Abstemius, Laurentius

, an Italian writer, was born at Macerata, in La Marca de Ancona, and devoted himself early to the study of polite literature, in which he made great progress. He taught the belles lettres at Urbino, where he was librarian to duke Guido Ubaldo; to whom he dedicated a small piece entitled “Annotationes varioe,” explaining some dark passages in the ancient authors. 14e published it under the pontificate of Alexander VI. and another treatise also, entitled “Hecatomythium,” Venice, 1499, 4to, from its containing a hundred fables, which he inscribed to Octavian Ubaldini, count de Mercatelli. His fables have been often printed with those of Æsop, Phaedrus, Gabrias, Avienus, &c. He has these ancient mythologists generally in view, but does not always strictly follow their manner; sometimes intermixing his fable with ludicrous stories, and satires on the clergy, which, as usual in such cases, abound in indecent allusions to the Holy Scriptures. Some of his conjectures on particular passages in the ancients are inserted in the first volume of Gruterus’s Thesaurus criticus, under the title of Annotationes variae; but they are few in number. He wrote also a preface to the editio princeps of Aurelius Victor published at Venice, 1505, and a work entitled “Libri duo de quibusdam locis obscuris in libro Ovidii in Ibin, hactenus male interpretatis,” Venice, 4to, without date. The date of his birth and death are not known, but his works appeared at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century. ²