TOLOMEI, CLAUDIO. – Man of letters, born in Siena in 1492, died in Rome on 23 March 1555. Exiled from his homeland in 1526 for his Medicean political views, he lived for a long time in Rome and Padua in the service of princes; recalled to his homeland, he held further offices there and was ambassador to France. He wrote various philological works, some of which have been lost.
With the volume Versi e regole della nuova poesia toscana (1539), he provided examples and precepts for applying quantitative metre and Greek-Latin strophic devices to Italian lyric poetry. He was a vigorous champion of the Tuscan character of the Italian language in two dialogues: Il Polito (published in 1524 under the pseudonym Adriano Franci), in which, among other things, he opposed Trissino’s orthography; and Il Cesano (written shortly afterward but published in 1555), in which, with the spirit of a distant precursor of Manzoni, he “attached great weight to the living usage of educated people.”