Italian astronomer and philosopher (died 1579)

Alessandro Piccolomini

Alessandro Piccolomini was an Italian humanist, astronomer and philosopher from Siena, who promoted the popularization in the vernacular of Latin and Greek scientific and philosophical treatises. His early works include Il Dialogo della bella creanza delle donne, o Raffaella (1539) and the comedies Amor costante, and Alessandro, which were sponsored and produced by the Sienese Accademia degli Intronati, of which he was a member and an official. Much of his literary production consisted of translations from the Classics, of which Book XIII of Ovid's Metamorphoses and book VI of the Aeneid are early examples. In 1540, while a student at the University of Padua, he helped found the Infiammati Academy, in which he gave lectures in philosophy.