Sannazaro, Jacopo

Sannazaro, Jacopo (yä`kōpō sän-nätsä`rō), 1456?–1530, Italian humanist. He lived briefly (1501–4) in France, a follower of the exiled Frederick III of Naples. On Frederick's death, he returned to Naples and a life of study and literary fame. His Arcadia, a pastoral idyll in prose and verse, was the first of a long line of idylls on the subject of Arcadia, including one by Sir Philip Sidney. Sannazaro's work Epigrammatica (3 vol.) is pungent; his Piscatoriae enlarged the literary uses of the eclogue by substituting fishermen for shepherds.