Lodovico Scapinelli

Lodovico Scapinelli (1585 – 3 January 1634) was an Italian philologist and poet.

Biography
Lodovico Scapinelli was born in Modena in 1585. He was blind from his birth. He obtained his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Bologna on 15 October 1609. He tutored the son of the Duke of Modena to such good effect that his patron sent him to the University of Bologna, where he became professor of rhetoric. He later filled the chair of literature both at Modena and Pisa, until ill-health forced him to retire in 1621. But in the next seven years knowledge of his literary labors spread throughout Italy.

In 1628 he was recalled to Bologna to fill the chair of rhetoric again. Scapinelli was renowned for his scholarship and his lessons attracted numerous students. He lectured on Virgil, Horace, Tacitus and Livy. His academic prolusions on Livy's Ab urbe condita occupy an entire volume of a modern edition, and gained him an international reputation. Scapinelli died suddenly in Modena on 3 January 1634, at the age of forty-eight. By this time his work was known, not only in Italy, but all over Europe. Scapinelli was a close friend of the poet Cesare Rinaldi and a member of the Accademia degli Intrepidi of Ferrara.

Works
The edition of his works published in Parma under the title of Opere del dottore Lodovico Scapinelli, 2 vols. 8vo, contains several Italian and Latin poems, and also some pieces in prose, and fifteen dissertations on Livy. He also wrote Commentaries on the works of Horace, Justin, and Seneca, and translated part of Virgil's Aeneid, but these works have not appeared in print.