Baretti

Baretti, GIUSEPPE MARC ANTONIO, an Italian writer, born at Turin in 1719, was destined for the priesthood, but devoted himself to literature. In 1751 he established himself as a teacher of Italian in London, where in 1757 he published the Italian Library, giving an account of the most eminent Italian authors and their works. He afterwards spent the six years 1760-66 on the Continent, where he published a readable book of travels, and in Venice, under the name 'Aristarco Scannabue,' started the Frusta Letteraria, the 'literary sconge,' which was suppressed after the twenty-fifth number. In 1769 he stabbed a Haymarket bully in self-defence, and was tried for murder, but was acquitted—Dr Johnson, Burke, and Garrick testifying to the excellence of his character. He died in London, 5th May 1789. His thirty-six works included an Italian and English Dictionary (1760), which is still popular.—See Birkbeck Hill's edition of Boswell's Johnson (1887); and an article in the Dictionary of National Biography (1885).