GUIDI, ALESSANDRO. - Poet, born at Pavia on 14 June 1650, died at Frascati on 13 June 1712. From the court of Ranuccio II of Parma, he moved in 1683 to Rome, to that of Cristina di Svezia, and became her official bard, “in such a manner that it seemed the Queen thought with the mind of G. and G. wrote with the sentiments of the Queen” (G. M. Crescimbeni).
From 2 July 1691 he belonged to the Arcadia, where he recited various compositions, among them the Endimione (Rome, 1692), which confirmed his reputation as a poet, already widely established through his songs in free stanzas (Poesie, Naples, 1780). This reputation endured in literary circles down to Parini, Monti, and Foscolo. Leopardi, on the other hand, judged G. an impotent emulator of Pindar. G. received a benefice from Innocenzo XI and, from Clemente XI, appointment as a secret chamberlain; he was such a sincere admirer of this Pope that he wished to paraphrase in verse six Latin Omelie 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 Clemente XI, G. died, “sub onere splendidissimo,” as the epitaph on the tomb erected for him by the Pope himself near that of Tasso in S. Onofrio states.