Gabriello Chiabrera

Jesuit College, where he remained till his 20th year, studying philosophy, as he says, "rather for occupation than for learning's sake".^[1]

cardinal, where he remained for several years, frequenting the society of Paulus Manutius and of Sperone Speroni, the dramatist and critic of Tasso, and attending the lectures and hearing the conversation of Muretus. His revenge of an insult offered him obliged him to betake himself once more to Savona, where, to amuse himself, he read poetry, and particularly Greek.^[1]

Anacreon. These he studied until it became his ambition to reproduce in his own tongue their rhythms and structures and to enrich his country with a new form of verse, and "like his country-man, Columbus, to find a new world or drown." His reputation was made at once; but he seldom quit Savona, though often invited to do so, saving for journeys of pleasure, in which he greatly delighted, and for occasional visits to the courts of princes where he was often summoned for his verse's sake and in his capacity as a dramatist. At the age of 50 he took a wife, Lelia Pavese, by whom he had no children. After a simple, blameless life, in which he produced a vast quantity of verse — epic, tragic, pastoral, lyrical and satirical — he died in Savona on 14 October 1638. An elegant Latin epitaph was written for him by Pope Urban VIII,^[3] but his tombstone bears two quaint Italian hexameters of his own, warning the gazer from the poet's example not to prefer Parnassus to Calvary.^[1]

masculine rhymes and blank verse, and quiet Christianity: all this may deserve more study than is likely to be spent on that "new world" of art which it was his glory to fancy his own, by discovery and by conquest.^[1]