- Florence 1424 - Casentino 1498
- philologist, poet
- Biographical information:
Born in Florence in 1424, he carried out his studies in Volterra. After settling in Florence, he began to write Latin elegies that were then gathered in a collection entitled Xandra (1443-1458), which he dedicated to Leon Battista Alberti.
From 1458 he taught at the Florence Studio, where his students included Marsilio Ficino and Agnolo Poliziano. He held lessons on Horace and Virgil, and also on Dante and Petrarch, adhering to the new Humanist approach inspired by Leon Battista Alberti, which gave full literary dignity to the vernacular.
Having already written philosophic dialogues, between 1472 and 1473 Cristoforo Landino wrote his masterpiece: the Disputationes camaldulenses, a dialogue in four books presenting imaginary encounters in a monastery between the author and various famous figures of the time (including Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici, Leon Battista Alberti, Alamanno Rinuccini, Piero and Donato Acciaioli and Marsilio Ficino). The protagonists address a fairly elaborate discussion on the comparison between active and contemplative life, a subject of Neoplatonic inspiration that was very dear to the humanists.
From his academic experience Landini drew his Comento sopra la Commedia di Dante, published in Florence on 30 August 1481 in a famous edition illustrated by Sandro Botticelli and with an introduction in the form of a letter by Marsilio Ficino. In the comment, Landino synthesises the fourteenth-century exegesis and proposes a new reading of the poem in the light of Neoplatonic thought. Moreover through a meticulous comparison of Dante and Virgil, Landini underscores the classical nature of Dante’s poem, thus contributing to enhance the fame of the Sommo Poeta.
On 5 December 1483 Landino, with the support of the Medici, was entrusted with the task of compiling the annals of Florentine history, which were never actually written.
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