Basin

, or Basinio, of Parma, was a celebrated Italian poet of the fifteenth century. He was born at Parma, about 1421, and was educated under Victorin of Feltro at Mantua, and afterwards by Theodore Gaza and Guarino at Ferrara, where he became himself professor. From Ferrara, he went to the court of Sigismond Pandolph Malatesta, lord of Rimini, and there passed the few remaining years of his life, dying at the age of thirty-six, in 1457. He had scarcely finished his studies, whesh he composed a Latin poem, in three books, on the death of Meleager, which exists in manuscript in the libraries of Modena, Florence, and Parma. In this last repository there is also a beautiful copy of a collection of poems printed in France, to which Basinio appears to have been the greatest contributor. This collection was written in honour of the beautiful Isotta degli Atti, who was first mistress and afterwards wife to the lord of Rimini. If we may believe these | poetical testimonies, she had as much genius as beauty; she was also in poetry, another Sappho, and in wisdom and‘ virtue another Penelope. Basinio was one of the three poets, who composed the praises of this lady. The collection was printed at Paris, under the title of “Trium poetarurn elegantissimorum, Porcelii, Basinii, et Trebanii Opuscula nunc primum edita,” Paris, by Christ. Preudhomme, 1549. In this edition, the collection is divided into five books, all in praise of the lady, but the first is entitled “De amore Jovis in Isottam,” and no distinction is preserved as to the contributors. In the copy, however, preserved at Parma, and which was transcribed in 1455, during the life-time of Basinio, almost all the pieces which compose the three books are attributed to him. In the same library is a long poem by him in thirteen books, entitled “Hesperidos;” another, in two books only, on astronomy; a third, also in two books, on the conquest of the Argonauts; a poem under the title of “An epistle on the War of Ascoli, between Sigismond Malatesta, and Francis Sforza,” and other unpublished performances. It is rather surprising, that none of these have been published in a city where there are so many celebrated presses, and which may boast the honour of being the native place of one of the best poets of his time. ¹