Giovanni Vincenzo Imperiale (1582 – 21 June 1648) was an Italian nobleman, art collector, and man of letters.
Contents
Biography
Giovanni Vincenzo Imperiale was born in 1582 at Sampierdarena (a suburb of Genoa). He was the only son of eight siblings born to one of the five leading families of Genoa whose importance and wealth had been established in the 16th century. His father, Giovanni Giacomo Imperiale, was elected Doge in 1617. His mother, Bianca Spinola, was the sister of Orazio Spinola, the future archbishop of Genoa.
We have little information about his youth and cultural formation. By the age of 18 Giovanni Vincenzo was a member of the Accademia dei Mutoli and at 25 he published the poem Stato Rustico, which established his fame as a poet. He corresponded with other celebrated poets of his age such as Giambattista Marino. In his sprawling poem L'Adone, published in 1623, Marino makes specific reference to him: Giovanni Vincenzo appears in canto 18 as the shepherd Clizio (the protagonist of the Stato rustico) who warns Adonis of the dangers of hunting the boar and then laments his friend's death.
In his early 20s, Giovanni Vincenzo was admitted to the prestigious Accademia degli Addormentati, whose members included Gabriello Chiabrera, Angelo Grillo and Ansaldo Cebà. In November 1604, he married Caterina Grimaldi, a member of another prestigious Genoese family. Marino celebrated the marriage in the epithalamium Urania. Caterina died on 17 January 1618 while giving birth to the couple's second son. After her death, Imperiale married Marchesa Brigida Spinola Doria (1583-1660).