Filippo Buonaccorsi

Bronze epitaph of Filippo Buonacorsi in Kraków, Dominican Church

Filip Callimachus or Callimach (Latin Philippus Callimachus Experiens, Polish: Filip Kallimach, born Filippo Buonaccorsi, Bonacursius; May 2, 1437 – November 1 1496) was an Italian humanist and writer.

Biography

Buonaccorsi was born in San Gimignano. He first appeared in Venice and Rome, where he was the secretary of bishop Bartolomeo Roverelli. He moved to Rome in 1462 and became a member of the Rome Academy of Julius Pomponius Laetus. He took part in the unsuccessful assassination of Pope Paul II in 1468 and fled to Poland. The homosexual verses (including one addressed to the then Bishop of Segni, Lucio Fazini), which were found in his papers earned him a reputation for sodomy. In Poland he found work with the bishop of Lemberg, Gregory of Sanok.

He was later teacher of the children of the Polish King Casimir IV Jagiellon and took part in diplomatic missions. In 1474 he was named royal secretary, in 1476 he served as ambassador to Constantinople, and in 1486 he became the king's representative in Venice. With the accession to the Polish throne of his former pupil as John I of Poland, his influence peaked. In his writings he argued for the reinforcement of the king's power at the expense of the aristocracy. In Cracow, he joined Conrad Celtis' Sodalitas Vistuliana. Callimachus wrote poems and prose in Latin, and is best remembered for his biographies of of Bishop Zbigniew Oleśnicki, bishop Gregory of Sanok, and King Władysław III of Poland.

His grave in the Dominican Church in Cracow was created by Veit Stoss.