Ritratto del poeta, Alessandro Lami

Abstract

Alessandro Lami is the author of a text surely known by those who deal with Lombard art history of the sixteenth century (his Discorso intorno alla scoltura e pittura, published in Cremona, Cristoforo Draconi, 1584, which is actually the praise of the painter Bernardino Campi, excluded by Giorgio Vasari’s Vite). But he is also a poet, the author, in his youth, of a long poem about the most illustrious Cremonese of all times (Sogno non meno piacevole che morale, Cremona, Draconi, 1572) and, in his late age, of a collection of Rime spirituali (Pavia, per gli heredi di Girolamo Bartoli, 1598). His biographical outlines (e.g. dates of birth and death) as well as the main facts of his life, have always been unknown to scholars. To establish some fundamental turning points in his life (thanks both to unpublished archival documentation and to ancient and modern sources) may be useful to better understand his effective role in the career of Bernardino Campi, one of the most important painters in Milan in the mid-16th century.