Alamanni, Luigi

ALAMANNI, LUIGI. - Man of letters, b. in Florence in 1495, d. at Amboise in 1556. He followed the lectures of Francesco Cattani, a disciple of Marsilio Ficino. He took part in the meetings held in 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, after the fall of the Republic, he fled to Francis I, who gave him a farm at Aix. He returned to Italy several times on important missions.

Neither the Egloghe, nor the Satire - against the corruption of women and of the Roman court - nor the comedy Flora have originality or artistic value. Even the two poems in ottava rima, Girone il Cortese and the Avarchide, live on earlier models, the one on the French poem of the same name, the other on the Iliad and on the Breton romances. His most famous work is the didactic poem in six books "Della coltivazione"; especially noteworthy are the parts that describe the golden age and the tranquillity of country life.