Poggio

Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini, commonly known as Poggio, was a medieval church official, a classical scholar, and a learned Latin writer. Poggio was born in Tuscany in 1380. He received a scholarly education and went into the service of the Roman Curia. Poggio had 14 children with a mistress. Then, at age 56, he married a seventeen-year old girl with whom he had a happy and fruitful marriage. Poggio sought out and collected ancient Latin manuscripts and helped to transmit classical Latin texts to future generations. Moving against millennia of Greek and Latin literature disparaging men’s genitals, Poggio affirmed men’s genitals and men’s sexuality through humane, insightful stories. He exemplified the broad-mindedness of medieval Latin writers, their interest in the classical Latin tradition, and their willingness to transgress gynocentric norms to express men’s distinctive interests. Poggio’s work offers twenty-first-century intellectual life a swerve toward enlightenment that is urgently needed. Poggio died in 1459.