JOANNI BATTISTA, was born of a patrician family of Florence in 1511. He wrote a history of his own times in Italian, which is a continuation of Guicciardini, beginning at the year 1536; to which Thuanus acknowledges himself greatly indebted: besides which, he composed six funeral orations on the emperor Charles V. and other noble personages; and is thought to have been the author of a long letter on ancient painters and sculptors, prefixed to the third volume of Vasari. He died at Florence in 1579.