Giovanni di Bardo Corsi

Who was Giovanni di Bardo Corsi?

Giovanni di Bardo Corsi was a politician and man-of-letters in Florence, Italy during the Italian Renaissance. He was a member of the committee that in 1512 restored the Medici to power in Florence after eighteen years of exile. He served as a diplomat to Charles V of Spain in 1515 and to Pope Paul III. In 1530, Corsi became Florentine gonfaloniere at the behest of Pope Clement VII, the Medici Pope.

Giovanni di Bardo Corsi was also a Renaissance humanist who actively participated in the rediscovery of classical language and literatures and the educational programme of the studia humanitatis. He knew both Latin and Greek. In 1506, Corsi produced a biography of the neo-Platonist Marsilio Ficino, which he wrote under the direction of Francesco Cattani da Diacceto, who, in turn, was Ficino's successor as the head of Florentine Platonic Academy. He was a participant in the early phase of the Orti Oricellari discussions and produced a translation of Plutarch's De anima generatione. He furthermore believed to have been an early reader of Guicciardini's monumental Storia d'Italia.