CASTI, Giovanni Battista. - Born in Acquapendente on 29 Aug. 1724; studied at the seminary of Montefiascone and remained there to teach rhetoric after taking holy orders. He was enrolled in the Accademia dell’Arcadia; in 1762 he revealed himself as a facetious poet with a collection of playful sonnets against creditors, entitled I tre giulli.
A whimsical 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 Catherine II’s cordial reception did not prevent him from writing the Poema tartaro (XII cantos in ottava rima), in which he ridicules Russian court customs and the frivolities of the empress.
In Vienna Casti’s fame grew with the staging of several of his melodramas: Teodoro in Venezia (1784); La Grotta di Trifonio (1786); Ciblai Gran Can dei Tartari (1788), and others.
Banished from the court of Vienna because of the displeasure aroused in Russia by the Poema tartaro, he went to Venice, Constantinople (1788), and Milan. In 1790 he returned to Vienna as imperial poet, succeeding Metastasio. In 1796 he returned to Italy and in 1798 moved to Paris, where he remained until his death on 5 Feb. 1803. There he composed Gli animali parlanti (1802), a zoopeia of XXVI cantos in sestina rima, which shadows the clash between absolute monarchy and the new republican forms.
The Novelle amene (decr. 2 July 1804) and Gli animali parlanti (decr. 26 Aug. 1805) were placed on the Index for their irreligious impropriety and intolerable licentiousness (cf. G. Casati, Dizionario degli scrittori d'Italia, II, Milan n.d., pp. 93-94).