(1414–19; Palazzo Pubblico, Siena). From 1417 to 1434
he worked on reliefs for the baptistery in Siena, on which
DONATELLOand Ghiberti also worked, before embarking
upon his greatest decorations, the biblical reliefs on the
main portal of San Petronio in Bologna (1425–38). This
last work was much admired by Michelangelo. In 1435
della Quercia was appointed architect of Siena cathedral.
Further reading: James H. Beck, Jacopo della Quercia
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1992); Anne Cof-
fin Hanson, Jacopo della Quercia’s Fonte Gaia (Oxford,
U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1965); Charles Seymour, Jacopo
della Quercia, Sculptor (New Haven, Conn. and London:
Yale University Press, 1973).
questione della lingua The controversy over what
should be the preferred form of national language in Italy
that reached its climax in the early 16th century. The roots
of the problem lay in the competing dialects of the urban
centers (with their dependent regions) and the political
fragmentation of the peninsula. In effect, the controversy
concerned the establishment of a literary or written stan-
dard, and to this extent the question was successfully re-
solved by the early 17th century; however, dialectal
diversity in speech and in many nonliterary works (pri-
vate correspondence, diaries, and official documents) con-
tinued up to the 20th century, and only quite recently has
something approaching the uniformity of written Italian
begun to emerge in the spoken language.
Although BOCCACCIO could still question DANTE’s
choice of the VERNACULARto treat the weighty matters of
the Divine Comedy, the vernacular in literary composition
had apparently won the day against Latin during the 13th
century. There remained, however, the issue of which of
the many regional dialects was the best. In De vulgari elo-
quentia Dante examined a number of them (for the pur-
poses of poetic composition only), finding none perfect
but each with useful features. Tuscan had early acquired a
certain advantage since the works of the poets of the Sicil-
ian School (written under Frederick II and his son Man-
fred, between about 1230 and 1266) had been transcribed
in a Tuscanized form by copyists and so passed to later
poets.
Several positions were taken in the controversy. Gian-
giorgio TRISSINOand CASTIGLIONEargued for an eclectic
lingua cortigiana, of mixed usage but essentially Tuscan,
such as already prevailed in the great courts of Milan,
Rome, and Ferrara, where courtiers of diverse back-
grounds communicated in the same language. MACHI-
AVELLIargued for current spoken Florentine. The position
that eventually triumphed was that taken by Pietro BEMBO
in Prose della volgar lingua (1525). Just as Virgil and Ci-
cero had become the paradigms of Latin style, so Bembo
proposed PETRARCHand Boccaccio as models for Italian.
Their 14th-century language was not, he pointed out, that
of contemporary Florence and Tuscany. His views,
strongly supported by Leonardo SALVIATI, were adopted
by the ACCADEMIA DELLA CRUSCAand so reflected in the
Cruscan Vocabolario (1612), which settled most aspects of
spelling, grammar, and vocabulary.
See also: ITALIAN LANGUAGEQuevedo y Villegas, Francisco Gómez de (1580–
1645) Spanish satirist, poet, and novelist
Quevedo’s parents held positions at court in Madrid,
where he was born, but his father died soon after his birth
and his mother left him in the charge of tutors. Although
born lame and with poor eyesight, he attended the uni-
versity of Alcalá; there he developed an active, belligerent
character and intellectual brilliance, mastering Greek,
Latin, and Hebrew, and later Italian, French, and some
Arabic. About 1600 he was at the court in Valladolid and
moved with it to Madrid in 1606. He produced a constant
flow of satirical verses and pamphlets, made a lifelong
enemy of GÓNGORA, cultivated a friendship with CER-
VANTES, and corresponded with Justus LIPSIUS. He wrote
an outstanding PICARESQUE NOVEL, El Buscón (1603–08),
and in 1606 the first of five Sueños (Visions). Published in
1627, these scathing prose satires, influenced by Dante
and Lucian, contain passages of grotesque brilliance.
In 1611 Quevedo was forced to leave court—accord-
ing to rumor, for having murdered a man—and in 1613
became an agent of the duke of Osuna in Italy. Deeply in-
volved in Osuna’s plots against Venice, Quevedo, thanks
to excellent Italian, barely escaped with his life when the
Venetians struck back at the conspirators. When the duke
of Olivares came to power on the accession of Philip IV
(1621), all former ministers of Osuna were punished.
Quevedo, however, eventually regained favor by dedicat-
ing to Olivares a “mirror of princes” work (which he
thought his best), the Política de Dios (1617; published
1626). The period to 1639 was the happiest of his life, de-
spite an unfortunate marriage (1634); both parties wel-
comed an agreed separation in 1636. In 1639 Philip IV
found under his napkin at table some anonymous verses
attacking Olivares. Quevedo was held to be guilty—how,
exactly, he was involved is not certain—and was confined
in a monastery in León until after Olivares’ death in 1643.
Too ill to return to court, he spent his final years on his es-
tate.
Quevedo was unexcelled as a stylist, his works being
particularly associated with the “wit” (agudeza—a term
approximating the “wit” of English Metaphysical poetry)
of conceptismo (often, inaccurately, taken as the antithesis
of the mannered rhetorical style of Góngora and cul-
teranismo). He carried on a continual polemic against
Góngora and his followers and edited the works of Fray
LUIS DE LEÓNas a corrective against culteranismo. Over
1000 of his poems were anthologized posthumously, but
an accurate edition of his prolific output is more recent,QQuueevveeddoo yy VViilllleeggaass,, FFrraanncciissccoo GGoo ́ ́mmeezz ddee 3 39999