Italian poet; born at Mezzano, in Parma, on the 27th of June 1742; died at Vienna, on the 20th of June 1821. He was educated by the Jesuits, and when still very young was appointed to deliver lectures on rhetoric in the Royal Convent at Parma. Here he produced his first work, Giornata Villereccia (1773). For having celebrated in verse the abolition of the Jesuit order he was compelled to fly to the Tyrol. He found a patron in the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand, who appointed him his librarian at Brünn. Later he lived at Vienna. His poems are lyrical, descriptive, satirical, and elegiac, written in pure style and graceful verse. See also “A Husband’s Homily.”
