MARSILI, LUIGI. – Augustinian, humanist, born in Florence ca. 1342, died there on 21 Aug. 1394. Having obtained a doctorate in theology at Paris, after travelling extensively in Italy and France he returned to Florence in 1379, where his fellow religious elected him superior of the province of Pisa, and the Signoria entrusted him with honourable assignments. He also twice requested from Bonifacio VIII appointment as bishop of Florence, but in vain, since he was unpopular for having written invectives against the morals of the Avignonese court and for defending the rights of the national churches.
His broad classical culture made him the soul of the Florentine revival in the second half of the 14th century. Giovanni da Prato speaks of him in his novel, describing the role played by M. in the gatherings of Count Carlo di Poppi in the Casentino and at the villa of the Paradiso degli Alberti, near Florence (cf. Vessolofsky, op. cit. in the bibliography); Petrarch, his friend, addressed a letter to him when he had taken the Augustinian habit (Seniles, XIV, vi), and again in 1373, accompanying the gift of a codex of the Confessions of St Augustine, which had previously belonged to another Augustinian, Dionigi da Borgo S. Sepolcro (Seniles, XV, vii); the finest minds of Florence called him father and master, gathering around him in the convent of S. Spirito for discussions of difficult and unusual questions. The Signoria had a monument erected to him in S. Maria del Fiore.