MALESPINI, CELIO. — Scholar, b. in Venice in 1531, d. there c. 1610. A descendant, if not an impostor, of the M. of Lunigiana. A notorious adventurer, he tried his fortune in various ways and places, even as a mercenary soldier; then, to use a verb he was fond of, he “leaped over” in Venice and laid hands on printing, which at that time flattered his peers, as it had flattered scholars seventy years before.
Guided by a singular instinct for forgery, he issued books of every kind, but without the imagination, sometimes brilliant and even honest, of a Dolci, a Doni, a Ruscelli, or a Sansovino. Yet his dishonesty was also beneficial to poetry when, from the madhouse of Ferrara, certain octaves came into his hands—these were the first cantos of the *Gerusalemme Liberata*. He published them unworthily under the title *Goffredo* (Venice 1579). From this came the almost complete edition by Ingegneri and a more honest edition of his own. He also wrote two hundred *Novelle* (Venice 1609), most of them naturally stolen, but all valuable for knowledge of manners and stamped with his “candid” cynicism.