The twelve founding members were Baccio Baccelli, Bartolomeo Benci, Pier Fabbrini, Paolo de Gei, Antonfrancesco Grazzini, Gismondo Martelli, Niccolò Martelli, Giovanni Mazzuoli, Cynthio d'Amelia Romano, Filippo Salvetti, Michelangelo Vivaldi and Simon della Volta.
[2]: 175 Within a few months of its foundation, on 25 March 1541,[2]: 175 the academy changed its name to Accademia Fiorentina, in accordance with the wishes of Cosimo I de' Medici.
[1]: 226 [4] The principal topic of discussion of the academy was the question of what should constitute the basis for the Italian language, which until about this time was not so called; rather, it was referred to as volgare, roughly "the common tongue".
While the Infiammati supported the suggestions of Pietro Bembo and Giovan Giorgio Trissino that the language of Boccaccio and Petrarch should serve as a model for literary Italian, the Umidi believed it should be based on contemporary Florentine usage and on the language of Dante.
Three of them, Giambattista Gelli (1498–1563), Pierfrancesco Giambullari (1495–1555)[5] and Carlo Lenzoni (1501–1551),[6] wrote treatises in support of this position.