Alessandro Politi

Alessandro Politi (July 10, 1679 – July 23, 1752), was an Italian classical scholar and philologist.

Biography Alessandro Politi was born July 10, 1679, at Florence. After studying under the Jesuits, he entered at the age of fifteen the Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools, and was conspicuous among its members by his rare erudition. He was called upon to teach rhetoric and peripatetic philosophy at Florence in 1700. Barring a period of about three years, during which he was a professor of theology at Genoa (1716–18), he spent the greatest part of his life in his native city, availing himself of the manifold resources he could find there to improve his knowledge of Greek literature, his favorite study. He soon made a name for himself by his careful editions of several little-known Byzantine texts, and in 1733 he was called to the chair of eloquence vacant in the University of Pisa. Accustomed to live among his books aloof from the world, Politi was of an irritable disposition, and sensitive in the extreme to the lightest criticism. He died July 25, 1752.

Works

Politi left many unpublished works. All his orations have been collected (Pisa, 1774).