Giovanni Colonna

Fra Giovanni Colonna (1298? – 1343/44) was an Italian Dominican friar and scholar. Educated in France, he served as a preacher and vicar in Rome, chaplain in Cyprus and lector in Tivoli. He lived and worked in Avignon for a time and traveled widely in the Near East during his Cypriot period. An early humanist, he was a friend and correspondent of Petrarch, whose eight surviving letters to him are an important source for his later years, during which he suffered from gout. He wrote two works of history, Liber de viris illustribus ('Book of Famous Men') and Mare historiarum ('Sea of Histories'), the first during his time in Avignon and the second during his final years in Tivoli. Life Giovanni Colonna was born in the 1290s, in 1298 according to some scholars. He belonged to the family of the lords of Gallicano, a branch of the Colonna. His father, Bartolomeo di Giovanni, bore the title domicello di Belvedere. He was a nephew of Landolfo Colonna. His great-great-great-grandfather was Oddone, the brother of Cardinal Giovanni Colonna. Beginning in 1315, Colonna was educated in France at Chartres, Troyes and Amiens. During his stay in Chartres, he stayed with his uncle Landolfo. He joined the Dominican Order before 1320, in which year he took up studying at the University of Paris. According to Petrarch, he was learned in philosophy. In 1324, the chapter of the Dominican province of Rome named him preacher-general. He was soon appointed chaplain to Giovanni Conti, archbishop of Nicosia, and moved to Cyprus until after Conti's death in 1332. During this period, he visited the Holy Land. In a letter to Colonna, Petrarch refers to his addressee's travels in Persia, Arabia and Egypt, which must have taken place during his service with Giovanni Conti. Petrarch and Colonna maintained a correspondence during the years 1336–1343.