Giglio Gregorio Giraldi

Giglio Gregorio Giraldi (Lilius Gregorius Gyraldus or Giraldus) (14 June 1479 – February 1552) was an Italian scholar and poet.

On the completion of his literary course, he removed to Naples, where he lived on familiar terms with Jovianus Pontanus and Sannazaro; and subsequently to Lombardy, where he enjoyed the favour of the Mirandola family.

[1] About the year 1514, he removed to Rome, where, under Clement VII, he held the office of apostolic protonotary; but having in the sack of that city (1527), which almost coincided with the death of his patron Cardinal Rangone, lost all his property, he returned in poverty once more to Mirandola, whence again he was driven by the troubles consequent on the assassination of the reigning prince in 1533.

[1] The rest of his life was one long struggle with ill-health, poverty and neglect; and he is alluded to with sorrowful regret by Montaigne in one of his Essais (i.35), as having, like Sebastian Castalio, ended his days in utter destitution.

His Historia de deis gentium (1548) marked a distinctly forward step in the systematic study of classical mythology; and by his treatises De annis et mensibus, and on the Calendarium Romanum et Graecum, he contributed to bring about the reform of the calendar, which was ultimately effected by Pope Gregory XIII.