Ferrante, an Italian litterateur, who owes his celebrity as much to his misfortunes as to his genius, was descended from a noble family, and was born at Pisacena about 1618. He received an excellent education, and gave early proof of very great abilities. In compliance with the desire of his parents, he entered the church, took the habit at the monastery of the Augustine friars at Milan, and joined the house of his order at Venice. For a time he bore a high character for piety and learning, but a love intrigue with a fair Venetian led to his deserting the monastery, and was the beginning of a course of debauchery and general misfortune which ended only with his life. Need drove him to authorship; and among other minor efforts, he wrote a collection of satirical letters, called The Courier Robbed of his Mail. It was bitter against the Spaniards, whom the author disliked, but the Inquisitors licensed its publication. The secretary of the republic, however, declined giving it his imprimatur, which caused Pallavicino to vow vengeance upon that functionary. On returning from a residence in Germany, where he at once acted as chaplain to the Duke of Amalfi, and played the libertine, he resolved to wreak his anger upon all who had endeavoured to prohibit his manuscripts. He re-cast and enlarged his Courier, and got a bookseller to pass it secretly through the press. When on the eve of completion, however, a pretended friend, who played the spy, disclosed the matter to the Pope's nuncio, and the unfortunate author was thrown into prison. Having obtained his liberty, mainly by the aid of one of his mistresses, he wrote a piece called La Buccinata overo Butarella per le api Barberini, consisting of a bitter satire on his enemies the Barberini, with a dedication, expressive of the most exquisite contempt, to the Nuncio Vitelli. The ecclesiastic adopted the foulest means of revenge. He bribed a base Frenchman to decoy the unsuspecting poet into the hands of a gang of scurril. Pallavicino was conveyed to Avignon, and, on pretence of carrying contraband goods, was thrown into prison. A mock trial was got up, at which he made a skilful defence; but it was all to no purpose. He was sentenced to death, and lost his head upon the scaffold on the 5th of March 1644, at the age of twenty-six. In addition to the productions already alluded to, Pallavicino wrote a number of smaller pieces, all characterized by that happy grace and fine genius which his larger works display. His Opere Permesse, edited by Brusoni, with a Life of the author, were published at Venice in 4 vols. 12mo, 1655; but his Opere Scelte, Geneva, 1660, is the edition most prized by the curious.