Alessandro Piccolomini

His early works include Il Dialogo della bella creanza delle donne, o Raffaella (1539) and the comedies Amor costante, and Alessandro, (other titles are erroneously attributed to him) which were sponsored and produced by the Sienese Accademia degli Intronati, of which he was a member and an official.

In 1540, while a student at the University of Padua, he helped found the Infiammati Academy, in which he gave lectures in philosophy.

His poetry, in which he followed the Petrarchan tradition, appeared first in various contemporary collections, and in 1549 he published as a single volume one hundred sonnets titled Cento sonetti.

The treatises Sfera del mondo e De le stelle fisse (The sphere of the world and The fixed stars) (1540), in which he adhered to Ptolemaic theories, were some of his major contributions to the field of astronomy.

De le stelle fisse contained what is generally regarded as the first printed star atlas, consisting of charts of 47 of the 48 Ptolemaic constellations (Equuleus was missing).