Giovanni Conversini

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Giovanni Conversini, also known as Giovanni di Conversino or John of Ravenna, was an Italian educator born in 1343 in Buda (then part of Hungary). His father, Conversanus, served as royal physician to Louis I. He first appears in records in 1368 as a professor of rhetoric in Florence, after working as a notary. In the 1370s he joined the Carrara court in Padua and stayed connected with them for years, though he did not spend all that time in Padua. Between 1375 and 1379 he was a schoolmaster in Belluno, but was said to be “too good for the job” and not suited to teaching boys. On March 22, 1382 he became professor of rhetoric at Padua. During the Carraresi–Visconti conflict he spent 1387–1392 in Udine. From 1395 to 1404 he served as chancellor to Francis of Carrara, and the last record of him is in 1406 when he was living in Venice. He wrote a history of the Carrara family, which critics call dull in Latin, but he was a highly respected teacher, with pupils such as Vittorino da Feltre and Guarino da Verona. He died in Muggia on September 27, 1408.