DONI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA. — Epigrapher, man of letters, and musical writer, born in Florence to a patrician family in 1594 and died there on 1 December 1647. He took an interest in epigraphy and, during his travels in France and Spain, collected inscriptions. In Rome, where he enjoyed the protection of Cardinal Francesco Barberini and served as secretary to the Sacred College, he completed—certainly shortly before 1632—a vast expansion of the *Corpus Gruterianum*, begun in Florence.
A letter from Girolamo Aleandro to Cardinal Federico Borromeo, dated 1627, reveals that by that time Doni had collected more than 6,000 inscriptions. Doni’s autograph notes are preserved in *Cod. Vat. lat. 7113*. The two parts of a collection compiled in his own hand are found respectively in *Cod. A 293* of the Marucelliana Library in Florence and in *Cod. Neapolitanus XII, G. 73*. In 1731, A. F. Gori published in Florence a *Corpus* of Doni’s selected inscriptions drawn from all previous collections.
Doni invented a musical instrument, which, in honor of his patron, he named *la barbarina* and described in his treatise *Commentarii de lyra Barbarina*. He also wrote a *Trattato della musica*.