POLITIAN, Angelo, was born at Monte Pulciano in Tuscany, in the year 1454. He studied the Greek language, of which he became a complete master, under Andronicus of Thessalonica. He is said to have written verses both in Greek and in Latin when he was not more than twelve years of age. He also studied the Platonic philosophy under Marsilius Ficinus, and that of Aristotle under Argyropylus. Politian was one of the most learned and polite writers of his time. The first work which gained him a reputation was a poem on the tournament of Julian de’ Medicis. The account he wrote, some time afterwards, of the conspiracy of the Pazzi, was also very much esteemed. He composed many other pieces which merit approbation; and had he lived longer, he would have enriched the republic of letters with many excellent works. He died at the age of forty. His morals answered the homeliness of his face rather than the beauty of his genius; for Paul Jovius informs us, that he was a man of singularly awkward and perverse manners, of a countenance by no means open and liberal, a nose remarkably large, and squinting eyes. “He was crafty, satirical, and full of inward malice; for his constant way was to sneer and ridicule the productions of other men, and never to allow any criticism, however just, upon his own.”

Nevertheless, Politian was a man of consummate erudition; and not only so, but a very polite and elegant writer. Erasmus, in his Ciceronianus, calls him a rare miracle of nature, on account of his excelling in every kind of writing. “Fateor angelum prorsus angelica fuisse mente, rarum naturae miraculum, ad quodcunque scripti genus applicaret animum.” Some of his poems were so much admired, that several learned men have made it their business to comment on them. It has often been reported that he spoke of the Bible with contempt; and that, having read it but once, he complained that he had never spent his time so ill. But this is not probable; for it must be remembered that he was a priest and canon of Florence, and we learn from one of his epistles that he preached during a whole Lent. It does not indeed follow from this that he did not think contemptuously of the Bible, because many of his church, especially amongst the better sort, have not been very orthodox believers, and he might be one of these; but it is not likely he would speak out so freely. “I could much more easily believe,” says Bayle, “the judgment he is said to have pronounced on the Psalms of David and the Odes of Pindar. He did not deny that there are many good and fine things in the Psalms; but he pretended that the same things appear in Pindar with more brightness and sweetness.” The two Scaligers have spoken highly of Politiam The elder has preferred a consolatory elegy of his to that which Ovid sent to Livia upon the death of Drusus, and says he would rather have been the author of it; the younger calls him an excellent poet, but thinks the style of his epistles too inflated and declamatory.

The first edition of the works of Politian is that of Aldus, Venice, 1498, in folio, which was followed by those of Paris, Badius, 1512 and 1519, in the same form, and Lyons, Gryphes, 1528, 1533, and 1545, in two volumes 8vo. But the most complete edition is that which appeared at Basil in 1553, and is the only one that contains the history of the Conspiracy of the Pazzi, which had been published separately in 1472, in 4to, probably at Florence, and which J. Adimari reprinted at Naples in 1769, 4to. The original edition of the Miscellanea, Florence, 1489, in folio, is in greater request than those of Brescia, 1496, Venice, 1508, and Basil, 1522, all in folio. The Stanze were reprinted at Bologna with the Orfeo, 1494, in 4to; and many other editions followed, till 1820, when they were inserted in the Bibliotheca Poetica Italiana.