TRAJAN**, born at Loretto A.D. 1556, a celebrated satirical writer who obtained the admiration of all Italy by his refined and delicate criticisms. His profession was architecture; and it appears that he commenced rather late in life to supply the deficiencies of a neglected education. Pursuing his studies at Rome, he there acquired the friendship of several distinguished persons, and through their influence was appointed governor of a small town in the Papal States; from which, however, he was soon recalled for mal-administration. Returning to Rome, he wrote his celebrated *Raggugli di Parnaso*, in which Apollo is represented as holding his court on Parnassus, receiving the complaints of the whole world, and distributing justice according to the exigencies of each particular case. This work, which was a satire on the lives, actions, and writings, of eminent individuals, was published at Venice, whither the author had retired, to escape, it is said, from the hostility of those whom he had abused. Here, on the 16th November 1613, Boccalini died of colic accompanied with fever, according to the register of the parochial church of Sta. Maria Formosa. His Boccalini end has by some writers been related differently. They assert that as he lay in bed some ruffians, employed by the court of Spain, assailed him with small bags filled with sand, and beat him so violently that he died soon after. Mazzucchelli, however, in his *Scrittori d'Italia*, has contradicted this story. The freedom with which Boccalini had attacked the tyrannical government of Spain in his *Pietra del Paragone*, was supposed to be the cause of this outrage; but this work did not appear until two years after his death. That entitled *La Segretaria d'Apolllo*, which was published as a continuation of the *Raggugli di Parnaso*, has generally been attributed to Boccalini; but its authenticity is denied by the best critics. The titles of his works are as follows:—*Raggugli di Parnaso*, in two centuries, Venice, 1612 and 1613, 4to; 2. *Pietra del Paragone Politico*, Cosmopolis (Amsterdam) 1615, 4to; 3. *Commentari sopra Cornelio Tacito*, Geneva, 1669, and Amsterdam, 1677, 4to.