GUIDI, ALESSANDRO. — Poet, born in Pavia on 14 June 1650, died in Frascati on 13 June 1712. Having left the court of Ranuccio II of Parma, in 1683 he went to Rome to that of Christina of Sweden and became her official singer, “to the extent that it seemed the Queen thought with GUIDI’s mind and GUIDI wrote with the Queen’s sentiments” (G. M. Crescimbeni).
From 2 July 1691 he was a member of the Arcadia and there recited various compositions, including *Endimione* (Rome 1692), which confirmed his already widespread fame as a poet, a fame already established by his songs in free strophes (*Poesie*, Naples 1780), a reputation that endured in literature until Parini, Monti, and Foscolo. Leopardi, on the contrary, judged GUIDI an impotent emulator of Pindar. From Innocent XI GUIDI received a benefice, and from Clement XI the appointment as private chamberlain; he was such a sincere admirer of this Pope that he wished to paraphrase in verse six Latin Homilies delivered by the Pontiff in the years 1703–1706. The volume (Rome 1712) appeared with engravings by P. L. Ghezzi, but on the day before its presentation to Clement XI, GUIDI died, “sub onere splendidissimo,” as the inscription on the tomb erected for him near that of Tasso in S. Onofrio by the Pope himself reads.