Italian poet, librettist, and playwright (1565–1624)
Count Ridolfo Campeggi (1565 – 28 June 1624) was an Italian nobleman, Marinist poet, librettist, and playwright.
Biography.
Ridolfo Campeggi was born in Bologna, the scion of a noble family. He was a member of the prestigious Accademia dei Gelati, assuming the pseudonym of "Rugginoso" (the "rusty" or "stained" one). He headed the Academy in 1598 and 1614. His pastoral play "Il Filarmindo" was performed in 1605, at the Casa Zoppio in Bologna where the accademia had its own private theatre. "Filarmindo" was a popular work in its day and brought Campeggi his first success.
Campeggi wrote the libretto of Girolamo Giacobbi's "Andromeda", the first opera to be performed in Bologna (1610). He wrote also the interludes of "L’Aurora disingannata", set to music by Giacobbi, and the musical drama "Il Reno sacrificante" (1617).
Besides musical dramas, Campeggi wrote plays and lyric and sacred poetry. His tragedy "Tancredi" (1614), based on the tale of Tancred and Ghismonda ("Decameron" IV, 1) had a notable success. Following the lead of Federico Asinari and Pomponio Torelli, Campeggi tried to elevate Italian tragedy to the plane of Seneca and ancient Greek theatre. A translation in Bolognese dialect of Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger's "La Tancia" has been attributed to him. Also worthy of mention is the one hundred octaves poem "L’Italia consolata" [Italy comforted], composed by Campeggi in the occasion of the wedding between Victor Amadeus I, Duke of Savoy and Christine of France.
Campeggi was highly praised by Marino, who, in a letter to Claudio Achillini published in the preface of his poetry collection "La Sampogna", called him “one of the freest quills that soar in our days in the Italian ether” (una delle più franche penne, che oggidì volino per lo cielo italiano). He was a member of the Accademia degli Incogniti of Venice and of the Accademia degli Umoristi of Rome. His correspondence with some of the most important Italian men of letters of the day has been only recently discovered in the Fondo Malvezzi-Campeggi. Campeggi's most important work is his sixteen-cantos poem "Le Lagrime di Maria Vergine" (1617), one of the most popular religious epics of the day. Subsequent editions of the poem appeared in 1618 (Cochi) and 1643.
Campeggi died in Bologna on 28 June 1624 and was buried in the church of the Annunziata.