Boccalini was born in Loreto, the son of an architect, he himself adopted that profession, and it appears that he commenced late in life to apply to literary pursuits.

Here, however, he seems to have acted imprudently, and he was soon recalled to Rome, where he shortly afterwards composed his most important work, the Ragguagli di Parnaso (News-sheet from Parnassus), in which Apollo is represented as receiving the complaints of all who present themselves, and distributing justice according to the merits of each particular case.

The book is light and fantastic satire on the actions and writings of his eminent contemporaries, and some of its happier hits are among the hackneyed felicities of literature.

[1] To escape, it is said, from the hostility of those whom his shafts had wounded, he returned to Venice, and there, according to the register in the parochial church of Santa Maria Formosa, died of colic accompanied with fever on 16 November 1613.

At the same time, it is evident from the Pietra del Paragone, which appeared in 1615 after his death, that whatever the Spaniards felt towards him, he cherished against them the bitterest hostility.