Conti, Giusto Di

, an Italian poet, of an ancient family, was born about the end of the fourteenth, and died at Rimini about the middle of the fifteenth century. We have few particulars of his life. He appears to have been a lawyer by profession, and being at Bologna in 1409, he fell in love with the beauty whom he has celebrated in his verses. There is a collection of his poems, much esteemed, under the title of “La bella Mano,” Paris, 1595, 12mo, with some pieces of poetry by several of the old poets of Tuscany. This collection had been published for the first time at Venice, in 1492, 4to, and the abbe Salvini gave a new edition of it at Florence in 1715, accompanied with prefaces and annotations; but this is not so complete as either the edition of Paris, or that of Verona, 1753, in 4to. He was a professed imitator of Petrarch, but, although not destitute of merit, is greatly inferior to his model. ²