MAGALOTTI, LORENZO. - Writer, born in Rome on 13 Dec. 1637, died in Florence on 2 Mar. 1712. He began his career as a mathematician and physician, and, as secretary of the Accademia del Cimento, published in 1666 the Saggi di naturali esperienze.
His varied human and cultural curiosity (he had been a pupil of the Jesuits at the Roman Seminary and in 1691, for several months, at the Congregation of the Oratorians in Rome) is reflected in a copious output ranging from travel accounts to the Lettere familiari contro l'ateismo, from diplomatic reports (v. E. Falqui, Scritti di corte e di mondo, Rome 1945) to the so-called Lettere sopra i bucheri (cf. ed. by M. Praz, Florence 1945), from the canzoniere La donna immaginaria to the Lettere scientifiche ed erudite (on flowers, scents, the venom of vipers, etc.).
A most refined writer, possessed of a light and serene sensitivity that pervades all the things and people he sees and describes, Magalotti treats the religious problem chiefly as an ethical and human impulse. Yet he strongly emphasizes the dignity of reason: “the senses wage greater war against faith than reason does” (Delle lettere familiari contro l'ateismo, II, Bologna 1821, p. 142), precisely because Christian faith postulates no logical contradiction.
