or ALEMANNI, LUIGI, an Italian statesman and poet, was born at Florence in 1495. Having taken part in an unsuccessful conspiracy against Giulio de Medici, afterwards Pope Clement VII., he was obliged to take refuge in Venice, and afterwards in France. The Florentines having in the meantime recovered their liberty, Alamanni returned to his country, and took a prominent part in the affairs of the state. On the occurrence of a new revolution... he was again banished, and retired into France. Here he composed the greater part of his works. He was greatly esteemed by Francis I., who, after the peace of Crespi in 1544, sent him as ambassador to Charles V. It is related that in the course of his address before the emperor, having spoken with complimentary emphasis of the imperial eagle, Charles quickly interrupted him with the words,

"Laquila griffana, Che par più devorar, dui rostri porta."

The lines were the ambassador's own, written with satirical allusion to the imperial crest. Alamanni replied that these were the words of a poet, and spoken in the heat of youth, but that now he spoke as an ambassador, uttering the words of truth and soberness. Charles was pleased with this ready reply, and congratulated him on enjoying the patronage of so distinguished a monarch as Francis I. After the death of Francis, Alamanni was still retained in the favour of his successor, Henry II., who in 1551 sent him as his ambassador to Genoa. He died at Amboise in 1556. He wrote a large number of poems distinguished by the purity and elegance of their style: the best of these is his didactic poem, entitled La Coltivazione. He is also the author of notes on the Iliad and Odyssey; those on the Iliad are inserted in the Cambridge edition of 1689, and in Barnes' fine edition of 1711.