Johannes Michael Nagonius, Papal Poet (and Diplomat?)

• In Event: The Economics of Encomia

Abstract

In the last decade of the fifteenth century the poet Johannes Michael Nagonius (Giovanni Michele Nagonio) travelled across Europe presenting deluxe manuscripts of his Latin poetry to an impressive array of European princes. This paper will outline the poet’s early career in the service of Pope Alexander VI Borgia. It will show how Latin poetry functioned in the world of papal diplomacy and how a poet responded to the exigencies of the political climate. It will demonstrate how a volume of Latin verse, modelled upon the major classical poets, was presented first to the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and then hastily recast for kings Henry VII of England and Vladislav II of Bohemia and Hungary; and then remade, yet again, for King Louis XII of France, each time with the expectation of a handsome reward.

Author

• Paul Gareth Gwynne, American University of Rome