Egnazio
This rivalry is noted by both Egnazio's biographer, Giovanni degli Agostini [it],[b] and Sabellico's, Apostolo Zeno.
In 1500, Sabellico was promoted to the chair of humanities at San Marco to replace the late Giorgio Valla.
Egnazio hoped to be appointed to Sabellico's vacant lectureship, but was passed over in favour of Giovanni Battista Scita.
[2] That same year, he wrote critical comments about some of Sabellico's interpretations of the classics in a miscellany published by Giovanni Bembo [it].
On his deathbed, Sabellico asked Egnazio to edit his unfinished work De exemplis for publication.
In 1508, with Janus Lascaris, Marco Musuro and Girolamo Aleandro, he helped prepare Erasmus' Adagia for publication in Venice.
[6] In 1510, Egnazio delivered the funeral oration for the mercenary captain Niccolò di Pitigliano on behalf of the republic.
[10] During this period (1508–1515), Egnazio was part of a circle of young Venetians around Tommaso Giustiniani that were "undergoing in various degrees of intensity a crisis of conscience."
Highly intellectual and attracted to the ascetic life, this group desired to join a monastic community without taking the full vows.
Although Pietro Delfino, the superior general of the Order of Camaldoli, agreed to their request in 1510, two of the men—Giustiniani and Vincenzo Querini—opted to take full vows, while the others—Egnazio, Gasparo Contarini and Nicolò Tiepolo [ru]—abandoned the plan entirely.
[13] When the chair in Latin was vacated by the death of Raffaele Regio in 1520, the students requested Egnazio to succeed him.
[16] In early 1548, Pier Paolo Vergerio stayed in his house for a time and gave public readings of his works.
At the urging of Bernardo Navagero, the Venetian Senate agreed to continue paying his salary in retirement, while the Council of Ten exempted him from taxation.
[2] By his will, dated 23 October 1546,[2] he left a globe to Nicolò Tiepolop; his collection of Greek books from the Aldine press to the monastery of San Gregorio and his medallions and other artefacts to the Bragadini, Loredani and Molini [it].
[20] In his preface to Porcius, Egnazio defended his author's priority in writing about ancient weights and measures against the claims of Guillaume Budé.
In both editions it is accompanied by sets of biographies drawn from Giorgio Merula's translation of Dio Cassius and from the Historia Augusta, with annotations by Egnazio.
Eight examples are known, including the funeral orations for Lorenzo Suárez (1501), Benedetto Brugnoli (1502), Niccolò di Pitigliano (1509), the grand chancellor Luigi Dardano (1511), the papal nuncio Pietro Dovizi di Bibbiena (1514) and the cardinal Marco Cornaro (1524), as well as two speeches entitled De optimo cive (1535) and Oratio de beneficentia (year unknown).
His letters to Matteo Avogadro, Romolo Amaseo [it], Jean Grolier (1518), Friedrich Nausea (1520), Giovanni Francesco Conti [it] (1526), Niccolò Leonico (1530) and Pier Cordato (1549) have been published, as well as his five to Willibald Pirckheimer (1527–1529).
