Francesco Maria Santinelli

Francesco Maria Santinelli
Francesco Maria Santinelli
Born(1627-04-20)20 April 1627
Died22 November 1697(1697-11-22) (aged 70)
Occupations
  • Poet
  • Librettist
  • Alchemist
Spouse
Anna Maria Aldobrandini
(m. 1658)
Children2
Parent(s)Alessandro Santinelli and Margherita Santinelli (née Santacroce)
Writing career
Pen nameFra’ Marcantonio Crassellame Chinese
Language
Literary movement
Notable worksLux obnubilata suapte natura refulgens

Francesco Maria Santinelli (1627-1697) was an Italian marquis, count, Marinist poet, librettist and alchemist. In Senigallia, Christina, Queen of Sweden was welcomed in verse by the handsome Santinelli and his brother, Ludovico, an acrobat and dancer.[1] Both seem to have been accomplished scoundrels.[2] A year later Ludovico was witness and participant at the murder of Gian Rinaldo Monaldeschi at Fontainebleau. (Francesco Maria was on business in Rome during this infamous event.) After the scandal, she promised Pierre Chanut that Ludivico and his two helpers would have to leave her court.[3]

Santinelli was an ardent Hermetic poet, and, as Anna Maria Partini has shown, he is also one of the first known Italian poets to allude to the Rosicrucians in poetic verse.[4]

  1. ^ Rome and the Counter-Reformation in Scandinavia: The age of Gustavus ... By Oskar Garstein [1]
  2. ^ Quilliet, B. (1987) Christina van Zweden : een uitzonderlijke vorst, p. 226-227.
  3. ^ "Christina of Sweden, the Porta Magica and the Italian poets of the Golden and Rosy Cross".
  4. ^ See "Carlo V" canto V:89, "De la mia Rosea Croce aurea fortuna" in Anna Maria Partini, ed. (1985). Francesco Maria Santinelli: Sonetti Alchimici e altri scriti inediti. Rome: Mediterranee.

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