Giglio Gregorio Giraldi (Lilius Gregorius Gyraldus or Giraldus) (14 June 1479 – February 1552) was an Italian

classical scholar Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...

and

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

Biography

Giglio Gregorio Giraldi was born at

Ferrara Ferrara (; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, capital of the province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main ...

, where he early distinguished himself by his talents and acquirements. On the completion of his literary course, he removed to

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

, where he lived on familiar terms with Jovianus Pontanus and

Sannazaro Jacopo Sannazaro (; 28 July 1458 – 6 August 1530) was an Italian poet, humanist, member and head of the Accademia Pontaniana from Naples. He wrote easily in Latin, in Italian and in Neapolitan, but is best remembered for his humanist classic ...

; and subsequently to

Lombardy The Lombardy Region (; ) is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in northern Italy and has a population of about 10 million people, constituting more than one-sixth of Italy's population. Lombardy is ...

, where he enjoyed the favour of the Mirandola family. At

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

in 1507 he studied

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

under Chalcondylas; and shortly afterwards, at

Modena Modena (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena, in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It has 184,739 inhabitants as of 2025. A town, and seat of an archbis ...

, he became tutor to Ercole (afterwards Cardinal) Rangone. About the year 1514, he removed to

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, where, under

Clement VII Pope Clement VII (; ; born Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici; 26 May 1478 – 25 September 1534) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 November 1523 to his death on 25 September 1534. Deemed "the most unfortunate of ...

, he held the office of apostolic

protonotary A prothonotary is the "principal clerk of a court," from L.L. ''prothonotarius'' ( c. 400), from Greek ''protonotarios'' "first scribe," originally the chief of the college of recorders of the court of the Byzantine Empire, from Greek ' ''protos ...

; but having in the sack of that city (1527), which almost coincided with the death of his patron Cardinal Rangone, lost all his property, he returned in poverty once more to Mirandola, whence again he was driven by the troubles consequent on the assassination of the reigning prince in 1533. The rest of his life was one long struggle with ill-health, poverty and neglect; and he is alluded to with sorrowful regret by

Montaigne Michel Eyquem, Seigneur de Montaigne ( ; ; ; 28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592), commonly known as Michel de Montaigne, was one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance. He is known for popularising the essay as ...

in one of his ''Essais'' (i.35), as having, like

Sebastian Castalio Sebastian Castellio (also Sébastien Châteillon, Châtaillon, Castellión, and Castello; 1515 – 29 December 1563) was a French preacher and theologian; and one of the first Reformed Christian proponents of religious toleration, freedom of c ...

, ended his days in utter destitution. He died at

in February 1552, and his

epitaph An epitaph (; ) is a short text honoring a deceased person. Strictly speaking, it refers to text that is inscribed on a tombstone or plaque, but it may also be used in a figurative sense. Some epitaphs are specified by the person themselves be ...

makes touching and graceful allusion to the sadness of his end. Giraldi was a man of very extensive erudition, and numerous testimonies to his profundity and accuracy have been given both by contemporary and by later scholars. His ''Historia de deis gentium'' (1548) marked a distinctly forward step in the systematic study of classical mythology; and by his treatises ''De annis et mensibus'', and on the ''Calendarium Romanum et Graecum'', he contributed to bring about the reform of the calendar, which was ultimately effected by

Pope Gregory XIII Pope Gregory XIII (, , born Ugo Boncompagni; 7 January 1502 – 10 April 1585) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 13 May 1572 to his death in April 1585. He is best known for commissioning and being the namesake ...

. His ''Progymnasma adversus literas et literatos'' deserves mention at least among the curiosities of literature, and among his other works to which reference is still occasionally made are ''Historiae poëtarum Graecorum ac Latinorum''; ''De poëtis suorum temporum''; and ''De sepultura ac vario sepeliendi ritu''. Giraldi was also an elegant Latin poet. His ''Opera omnia'' was published at Leiden in 1696.

Works

* **

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Giraldi, Giglio Gregorio 1479 births 1552 deaths Italian poets Italian male poets Writers from Ferrara Italian Renaissance humanists