Salvini, Antonio Maria

, a learned Italian, was born at Florence in 1654, where he afterwards became professor, of Greek, which he understood critically. He has the credit of having contributed much to the promotion of good taste in Italy, chiefly by his translations, which comprize the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer; Hesiod Theocritus; Anacreon and many of the minor poets and epigrammatists: the Clouds and Plutus of Aristophanes parts of Horace and Ovid; Persius part of the Book of Job and the Lamentations; Boileau’s“Art Poetique;” Addison’s | “Cato” and “Letters from Italy,” and other pieces. All these are literally translated, which obliged him to introduce into the Tuscan language a multitude of new compound terms. He wrote also “Sonnets and other original Poems,” 4to; “Tuscan prose,” 1715, 2 vols. 4to “A hundred Academical Discourses” “A funeral Oration for Antonio Magliabecchi,” and other works. Jie died in 1729. The Salvinia, in botany, was so named in compliment to him, but of his botanical talents we have no information. Salvini also belonged to the academy of De la Crusca, and was particularly instrumental in the completion of that cer lebrated Dictionary. He had a younger brother, a canon of Florence, who died at an advanced age in 1751. He was also a distinguished man of letters, and published a work, entitled “Fasti cqnsolari delfe' Academia Fiorentina,” and the Lives of Magalotti and Migliorucci. ¹