BRACCIOLINI, FRANCESCO. - Poet, b. at Pistoia on 26 Nov. 1566; he studied law at his father's wish, but soon felt drawn to poetry and gave such proof of his ability that, barely twenty years old, he was enrolled in the Accademia Fiorentina, showing himself to be a poet of fertile inspiration and vivid imagination.
Among the poetic compositions of this period, particular mention deserves the pastoral tale L'Amoroso sdegno, some samples of which, with the addition of other rhymes, were published in Milan in 1597. He stayed in Florence four years and there met Maffeo Barberini, the future Urban VIII. In 1590 he moved to Rome, then to Naples and to Genoa, where he became intimate with Chiabrera and with Grillo. From 1595 to 1602 he was in Milan in the retinue of Cardinal Federico Borromeo; then he returned once again to Rome and was taken on, as secretary, by Maffeo Barberini, who brought him along with him to France. In Paris he published the first fifteen books of La Croce riacquistata (Ruelli ed. 1605), an epic poem among the most remarkable of the seventeenth century, even if too similar in structure and development to the Gerusalemme liberata. Having left France, he withdrew to Pistoia and applied himself entirely to poetry; he finished La Croce riacquistata (published in Venice in 1611); he wrote numerous rhymes (notable are the Sonetti in vita ed in morte della Lena Fornaia), four tragedies, epic poems. But his name is above all linked to the Scherno degli dèi (Florence 1618), a facetious poem, judged by many not inferior to the Secchia rapita, which aroused lively contention in contemporary criticism to establish whether the honor of having introduced into Italian literature the "heroicomic poem" was to be attributed to B. or to Passoni; modern scholars have resolved the problem in favor of the latter. In 1622, when Maffeo Barberini ascended the papal throne, B. joined him in Rome. He was received with many honors and led a comfortable life, also entering the service of Cardinal Antonio Barberini as secretary; he composed other poems and dramas and published in honor of the Pontiff L'Elezione di Urbano Papa VIII.
On the death of his benefactor, which occurred in 1644, he returned to his native Pistoia, and there died on 31 Aug. 1645.
Bibliography4 works
Italo Borzi