Arsilli, Francis

, a celebrated poet and physician, flourished in the beginning of the sixteenth century, under the pontificates of Leo X. and Clement VII. He was a native of Sinigaglia, and after having studied at Padua, practised medicine at Rome but, according to the eloge of his friend Paul Jovius, seldom passed a day without producing some poetical composition. He either possessed, or affected that independence of mind which does not | accord with the pliant manners of a court; and avoided the patronage of the great, while he complains of their neglect. He died in the 66th year of his age, at Sinigaglia, 1540. He wrote a poem in Latin verse, “De poetis Urbanis,” addressed to Paul Jovius; in which he celebrates the names, and characterises the works, of a great number of Latin poets resident at Rome in the time of Leo X. It was first printed in the Coryciana, Rome, 1524, 4to and reprinted by Tiraboschi, who obtained a more complete copy in the hand-writing of the author, with the addition of many other names. It has also been reprinted by Mr. Roscoe, in his life of Leo, who is of opinion that his complaint of the neglect of poets in the time of that pontiff was unjust. ¹