Merula, Georgius
MERULA, GEORGIUS (the Latinized name of GIORGIO rRLANi; c. 1430-1494), Italian humanist and classical scholar, was born at Alessandria in Piedmont. The greater part of his life was spent at Venice and Milan, where he held a professorship and continued to teach until his death. To Merula we are ndebted for the editio princeps of Plautus (147 2) , of the Scriplotes rei ruslicae, Cato, Varro, Columella, Palladius (1472) and possibly of Martial (1471). He also published commentaries on portions of Cicero (especially the De finibus), on Ausonius, fuvenal, Curtius Rufus, and other classical authors. He wrote also Bellum scodrense (1474), on account of the siege of Scodra Scutari) by the Turks, and AntiquUales vicecomitum, the listory of the Visconti, dukes of Milan, down to the death of Matteo the Great (1322). He violently attacked Politian Poliziano), whose Miscellanea (a collection of notes on classical authors) were declared by Merula to be either plagiarized from lis own writings or, when original, to be entirely incorrect.
See monograph by F. Gabotto and Badini-Gonfalonieri (1894) with bibliography; for the quarrel with Politian see also C. Meiners '^ebensbeschreibungen der beruhmten Manner (1796), ii. 158.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
