{{short description|Italian historian and satirist (1630-1701)}} {{EngvarB|date=July 2017}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2017}} thumb|Portrait of Gregorius Leti published in his "Vita di Don Pietro Giron duca d Ossuna", Volume 2, 1699thumb|Engraving of Gregorio Leti thumb|right|Print from Leti's ''Critique historique, politique, morale, économique, & comique sur les lotteries'' '''Gregorio Leti''' (29 May 1630 – 9 June 1701) was an Italian historian and satirist from Milan, who sometimes published under the pseudonym '''Abbe Gualdi''', '''L'abbé Gualdi''',<ref>Jewett, Charles Coffin. ''On the Construction of Catalogues of Libraries, and their Publication by Means of Separate Stereotyped titles''. {{ISBN|1-4021-7529-9}}. p. 78.</ref> or '''Gualdus'''<ref>{{Cite CE1913|wstitle=Pope Innocent X}}</ref> known for his works about the Catholic Church, especially the papacy. All of his publications were listed on the ''Index Librorum Prohibitorum''.<ref name="ambrosini">Ambrosini, Maria Luisa, and Willis, Mary. 1996. ''The Secret Archives of the Vatican''. Barnes & Noble Publishing. {{ISBN|0-7607-0125-3}}. p. 138.</ref>
==Life== He was born in Milan on 29 May 1630 to Girolamo Leti and Isabella Lampugnano.
Leti's paternal grandfather, Marco, was in the service of Cardinal Ippolito Aldobrandini for two years and was then a judge in Ancona. He married Laura Pizzi and had two children, Agostino Francesco Nicola and Girolamo. Girolamo followed a military career under the Medici. In 1628, he was sent by Ferdinando II de Medici as an infantry Captain to Milan to help the Spaniards. Here Girolamo met and married Isabella, a Milanese noblewoman. From this marriage was born Caterina (who married Cesare Reina, secretary of the Senate of Milan) and a son, Leti.<ref>Bufacchi, Emanuela. 2005. ''Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol 64''.</ref>
In 1632, Leti followed his parents to Amantea, where Girolamo became garrison commander. In 1639, following the death of his father, Leti was sent by his mother to the Jesuit college at Cosenza, where he remained forcibly until 1644, when he accepted the invitation of his uncle Agostino to join him in Rome. In Rome, his uncle tried in vain to encourage Leti to start a career in law or to become a priest. Under this pressure, Leti decided to return to his mother in Milan, where he stayed until her death in 1646.
Orphaned at age 16, he was forced to return to his uncle, now a vicar in Orvieto and to adapt to the severe discipline of his tutor Don Agostino Cauli. He remained in the charge of his uncle until 1654, moving to Naples in 1647, to Milan in 1650 and returning to Rome in 1652, where he made contacts with the Academy of Humorists.
In 1654, his uncle Agostino, having failed to form his nephew in a suitable profession, finally gave Leti charge of his inheritance, leaving him free to travel. In 1655, facing financial trouble, Leti returned to his uncle, who had since become Bishop of Acquapendente in Umbria.<ref>Cirilli, Fiammetta. 2004. ''Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Vol 63''.</ref> Here he proposed marriage to Antonia Ferretti, but was refused and soon after left home permanently.
Although Leti was educated in a Jesuit school, he later became a Protestant.<ref>Israel, Jonathan Irvine. 1991. ''The Anglo-Dutch Moment: Essays on the Glorious Revolution and Its World Impact''. Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|0-521-54406-8}}. p. 32.</ref> He resided in the court of Louis XIV of France and in 1680<ref name="thomas"/> that of Charles II of England, who commissioned him to write a history of England. Leti had access to the library of the Earl of Anglesey, which numbered over 5,000 volumes, as well as that of Bishop Gilbert Burnet.<ref>Mayer, Thomas Frederick. 1999. ''A Reluctant Author: Cardinal Pole and His Manuscripts''. {{ISBN|0-87169-894-3}}. p. 107.</ref> He wrote the first ever proper life of Elizabeth I of England, which includes many romantic embellishments about her youth and her mother, Anne Boleyn. Nevertheless, he may have used documents he found in the English libraries.<ref>Chamberlin, Frederick: ''Elizabeth and Leycester'', Dodd, Mead & Co., 1939, pp. 91, 439–440</ref> Leti was also elected a member of the Royal Society.
After the publication of a collection of anecdotes which offended Charles II, ''Il Teatro Britannico'',<ref name="eclectic"/> Leti fled England in 1683 for Amsterdam, where he became the city historiographer in 1685.<ref name="granger">Granger, James. 1824. ''A Biographical History of England''. W. Baynes and Son. p. 45.</ref><ref name="marshall">Marshall, John. 2006. ''John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture''. Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|0-521-65114-X}}. p. 177.</ref> He died in Amsterdam in 1701.<ref name="eclectic">''Dublin University Magazine''. 1852. "Anecdotes of the Stage." in ''Eclectic Magazine'' edited by Walter Hilliard Bidwell and John Holmes Agnew. Leavitt, Throw and Co. p. 182.</ref>
Leti's biography of Pope Sixtus V has been translated into many languages, and contains an anecdote similar to the infamous "pound of flesh" from William Shakespeare's ''The Merchant of Venice''.<ref>Solomon A. 1998. "Shakespeare and the Jews." ''Renaissance Quarterly''. '''51''', 1.</ref> The ''Catholic Encyclopedia'' calls Leti "mendacious and inexact" and is also critical of works described as derivative of Leti's "anti-papal histories."<ref>{{Cite CE1913|wstitle=Conclave}}</ref> Mosheim, a Lutheran church historian, called Leti "inaccurate and unfaithful."<ref>Mosheim, Johann Lorenz, and Maclainep, Archibald. 1819. ''An Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern, from the Birth of Christ, to the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century''. p. 194.</ref> According to Thomas Trollope, "his inexactitude as an historian is notorious."<ref>Trollope, Thomas Adolphus. 1876. ''The Papal Conclaves, as They Were and as They are''. Chapman and Hall. p. 106.</ref> Even secular writers have characterised his biography of Sixtus V as "resting on very slight authority."<ref>Clark, William George, and Wright, William Aldis. 1874. Introduction to ''The Merchant of Venice''. Clarendon Press. p. xx.</ref> Among his critics, Leti is sometimes referred to as the "Varillas of Italy."<ref name="thomas">Thomas, William John. 1860. ''Notes and Queries''. G. Bell. p. 270.</ref>
Leti was the father-in-law of the scholar and theologian Jean Leclerc.<ref name="marshall"/>
==Works== thumb|Gregorio Leti, ''Teatro Belgico'', Amsterdam, Willem de Jonge, 1690. * 1666. ''Histoire de Donna Olimpia Maldachini''. * 1666. ''Dialoghi Politici, O Vero La Politica che usano in questi tempi, i Prencipi, E Republiche Italiane, Per conservare i loro Stati, E Signorie: Il tutto raccolto, d'alcune conferenze hauute tra un'Ambasciatore d'una Republica, & un Ministro di Stato d'un Prencipe.''<ref>{{Cite book |last=Leti |first=Gregorio |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RWhdAAAAcAAJ |title=DIALOGHI POLITICI, O VERO LA POLITICA che vsano in questi tempi, i PRENCIPI, E REPVBLICHE ITALIANE: Per conseruare i loro STATI, E SIGNORIE. Il tutto raccolto, d'alcune conferenze hauute, trá vn'Ambasciatore d'vna Republica, [et] vn Ministro di Stato d'vn Prencipe. SECONDA PARTE |date=1666 |publisher=Apresso Pietro Choüet |language=it}}</ref> * 1667. ''Il Nipotismo di Roma, o vero relatione delle ragioni che muovono i Pontefici all'aggrandimento de' Nipoti'' ("Papal Nepotism, or the True Relation of the Reasons Which Impel the Popes to make their Nephews Powerful"<ref name="ambrosini"/>). * 1668. ''Il Cardinalissimo di Santa Chiesa''. * 1668 [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/Pre1801.01874 Il Pvttanisno Romano, à Vero, Conclave Generale delle Puttane della Corte] From the Collections at the Library of Congress. * 1671. ''Le visioni politiche sopra gli interessi più reconditi di tutti i principi e repubbliche della Cristianità''. * 1672 ''L'Europa Gelosa'' * 1682. ''La Vita della Regina Elizabetta''. * 1684. ''Il Teatro Britannico''. * 1685. ''L'histoire de la vie du Pape Sixte Cinquième''. * 1685. ''Il ceremoniale historico e politico, opera utilissima a tutti gli Ambasciatori''. * 1686. ''Historia Genevrena''. * 1690. ''Teatro Belgico, o vero Ritratti Historici, Chronologici, Politici, e Geografici'' ([https://books.google.com/books?id=Up0tjt4Ew8sC online]). * 1693. ''Historia overo Vita di Elisabetta, Regina d'Inghilterra''. * 1697. ''Critique historique, politique, morale, économique, & comique sur les lotteries''.
==Further reading== * {{treccani|gregorio-leti|Gregorio Leti|Carlo Morandi|1933}} * Krivatsy, Nati. 1982. ''Bibliography of the Works of Gregorio Leti''. Oak Knoll Books New Castle. 8 vols. * {{cite book|last=Tongiorgi|first=Duccio|title=Oltre la storia nello spirito dei libertini: Gregorio Leti|journal=Storia della Letteratura Italiana|publisher=Salerno|volume=V, La fine del Cinquecento e il Seicento|year=1997|location=Rome|pages=982–984|isbn=978-88-8402-219-6}} * {{DBI |last=Bufacchi |first=Emanuela |title=LETI, Gregorio |volume=64 |url=https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/gregorio-leti_(Dizionario-Biografico)}}
==References== {{reflist}}
== External links== {{Commons}} * {{cite encyclopedia|last=Diffley|first=Paul|year=2002|title=Leti, Gregorio|encyclopedia=The Oxford Companion to Italian Literature|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-818332-7 |access-date=7 July 2023|url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198183327.001.0001/acref-9780198183327-e-1803}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Leti, Gregorio}} Category:1630 births Category:1701 deaths Category:Writers from Milan Category:17th-century Italian historians Category:Italian male non-fiction writers Category:Historians of the Catholic Church Category:Italian Protestants Category:Fellows of the Royal Society Category:Italian satirists Category:17th-century Italian male writers Category:Italian Baroque people