BALDICI, BERNARDINO. — First Abbot of Guastalla, poet, scientist, historian, and philologist, born in Urbino on 5 June 1553, died there on 10 October 1617. He received an excellent literary education in his native city and studied mathematics under the guidance of the celebrated Federico Commandino. While still very young, he translated and commented on Aratus’ *Phaenomena*. In 1573, he was sent by his family to the University of Padua to study medicine, but he devoted himself with greater enthusiasm to philosophy, classical languages, and—with the help of foreign students—to modern languages. The plague of 1575 forced him to return home, where he wrote the life of his lamented teacher F. Commandino and resumed his mathematical studies under Guidobaldo del Monte.
Having gained a reputation as a scientist, Don Ferrante II Gonzaga, Duke of Guastalla, wished to have him—also on the advice of St Charles Borromeo—as his mathematics tutor (1580), and later as his traveling companion to Spain. However, Baldici fell ill and remained in Milan, where he was welcomed by St Charles. In 1584 he was in Urbino, and for his sister Eleonora, a Benedictine nun, he wrote the spiritual dialogue *Comparazione de lo stato monastico e secolare*, accompanied by a sonnet (manuscript in the Albani Library).
After returning from Spain, Don Ferrante II Gonzaga sought to elevate the vacant archpriesthood of Guastalla to the status of an abbey and to invest Baldici in II. During the lengthy negotiations, Baldici was ordained a priest and celebrated his first Mass at Easter 1585. He then devoted himself to the study of sacred sciences and Oriental languages to better understand Holy Scripture. For this purpose, he stayed in Rome, where he was appointed an apostolic protonotary. In 1609, due to disagreements, he resigned the abbacy and returned to Urbino to serve Duke Francesco Maria II della Rovere. All his relatives embittered the final years of his life. He was buried in the church of San Francesco, dressed in the Franciscan habit.
According to Crescimbeni, he knew sixteen languages, which Mazzuchelli lists as: “Latin, Greek, Italian, Spanish, French, Old Provençal, Old Sicilian, German, Hungarian, Slavonian (Croatian), Hebrew, Chaldean (Aramaic), Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Etruscan.”
He left numerous poetic works, including *La Nautica*, a didactic poem celebrated as his masterpiece, and *Il Diluvio Universale* (Pavia 1604), renowned in the history of Italian metrics. He also translated *Gli automati, ovvero macchine*