Calepino, Ambrogio
CALEPINO, AMBROGIO
Latin lexicographer; b. June 2, 1435; d. Nov. 30, 1511. Ambrogio, the son of the count of Calepio, Italy, became an Augustinian at Bergamo in 1451 and devoted himself to humanistic studies. His Latin dictionary (Reggio Emilia 1502), a cornucopia of many years' labor, was revised by him in 1505 and 1509. Humanists reprinted and revised the work almost constantly, especially in France and Italy where calepin and calepino were added to the vocabulary. Non-Latin words were gradually added until the Basel edition of 1590 contained 11 languages. Many Latin-English dictionaries depended on Calepino's work, as did almost all Latin dictionaries before forcellini's great lexicon in 1771. Calepino's vita of St. john bonus of milan (Acta Sanctorum, Oct. 9:693–885) is unreliable. He wrote a De Venetiarum civitatis laude (See also P. Foresti, Supplementum chronicarum, Bergamo 1483).
Bibliography: a. strada, and g. spini, Ambrosio da Calepio, il Calepino (San Marco 1994). f. rossi, "Ambrogio Calepino e il 'Maestro del 1458': un episodio di cultura di élite," Arte Lombarda (1987) 80–82.
[f. roth]