Draft:Giovanni Battista Baldelli Boni

Giovanni Battista Baldelli Boni (Cortona, 2 July 1766 – Siena, 25 February 1831) was an Italian soldier and writer.

Life
Son of Cortona patricians Girolamo Baldelli and Elisabetta Boni, he was born in Cortona on 2 July 1766. He attended the Scuole pie (Pious Schools) of Florence and in 1782, entered the Sacred Military Order of Saint Stephen, which led him to move to Pisa, where he continued his studies.

In 1785 he enlisted in the Régiment Royal-Italien of the French army, where he was initially stationed in Embrun and Mont-Dauphin, at the foot of the Alps. On 22 April 1789 he married the Marquise Thérèse-Julie d'Ollieres de Luminy, who died shortly after giving birth to their daughter Adelaide (b. 24 November 1790), who would later marry the scientist Vincenzo di Niccolò Antinori in 1813.

Coinciding with the marriage, he obtained a transfer to the Royal Allemand cavalry regiment in Paris. There he witnessed the first events of the Revolution as a member of the royalist faction, such as the storming of the Bastille and the Flight to Varennes. At the beginning of 1792 he undertook a journey between northern Italy, Switzerland and Germany.

After the events of Varennes, his regiment was renamed 15e Régiment de cavalerie ("Fifteenth Cavalry") and relocated to Lunéville, in Lorraine, but in May 1792 it abandoned French territory and moved to Trier, in compliance with the orders of the Count of Provence, who was regent following the imprisonment of Louis XVI. The march from Lunéville to Trier was described by Baldelli Boni as one of the hardest experiences of his military career. He later participated in the siege of Thionville (August-October 1792), during which he escaped the explosion of a bomb.

After the defeat at Valmy, the regiment was disbanded and Baldelli Boni took refuge in Zurich.

Having abandoned his military career, he returned to Tuscany and decided to settle in Florence, where he dedicated himself to literary studies (1793). He was welcomed into the Accademia Fiorentina (Florentine Academy), which entrusted him with the task of composing a eulogy to Niccolò Machiavelli, read publicly on 7 August 1794. In 1797 he published a monograph on Petrarch (On Petrarch and his works).

On the occasion of the uprising against France who had occupied Tuscany in April 1799, Baldelli Boni made no commitments. He agreed to take up arms again only at the beginning of 1800, at the request of General Sommariva, who commanded the Austrian armies. He initially played the role of instructor of the armed bands of Florentine Romagna, and subsequently accepted the command of the resistance fighters of the Valdichiana. After Marengo the Austrian forces retreated to the area of Arezzo, leaving the French to easily conquer both Florence and Livorno. After escaping an attack in Arezzo, Baldelli Boni advised the resistance to surrender, but was not listened to, and followed Sommariva's army to Ancona while the Tuscan city was brutally conquered by the French. At the time of the surrender of the Grand Duke (Treaty of Lunéville, 9 February 1801), Baldelli Boni was released from all commitments, and definitively renounced arms.

Before returning to Tuscany (1804) he travelled extensively: he was in Austria, Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, Saxony, Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, England, Scotland and Ireland. On 29 May 1804 the Queen of Etruria Maria Luisa granted Baldelli Boni and his sons the title of count. In October 1804 he married Lucrezia Cicciaporci (†1850), daughter of Lucantonio Cicciaporci and Elizabeth Stewart (Stuart), with whom he had nine children. To finance the expenses of the wedding he was forced to sell part of his book collection to the Marquis Gian Giacomo Trivulzio.

In 1806 he published a biography of Giovanni Boccaccio. In 1808, at the time of the reconstitution of the association, he was welcomed into the Florentine Academy, while in 1811 he was among the twelve resident members of the renewed Accademia della Crusca, of which he was later treasurer (1815) and archconsul, or president (1817).

In 1817 he went to Dresden to negotiate the marriage of the Crown Prince of Tuscany (the future Grand Duke Leopold II) with Princess Maria Anna Carolina of Saxony. Having succeeded in his undertaking, he was rewarded with the Grand Cross of Merit of Saxony.

In 1819 he published the Saggio di storia fiorentina nei secoli XII e XIII (Essay on Florentine history in the 12th and 13th centuries) and in 1825 the collection of essays Saggio sulle antichità primitive (Essay on primitive antiquities). His most significant work, at least by extension, is certainly Viaggi di Marco Polo illustrati e commentati (Travels of Marco Polo illustrated and commented, 1827), containing a Storia delle relazioni vicendevoli dell'Europa e dell'Asia dalla decadenza di Roma fino alla distruzione del Califfato (History of the mutual relations of Europe and Asia from the decline of Rome to the destruction of the Caliphate) in sixteen books and two volumes.

Engaged in politics since his first return to Tuscany, he was appointed Director of the Royal Buildings (i.e. the Minister for Public Works) by the Grand Duke, a position also confirmed during the Kingdom of Etruria, and later Superintendent of the Company of Deposits and Loans from the city of Florence and Director of the Royal Household. With the annexation of Tuscany to the French Empire, he obtained the positions of President of the Royal Palaces and Gardens. Esteemed by Elisa Bonaparte, who had the honorary title of Grand Duchess of Tuscany and de facto governed the Tuscan departments of the Empire, he obtained the honor of baron of the Empire in 1809, while his wife was named Lady of Honor of the Grand Duchess.

Upon the return of Ferdinand III (1814) he was appointed General Superintendent of the Office of Audits and Trade Unions, a position he held until the beginning of 1829. In April of that year the Baldelli Boni family moved to Siena, where Giovanni Battista had received the office of Governor of the City and State. In February of 1831, he slipped on the icy steps of the Cathedral, with the resulting fall injuring him mortally. He died after three days of agony on February 25th, 1831. He was buried in the Basilica of Santo Spirito in Florence where the noble chapel of the Baldelli Boni family was located.

Writings by Giovanni Battista Baldelli Boni

 * Elogio di Niccolò Machiavelli, Londra [Firenze], 1794.
 * Del Petrarca e delle sue opere libri quattro, Firenze, Cambiagi, 1797 [II edizione accresciuta e corretta Fiesole, Poligrafia Fiesolana, 1837].
 * Vita di Giovanni Boccacci, Firenze, Carli, Ciardetti & Co., 1806.
 * Lettere prima, seconda e terza al sig. M..... A....., in «L'Ape», III, 8 (30 marzo 1806), pp. 337–356.
 * Trattato degli Alberi della Toscana di Gaetano Savi Professore di Botanica nell'Imperiale Accademia di Pisa. Firenze presso il Piatti 1811. Tomi 2 in 12, in «Collezione d'opuscoli scientifici e letterarj ed estratti d'opere interessanti, vol. XIV, Firenze, 1812, pp. 48-55.
 * Al Signore Abate Carlo Denina Bibliotecario di S.M. l'Imperatore e Re, Cavalier dell'Impero, uno de' Comandanti della Legion d'Onore, in «Collezione d'opuscoli scientifici e letterarj ed estratti d'opere interessanti», vol. XVI, Firenze, 1812, pp. 84–99.
 * Saggio di Storia Fiorentina dei secoli duodecimo e decimoterzo libri tre, Firenze, Piatti, 1818.
 * Saggio sulle antichità primitive, Fiesole, Poligrafia Fiesolana, 1825.
 * Il Milione di Marco Polo. Testo di lingua del secolo decimoterzo ora per la prima volta pubblicato ed illustrato, Firenze, Pagani, 1827.

On Giovanni Battista Baldelli Boni

 * Baldelli Boni, Giuseppe, Mio padre. Ricordi ai suoi figli, Cortona, Bimbi, 1881.
 * Carranza, Nicola, Baldelli Boni, Giovanni Battista, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. XXIX, Roma, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1963.
 * Campana, Andrea, Baldelli Boni, Giovanni Battista, in Enciclopedia Machiavelliana, Roma, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2014.
 * Pedretti, Paolo, La vendita della biblioteca di Giovanni Battista Baldelli Boni a Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, in «Libri & Documenti» XXXIX (2013) [2014], pp. 151–178.