DONI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA. - Epigrapher, man of letters and writer on music, b. in Florence to a patrician family in 1594 and d. there on 1 December 1647. He took an interest in epigraphy and on his travels in France and Spain collected inscriptions. In Rome, where he enjoyed the protection of Cardinal Francesco Barberini and was secretary of the Sacred College, he completed, certainly shortly before 1632, a vast enlargement of Gruter's Corpus, begun in Florence.
From a letter of Gerolamo Aleandri to Cardinal Federico Borromeo, of 1627, we learn that by that date D. had collected more than 6000 inscriptions. Autograph slips of D. are preserved in cod. Vat. lat. 7113. The two parts of a collection written in our author's own hand are contained respectively in cod. A 293 of the Marucelliana library in Florence and in cod. Napoletano XII, G. 73. In 1731 A. F. Gori published in Florence a Corpus of the Donian inscriptions selected from all the preceding collections. D. invented a musical instrument, which, in honour of his patron, he named the "lira barberina" and illustrated with the dissertation Commentarii de lyra Barberina. He also wrote a Trattato della musica.
Bibliography6 worksWorks: Inscriptiones antiquae, nunc primum editae ab Antonio Francisco Gorio, Florence 1731. Studies: A. M. Bandini, Commentarium de vita et
BIBL.: Works: Inscriptiones antiquae, nunc primum editae ab Antonio Francisco Gorio, Florence 1731. Studies: A. M. Bandini, Commentarium de vita et scriptis I.B.D., Florence 1735; G. B. De Rossi, Inscriptiones Christianae urbis Romae, I, Rome 1857, pp. 20-21; A. Silvagni, ibid., new series, I, ibid. 1922, pp. 47-48; A. Solotti, Grigioni del melodramma, Turin 1903; F. Vaticelli, La lyra Barberina di G.B.D., Pesaro 1909; L. Parigi, s. v. in Enc. Ital., XIII (1932), p. 144.
Catteruccia, Luigi Maria. “Doni, giovanni battista.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. IV, col. 1861. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1950. https://azioneromana.com/article/doni-giovanni-battista.
MLA
Catteruccia, Luigi Maria. “Doni, giovanni battista.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. IV, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1950, col. 1861. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/doni-giovanni-battista.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec4_doni_giovanni_battista,
author = {Catteruccia, Luigi Maria},
title = {Doni, giovanni battista},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {IV},
pages = {1861},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1950},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/doni-giovanni-battista}
}
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