Sozomeno da Pistoia (1387-1458)

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SOZOMENO (ZOMINO) OF PISTOIA

1387-1458

Zomino da Pistoia, or Sozomeno as he later preferred to cali himself, to give his name a Greek ring, was born in Pistoia in 1387: He was an illegitimate son of ser Bonifazio di Jacopo, a notary in the bishop’s court, who legitimized him in 1389.² In June 1402, when he finished copying ari interesting collection of school texts in prose and verse (Pl. XIXa), Sozomeno was attending the school in Pistoia of maestro Antonio di ser Salvi da San Gimignano. He probably made bis copy of another school text, the Doctrinale of Alexander de Villa Dei (Pl. XIXb), not long afterwards.³ He is said to have been ordained in 1407, and at the end of that year he was awarded a six-year bur­sary for study at the University of Padua. In Padua he apparently studied canon law, but although he may have attended the university for bis full six years (he was still receiving bis bursary at the end of 1412),⁴ he was already spending part of his time in Florence,⁵ and it was surely in Florence that he learnt to write humanistic script. His Vergil dated April 1409 is still gothic (Pl. XIXc, d), but in August 1410 he finished a copy of Juvenal in the new script (Pl. XXa), and had it decorated with a humanistic vine-stem initial in Fiorentine style.⁶ A copy of Terence, completed in September 1412 in humanistic script, is specifically dated from Florence. It has the Greek ex-libris which we find in so many of Sozomeno’s later manuscripts, rather carefully written, apparently in the salile ink as his colophon.⁷ So it seems that he was already interested in Greek, and bis early adoption of the new humanistic script and decoration suggests that he had become friendly with the Fiorentine circle of humanists, perhaps especially with Niccolò Niccoli, whom he certainly knew later,⁸ and who was noted for bis encourage­ment of young scholars,

¹ There is disagreement on the date of his birth (9 May, 28 or 29 June) but the year 1387 is certain (Piattoli, ‘Nuove ricerche’, p. 239; Martin, Catalogue viii, p. 171 n. 2). 1378, found in Santoli and Savino, is probably an error of trans­position. Works listed in the Bibliography below will be cited here in an abbreviated form.

2 Piattoli, op. cit., pp. 239-40.

³ The first manuscript, Pistoia Bibl. Forteguerriana A. 33, is signed on fol. 38: Scriptum per me Zominum ser Bonifatii morantem in scolis venerabilis doctoris magistri Antonii ser Salvi de sancto Geminiano in anno millesimo quadrigentesimo secundo in mense iunii’ (see A. Mancini, ‘Un quadernó di scuola di un umanista celebre . . .’, Atti R. Ist. Venet. di scienze, lettere e arti 88 (1928-9), 279-88; Savino, Codici Sozomeniani, no. 17). For the Doctrinale, London, B.M. Harl. 6328, see below, p. 98.

4 Zaccagnini, Introd., p. x. Sozomeno acquired a copy of the Decretals (Pistoia A. 65) at Padua in Oct. 1410 (Savino, op. cit., no. 30).

⁵ See below, n. 7, and p. 92 n. 2.

⁶ B.M. Harl. 3440 and Pistoia A. 26.

⁷ Pistoia A. 4. Pls. XIXg, XXb, c. The manuscript is dated ‘Florentie XVI Septembris MCCCCXII’ (Savino, op. cit., no. 2). It has ‘Mei Zomini’ in Latin as well as the Greek ex— libris using the form ‘Σωζομέ́νου’. The 1409 Vergil also has the Greek ex-libris, but erased, so that it is impossible to see whether it was written at the same time as the text, or added later.

⁸ Sozomeno’s copy of Aulus Gellius probably made in the early 1420s (Paris, B.N. lat. /8528) is annotated by Niccoli. Dietisalvi Nerone in an undated letter described a visit to Niccoli’s library when he found him and ‘eruditum illum Sozomenum’ in learned discussion (Zaccagnini, Introd., p. xviii). No evidence has been produced yet for Zaccagnini’s statement that Sozomeno copied a number of manuscripts for Niccoli.