PIGNOTTI, LORENZO. - Poet and fabulist, b. at Figline on 9 Aug. 1739, d. at Pisa on 5 Aug. 1812. After completing his studies at the Seminary of Arezzo, he took a degree in medicine at Pisa. He became professor of physics and later rector of that university.
He wrote in an easy, though somewhat prolix, verse *Favole e novelle*, not with an educational aim but to attack «the vices and frivolities of mankind in general»; here and there some satirical thrusts are directed against the clergy. He also composed short poems and lyrics, imitations of the satires of Juvenal and Horace, and freely translated, in a Parinian spirit, Pope’s *Rape of the Lock*. In the short poem *L'ombra di Pope* he fostered the Anglomania of the time. After his death appeared a *Storia della Toscana sino al principato*, followed by several essays of little value and placed on the Index (decr. 19 Jan. 1824). This work was among those used by Stendhal for his knowledge of Italian life in the Renaissance.