[2] Malatesti was a leading member of the Accademia degli Apatisti, which he joined between 1632 and 1634, assuming the anagrammatic pseudonyms of Alamonio Transetti and Aminta Setaiolo.
In the same period he composed La Tina, a collection of 50 equivocal, rustic sonnets which he dedicated and presented to John Milton on the occasion of his visit to Florence in September 1638.
[1] It consists of a series of toasts in sonnet form delivered by Cyclopes to celebrate the victory of Polyphemus over his rival Acis, whom he crushed beneath a rock for being more acceptable to Galatea.
[2] Some of his works, including the satirical poem La Chimera, and the epic Rinaldo infuriato, were never published, and are preserved among the Manuscripts in the National Central Library of Florence.
[2] Of special interest to English readers is La Tina, a good example of the rustic poetry so much in vogue in Florence since Lorenzo de' Medici wrote the Nencia da Barberino.
Ettore Allodoli, who, like Pietro Fanfani before him, attempted to trace its history, asserts that the sonnets may have been a gift to Milton when he was in Florence in 1638, and that the English poet, being aware of their levity, accepted the manuscript and prudently put it away.
A collection of Enimmi ossieno Indovinelli piacevoli e galanti d'Antonio Malatesti, finora inediti, pubblicati e illustrati da Modesto Rastrelli, preceded by the life of the author, has been published in Florence by A. Benucci (1782).