Aretino, Charles

was of Arezzo in Tuscany, and has been enumerated among the learned men of the fifteenth century. He is praised by Poggius, which Bayle chooses to suspect was done merely because Aretino was | an enemy of Philelphus, whom Poggius hated. Philelphus, on the other hand, represents Aretino in a very unfavourable light. He is allowed, however, to have been a good Greek and Latin scholar, and to have given some translations from the former. He was also a pretty good poet, and wrote prose comedies, of which Albert de Eyb has inserted some fragments in his “Margarita Poetica.” But what Bayle considers as the most evident proof of his talents, is, that on the death of Leonard Aretin, in 1443, he was chosen to succeed him in the office of secretary of the republic of Florence. The year of his death is not known. ¹