Lorenzo Crasso (10 August 1623 in Naples – 27 April 1691) was an Italian author and poet of the Baroque period.
[1] He was a man of wealth, and possessed a notable library in his palace in Vicolo S. Paolo, in which many of Giambattista Marino's manuscripts were kept, which were later dispersed.
He had many friends among the literary men of his time, and one frequently meets with poems addressed to him in their books – Giuseppe Battista belonged to this circle.
His nickname among the Gelati was “Il Costante,” and his impresa was ivy climbing a dead tree trunk with the motto frigore viridior (“frozen strengthens me”).
[3] Crasso’s Istoria de’ Poeti Greci professes to supersede the similar works of Franciscus Patricius and Gerardus Vossius; and, while far from exhaustive, it is in many ways a creditable performance, and contains some information even today not easily found elsewhere.