Flavio Biondo was born in the city of Forlì in Romagna in 1392. He spent his youth in Cremona, where he was educated, as was the custom, in grammar, poetry and rhetoric. After concluding his education, Biondo worked in multiple civic administrative posts around Northern Italy. These included the cities like Vicenza, Bergamo and Brescia. During this period Biondo befriended with a Venetian diplomat and humanist, named Francesco Barbaro (1390-1454). He later helped Biondo to gain the citizenship of Venice. In 1420, when Biondo was 28 years old, he met a distinguished humanist Guarino Veronese (1374-1460). Guarino would be later known especially for his work in translating Greek manuscripts into Latin and teaching the Greek language. This in mind, it surely feels odd, that though Biondo had a friend like Guarino, he never mastered the Greek language. Regardless, he and Guarino became lifelong friends.
Majority of scholars may classify Flavio Biondo mainly as an employee of the papacy and the church. This is not farfetched due to the fact that he worked almost continuously for 29 years for the successors of Peter. In this sense, the career of Biondo truly started in 1433 when he became a notary in the papal curia under the pope Eugene IV (pope 1431-1447).
