(19 March 1583 – 16 January 1643) was an Italian Olivetan monk and scholar, one of the leading figures in the early Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns.
[2] In 1623 he published his main work, L’hoggidì, overo il mondo non peggiore né più calamitoso del passato, dedicated to Pope Urban VIII.
[2] The book's title refers to a contemporary practice that Lancellotti deplored, that of criticizing the present («oggidì») as inferior to classical antiquity.
Like Paolo Beni and Alessandro Tassoni, he does not dismiss the ancients out of hand, but weighs up the relative merits of ancients and moderns and comes to the conclusion that modern Italian achievements in the humanities and sciences outstrip those of the past, thus signalling the end of the humanistic project that had started in the 14th century.
[2] At Rome he befriended the famous scholar Gabriel Naudé, who persuaded him to accompany him to Paris, where he died in 1643.