Magalotti, Lorenzo

MAGALOTTI, LORENZO. - Writer, b. in Rome on 13 Dec. 1637, d. in Florence on 2 March 1712. He began his activity 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 Seminario Romano and in 1691, for a few months, in the Congregation of the Filippini in Rome) is reflected in a copious output ranging from travel accounts to the Lettere familiari contro l'ateismo, from diplomatic reports (v. the selection by E. Falqui, Scritti di corte e di mondo, Rome 1945) to the so-called Lettere sopra i bucheri (cf. ed. edited by M. Praz, Florence 1945), from the canzoniere La donna immaginaria to the Lettere scientifiche ed erudite (on flowers, on odors, on the venom of vipers, etc.).

A most refined writer, of a light and serene sensibility that pours itself over all the things and men he sees and describes, M. feels the religious problem above all as an ethical-human impulse. He emphasizes intensely, however, the dignity of reason: « i sensi fanno più guerra alla fede, che la ragione » (Delle lettere familiari contro l'ateismo, II, Bologna 1821, p. 142), precisely because no logical contradiction is postulated by faith in Christianity.

Giorgio Petrocchi