Asinari, Frederic

, count de Camerano, a nobleman ef Asti in Piedmont, flourished about 1550. In his youth he followed the profession of arms, and was sent by the duke of Savoy, with four hundred men, to assist Maximilian II. when he held a diet to oppose the army of Soliman, an event which is said to have been commemorated by a medal, with the inscription, “Fredericus Asinarius co. Camerani.” Asinari amused his leisure hours with poetry, and submitted his compositions to the celebrated Annibal Caro and they were afterwards published in various collections. 1 “Two Sonnets,” in the second part of the “Scelta di Rime di diversi excellenti Poeti,” by Zabata, 1579, 12mo. 2. “Four Canzoni, and a Sonnet,” in the “Muse Toscane” of Gherard Borgogni, 1594, 8vo. 3. “Eighty-two pieces, sonnets, canzoni, madrigals,” | &c. in Borgogni’s “Rime di diversi illustri Poeti,” Venice, 1599, 12mo. Among his other works, which remain in manuscript, there are, in the library of Turin, “Vari Sonetti e Canzoni” “II Tancredi,” a tragedy “Tre libri delle transformazioni” and “Tre libri dell‘ via d’Orlando.” Copies of these are also in the library of St. Mark at Venice. The tragedy of Tancred was printed at Paris, 1587, 8vo, under the title of “Gismonda,” one of the dramatis persons, and attributed to Torquato Tasso. Next year an edition was printed at Bergamo, 4to, in which this error was corrected, but another substituted by stating, that it was the performance of Ottavio Asinari, the father of our author and the editor, Gherard Borgogni, either was; or affected to be ignorant of the edition previously printed at Paris. ¹