, Notizie biografiche dei vercellesi illustri [Biella, 1862], 102).

On the legation of 1493 to the Vatican: Michele Ferno, De legationibus Italicis (Rome: Eucharius Silber [1493]), ff. 48^r-51^v; Tizzone, in Burkhard 1911, pt. 1, 397 (in note 2 the date of Ludovico's letter to "Johannes Collaverus" (Johann Kollauer) should be corrected from 26 aprile 1517 to 26 aprile 1507); Blasio 2002, 21-23 ("orazioni d'obbedienza").

On the manuscript Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, J. III. 13 (or I. III. 13), mbr. misc. XVI in., see: Pasini 1749, 2, 162-68, ms. lat. 603, Adversaria historica, philosophica, mythologica, etc., with summary of the contents according to the original foliation; Kristeller, Iter 2, 181-82, partial listing of contents following the post-1904 re-foliation, and ibid., 6, 224. Particular parts of the manuscript are cited in Gazzera 1842, 40-45; Zabughin 2 (1910-12), 387-88, n. 171; and Ficino (ed.) 1990, CLIX-CLX, where S. Gentile observes that the epistole and other writings by Ficino were copied from early printed editions. For the characteristics of the miscellanea umanistica and the zibaldone and their significance in humanist culture, see Gentile and Rizzo 2004.

On the opusculum De nominibus mensium, ff. 122^r-123^v, see Osmond, "Vasino Gamberia," Repertorium Pomponianum (URL: www.repertoriumpomponianum.it/pomponiani/gamberia.htm)"; Ead., "Lectiones Sallustianae. Pomponio Leto's annotations on Sallust: a commentary for the Academy?" From the Roman Academy to the Danish Academy in Rome, ARID, eds. M. Pade and C. Plessner, Rome (forthcoming); Ead., "Testimonianze di ricerche antiquarie tra i fogli di Sallustio," in the Proceedings of the Conference "Pomponio Leto: Tra identità locale e cultura internazionale," Teggiano, 3-5 October 2008 (forthcoming).

 

 

Patricia Osmond
21 September 2008; revised and expanded 17 February 2009, 30 June 2009