{{short description|Italian lawyer and Latin poet}} '''Paolo Cerrati''' (or '''Cerrato''') (1485–1540) was a lawyer and Latin poet, best known for his long poem ''De Verginitate''.<ref name="fenoglio"/>

Born into a noble family of Alba in north-west Italy, he is said to have studied belles lettres under Dominico Rani, celebrated author of the ‘Polyantea’, and to have acquired a high reputation as a lecturer himself.<ref name="review">William Shakespeare Kenrick and others, [https://books.google.com/books?id=RM0RAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA439 ''The London Review of English and Foreign Literature''], XI (London: 1780), p. 439.</ref> In 1508 he produced a long epithalamium for the marriage of William IX, Marquis of Montferrat and Anne d’Alençon.<ref>Hugh James Rose, [https://books.google.com/books?id=aWEMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA171 ''A New general biographical dictionary''], 12 vols (London: Fellowes, 1840–1848), VI, ed. by Thomas Wright (1848), p.171.</ref> Having graduated in civil and canon law in 1511 he became a lawyer in his home town, where he also devoted his energies to the city's administration and that of its hospital.<ref name="fenoglio">[http://www.centrostudibeppefenoglio.it/Personaggi/personaggi_scheda.php?ID=22 ‘Paolo Cerrato’], Associazione Centro Studi di Letteratura Storia Arte e Cultura Beppe Fenoglio.</ref> ''De Verginitate'', seen as the most important of his many writings in the Latin language, was published in three volumes in 1524 in Paris.<ref name="fenoglio"/> When this, and others of his works, were published by Giuseppe Vernazza in 1778, they were described by ''The London Review of English and Foreign Literature'' as being ‘of the heroic, epigrammatic, and erotic kind, written with great elegance and purity’.<ref name="fenoglio"/><ref name="review"/><ref>George Crabb, [https://archive.org/details/universalhistori10crab ''Universal historical dictionary''], enlarged edn, 2 vols (London: Baldwin and Cradock, and J. Dowding, 1833), I, s.v.</ref>

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cerrati, Paolo}} Category:16th-century Italian writers Category:16th-century Italian male writers Category:Italian poets Category:Italian male poets Category:16th-century Italian lawyers Category:1485 births Category:1540 deaths Category:16th-century writers in Latin Category:Neo-Latin poets Category:Writers from the Savoyard state