Giovanni Battista Giraldi

Giovanni Battista Giraldi (12 November 1504 – 30 December 1573) was an Italian novelist and poet. He appended the nickname Cinthio to his name and is commonly referred to by that name (which is also rendered as Cynthius, Cintio or, in Italian, Cinzio).

Born at Ferrara, he was educated at the university there, and in 1525 became its professor of natural philosophy. Twelve years afterwards, he succeeded Celio Calcagnini in the chair of belles-lettres.

Between 1542 and 1560 he was a private secretary, first to Ercole II and afterwards to Alfonso II d'Este; but having, in connection with a literary quarrel, lost the favour of his patron, he moved to Mondovi, where he remained as a teacher of literature until 1568. Subsequently, on the invitation of the senate of Milan, he occupied the chair of rhetoric at Pavia until 1573, when, in search of health, he returned to Ferrara, where he later died.

Besides an epic entitled Ercole (1557), in twenty-six cantos, Cinthio wrote nine tragedies, 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 the Catholic 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 the Elizabethan theatre and baroque styles, where psychological violence and horror are used in function and dramatic action structured in real time.

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