Girolamo Tiraboschi (1731-1794) was an Italian scholar, librarian and literary historian.
Born in Bergamo, Tiraboschi became a Jesuit at the age of fifteen and taught eloquence in the schools there before being called to Modena by Duke Francesco III to direct the famous library, at one time headed by Lodovico Muratori.
Besides various minor writings in Latin and Italian, Tiraboschi produced a single monumental work, Storia della letteratura italiana (The History of Italian Literature), the most comprehensive history of its type until that of De Sanctis. It encompasses the origins and the progress of letters from the time of the Etruscans to 1700. It was closer to a cultural history than what is understood today as a literary history, since it concentrated more on the biographical details of a poet's life than on textual analyses of his works, and it defined literature in the broadest of terms to include art, philosophy, medicine, law, science, and many other fields no longer considered by contemporary literary historians.
Tiraboschi did, however, view Italian literature as an expression of national consciousness before Italy reunited as a political entity. For him, the golden age of Italian letters was the learned age of the Renaissance, with Petrarch as its foremost representative. Future generations of critics and scholars would refer to Tiraboschi's work for its copious and indispensable documentation.
Works:
• De patriae historia, 1760.
• Vetera Humiliatorum monumenta annotationibus ac dìssertationibus prodromis illustrata, 1766-68
• Storia della letteratura italiana, 1772-1782 (revised and expanded in 1787-1794).
• Vita del Conte D. Fulvio Testi, Modena, 1780.
• Biblioteca modenese ovvero notizie della vita e delle opere degli scrittori nati negli stati del duca di Modena, 1781-1786.
• Notizie biografiche e letterarie in continuazione della Biblioteca modonese, 1796.
• Della pittura e della statua di Leonbatista Alberti, 1804.
• Storia dell'augusta abbazia di San Silvestro dì Nonantola, aggiuntovi il Codice Diplomatico della medesima illustrato con note, 1784-1789.
• Notizie de' pittori, scultori, incisori, architetti natii degli stati del duca di Modena, 1786.
• Notizie della Confraternita di San Pietro Martire in Modena, 1789.
• Riflessioni sugli Scrittori Genealogici, 1789.
• Dell'origine della poesia rimata, opera di Giammaria Barbieri modenese, pubblicata e con annotazioni illustrata dal cav. ab. Gerolamo Tiraboschi, 1790.
• Memorie storiche modenesi col Codice Diplomatico illustrato con note, 1793-1795.
• Dizionario topografico storico degli stati estensi, 1824-5 (posthumous).
