Vittorino da Feltre

Vittorino da Feltre (1378 to 1446), born Vittorino Rambaldoni in Feltre in the Republic of Venice, was an Italian humanist and schoolmaster, and one of the best known teachers of the Italian Renaissance. He studied at Padua under Gasparino da Barzizza, taught there for some years, and then accepted the invitation of Gianfrancesco I Gonzaga, marquis of Mantua, to take charge of the education of his children. At Mantua he ran a school, called La Casa Gioiosa or the House of Joy, that taught the Gonzaga children, the sons and daughters of other prominent families and poor pupils who paid no fee, and treated them all on an equal footing. The curriculum joined Latin and Greek, mathematics, music, art, religion, history, poetry and philosophy to physical training. He lived among his pupils, watched over their health and adapted his teaching to the ability and needs of each child. He left no educational treatises, but his school was widely copied and many of his pupils became scholars, churchmen and statesmen. He died in Mantua.