Giannotti, Donato - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VI, p. 232

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

GIANNOTTI, DONATO. - Man of letters, b. in Firenze on 27 Nov. 1492, d. in Roma on 27 Dec. 1573. A follower of Savonarola and opposed to the Medici, in 1527 he was secretary of the Dieci, as Machiavelli had been; after the fall of the Florentine Republic, he was compelled to go into exile.

Besides youthful verses, he wrote comedies (Il vecchio amoroso, la Milesia) and, above all, political treatises

(Il libro della Repubblica de' Viniziani; the 4 books Della Repubblica fiorentina), in which he upholds and ideally outlines republican institutions. Also important for the study of Michelangiolo, who appears in them as an interlocutor, are the Dialoghi de' giorni che Dante consumò nel cercare l'Interno e il Purgatorio. An Epitome historiae ecclesiasticae remains unpublished.

BIBL.: Works: Opere poetiche e letterarie di D. G., edited by F. Polidori, with a Discorso biografico by A. Vannucci, Firenze 1850; Lettere di D. G. a Pier Vettori, published by R. Ridolfi and C. Roth, ibid. 1932. For his life and works, besides the cited Discorso by Vannucci, v.: G. Sanesi, La vita e le opere di D. G., Pistoia 1899; E. Zanoni, D. G. nella vita e negli scritti, Roma 1900; G. Biasus, Per una ristampa dei « Dialoghi » di D. G., in Convivium, 12 (1940), pp. 36-43. For his relations with Michelangiolo: G. Papini, La vita di Michelangiolo nella vita del suo tempo, Milano 1949, p. 403 ff. Italiano Marchetti