Angelo Fabroni

[1] After studying with tutors and at Faenza, in 1750 he entered the Collegio Bandinelli in Rome, founded for the education of young Tuscans.

[2] Fabroni was asked to deliver the funeral oration in 1766 for James Stuart, the "Old Pretender" to the throne of Great Britain.

He was intimate with Leopold Peter, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who appointed him prior of the Basilica of San Lorenzo, Florence (1767); two years later, Fabroni took leave to pursue promises of preferment at Rome, made by Pope Clement XIV Ganganelli, in which he was disappointed.

He was at work on the biographical dictionary of Italian men of letters for which he is remembered; the first volume was published in 1766, and was met with criticism, for the Jesuits disliked him on account of his Jansenist views.

About 1772, funded by the Grand Duke, he made a journey to Paris, where he formed the acquaintance of Condorcet, Diderot, d'Alembert, Rousseau and most of the other Encyclopédistes—whom he found to be leaders of impiety—and other eminent Frenchmen of the day.