ALAMANNI, LUIGI. — Man of letters, born in Florence in 1495, died at Amboise in 1556. He attended the lectures of Francesco Cattani, a disciple of Marsilio Ficino. He took part in the meetings held at the Accademia degli Orti Oricellari, where he met Machiavelli. In 1522 he participated in the conspiracy against Giulio de' Medici. He then took refuge in Venice, and later in France. In 1527 he returned to Florence; three years later, following the fall of the Republic, he sought refuge with Francesco I, who gave him an estate at Aix. He returned to Italy several times on important assignments.
Neither the Egloghe nor the Satire—in opposition to the corruption of women and of the Roman court—nor the comedy Flora possesses originality or artistic merit. The two poems in ottava rima, Girone il Cortese and l'Avarchide, likewise derive from earlier models: the former from the French poem of the same name, the latter from the Iliad and the Breton romances. His most famous work is the didactic poem in six books, «Della coltivazione»; especially noteworthy are the sections describing the golden age and the tranquillity of country life.