14 Facts About Virgilio Malvezzi

Virgilio Malvezzi's work was hugely influential and was praised by Francisco de Quevedo and Baltasar Gracian among others.

Virgilio Malvezzi's father, Piriteo Malvezzi, was a senator and his mother an Orsini of Rome.

In Siena Virgilio Malvezzi met Fabio Chigi, the future Pope Alexander VII, which resulted in a lifelong friendship.

Virgilio Malvezzi fought in the Spanish Army in Flanders and under the command of the Governor of Milan Gomez Suarez de Figueroa in Piedmont.

In 1635 Virgilio Malvezzi published Il ritratto del privato politico christiano, a biography of the Count-Duke of Olivares, valido or chief minister of King Philip IV of Spain.

Virgilio Malvezzi became a member of both the Council of State and the Council of War.

In 1645, about the time of Olivares's death, Virgilio Malvezzi left Spain and returned to Italy, taking up residence in his native Bologna.

Virgilio Malvezzi was admitted to the Accademia dei Gelati in Bologna under the name "Esposto", and he held the position of "Prince" of the Academy for two years.

Virgilio Malvezzi used a sententious style, reminiscent of Tacitus and Seneca, which found many admirers even among the Spanish conceptists.

Virgilio Malvezzi's style has been lavishly praised in Gracian's Agudeza y arte de ingenio.

Virgilio Malvezzi's political thought was in the tradition of Machiavelli.

Virgilio Malvezzi composed a series of political biographies of famous princes from Roman and Jewish history probably reminiscent of Xenophon's Cyropaedia where it is easy to recognise Machiavelli's lasting influence: Romulo, Tarquinio il Superbo, and Davide perseguitato.

Two of Virgilio Malvezzi's letters were translated and published in 1651 as Stoa triumphans by Thomas Powell, a close friend of the poet Henry Vaughan.

Virgilio Malvezzi wrote in Italian and Spanish, and was early translated into Latin, Spanish, German and English, with a Dutch edition of 1679.