CASTI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA. - Born at Acquapendente on 29 Aug. 1724; he studied at the seminary of Montefiascone and remained there teaching eloquence after having taken holy orders. He was enrolled in the Arcadia; in 1762 he revealed himself as a facetious poet with a collection of humorous sonnets against creditors, entitled I tre giuli.
A bizarre and adventurous spirit, he traveled through the courts of Europe (Paris, Rome, Florence, Vienna).
At the court of Maria Theresa he became popular for his Novelle, tales in ottava rima on licentious subjects. In 1778 he went to St. Petersburg, and the cordial welcome of Catherine II did not restrain him from writing the Poema tartaro (XII cantos in ottava rima), in which he ridicules the customs of the Russian court and the frivolities of the empress.
In Vienna the fame of C. increased with the performance of some of his melodramas: Teodoro in Venezia (1784); La Grotta di Trifonio (1786); Cublai Gran Can dei Tartari (1788), and others.
Removed from the court of Vienna because of the ill feeling aroused in Russia by the Poema tartaro, he was in Venice, in Constantinople (1788), in Milan. In 1790 he returned to Vienna as imperial poet, successor to Metastasio. In 1796 he returned to Italy and in 1798 he moved to Paris, where he remained until his death, which occurred on 5 Feb. 1803. There he composed Gli animali parlanti (1802), a zoopoeia of XXVI cantos in sesta rima, which shadows forth the clash between absolute monarchy and the new republican forms.
The Novelle amene are on the Index (decree of 2 July 1804), and Gli animali parlanti (decree of 26 Aug. 1805) for irreligious impropriety and an unbearable licentiousness (cf. G. Casati, Dizionario degli scrittori d'Italia, II, Milan n.d., pp. 93-94).