Giuseppe Tassini
Giuseppe Tassini (12 November 1827 - 22 December 1899) was an Italian historian and one of the most notable scholars of the toponymy of his birthplace of Venice. His most notable work was Curiosità Veneziane, a minute toponymical study first published in 1863 and universally considered the most important bibliographical source of its kind.[1][2]
Life[edit]
Born into an old middle-class Venetian family, he was the son of Carlo (1781-1848), an official with the Austro-Hungarian Navy and his noble-born wife Elisabetta de Wasserfall. He had a bumpy childhood which only settled down after his father's death, gaining a laurea in law in 1860. He then mainly focussed on administering his family estates, including lands in Scorzè and several houses in Venice, and on further study.[3]
He died of an apoplectic fit in his house near the sotoportego delle Cariole in Venice, not far from San Zulian. His body was discovered by a chamberlain of the Caffè dei Segretari who usually brought Tassini breakfast each morning - on 22 December 1899 he had not already opened his door and the chamberlain called a blacksmith to force it open. He was buried in a common grave and the location of his remains is now unknown. His manuscript books, houses and lands passed to a cousin who had emigrated to America, who then sold them off, with most of Tassini's notes bought by the Correr Museum.[4]
Works (in date order)[edit]
- La barba
- Gli occhiali
- Curiosità Veneziane - Ovvero: Origini delle denominazioni stradali di Venezia
- Il libertinaggio a Venezia
- Veronica Franco celebre letterata e cortigiana veneziana
- Feste, spettacoli, divertimenti e piaceri degli antichi veneziani
- Alcuni palazzi ed antichi edifizii di Venezia storicamente illustrati
- Edifici di Venezia distrutti o volti ad altro uso diverso da quello a cui furono in origine destinati
- Osservazioni critiche sopra le innovazioni praticate nella nomenclatura stradale di Venezia
- Alcune delle più clamorose condanne capitali eseguite in Venezia sotto la Repubblica
- Il veridico - Diario storico veneziano
- Le iscrizioni nella chiesa e convento di San Salvatore in Venezia
- Aneddoti storici veneziani
- Notizie storiche e genealogiche sui cittadini veneziani (unfinished)
Some of his works are in a Miscellanea published by Editrice Filippi.
References[edit]
- ^ (in Italian) Edizione on line delle voci riportate in Curiosità Veneziane (ed.)
- ^ (in Italian) Giuseppe Tassini, Curiosità veneziane, Editrice Filippi, edizione 2009, with a preface by Lino Moretti and Elio Zorzi
- ^ (in Italian) Nuovo Rinascimento, Venezia, re-launched into the public domain
- ^ (in Italian) Giuseppe Tassini, Curiosità Veneziane, note integrative e revisione a cura di Marina Crivellari Bizio, Franco Filippi, Andrea Perego, Venezia, Filippi Editore, 2009 [1863], pp. 5-32.
