Giuseppe Ripamonti

Giuseppe Ripamonti (1573–1643) was an Italian historian.

Giuseppe Ripamonti
BornJuly 1573 
Colle Brianza, Duchy of Milan
Died11 August 1643  (aged 69–70)
Rovagnate, Duchy of Milan
OccupationHistorian 
WorksHistoriarum patriae in continuationem Tristani Calchi libri XXIII (1641-43)
De peste Mediolani quae fuit anno 1630 (1640)

He wrote in Latin Historia Ecclesiae Mediolanensis (1625) ("History of the Church of Milan"). He is perhaps better known for the De peste Mediolani quae fuit anno 1630 (1640) ("About the plague that occurred in Milan in year 1630"), which relates the events occurring in the city during the 1629–1631 Italian bubonic plague.

Alessandro Manzoni references Ripamonti for historical background in his novel The Betrothed.[1] In 1841, the latin chronicle of the plague by Ripamonti was published in Italian translation by Francesco Cusani in the 19th century Peste di Milano del 1630.

Biography

Ripamonti was born in Colle Brianza, and became a Doctor of Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. On 23 December 1635, the Council of Seventy Decurioni awarded him the title of State Historian (a title never before used in Milan) with an attached salary. Ripamonti thus assumed the responsibility of taking forward the Historia patria from the year 1313, that is from the final year covered in the Historia of Tristano Calco that had been recently published (1628).

The release, in 1641, of the first volume of Ripamonti's Historia patria, in a splendid edition by the Malatesta family, was of significant importance. This volume covered Milanese history from 1313 to 1558, that is, until the era of Charles V; in 1641 De peste was also released, a fundamentally important record of that recent painful tragedy.

In December 1643, the second volume of the Historia patria was released, depicting the history of Milan from 1559 to 1584, that is, the era of Charles Borromeo. Ripamonti died at Rovagnate in that same year. However he left the material ready for the continuation of the work: three other printed volumes followed between 1646 and 1648, the first two edited by Stefano Sclatter, and the third by Orazio Landi. This third and final volume is of particular importance, covering the era of Federico Borromeo, and this volume went up to the most recent past, that is until 1641, thus establishing itself as the greatest work of historiography of the time.[2]

Ripamonti's Historia patria is extremely rich in information; however this information is not always well-considered and often unravels into a thread of historical interpretation. The excellent Latin adopted is often pompous, based on the model of Livy and embellished with a touch of baroque style.

Bibliography
  • Franzosini, Edgardo (2013). Sotto il nome del Cardinale. Milan: Adelphi. ISBN 9788845974342.

Reference
  1. Manzoni, Alessandro (1972). The Betrothed. Penguin Books. pp. 564, 570–580, 586–592, 595, 598–599, 602, 698. ISBN 9780140442748.
  2. Caterina Santoro, “Gli storiografi della città di Milano”, from 1929, later in Eadem, Scritti rari e inediti (Milan, 1969), pp. 303-10.
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