Alunno, Francis

, an Italian scholar and mathematician, was a native of Ferrara, and lived in the fifteenth century. The three works on which his fame rests are, 1. “Observations on Petrarch,” which are inserted in the edition of that poet, Venice, 1539, 8vo. 2. “Le Richesse della Lingua Volgare,” Venice, 1545, fol. in which he has collected, alphabetically, the most elegant words and phrases used by Boccaccio. 3. “Della Fabbrica del Mondo,” Venice, 1526, 1556, 1557, 1558, 1562, consisting of ten books, in which are enumerated all the words used by the earliest Italian writers, but with no very happy arrangement. Alunno was likewise distinguished for a talent perhaps more curious than useful, that of being able to write an exceeding small hand. We are told, that when at Bologna he presented Charles V. with the belief and the first chapter of the gospel of St. John, in the size of a denier, or farthing; and Aretine adds, that the emperor employed a whole day in decyphering this wonderful manuscript. ²