ALEARDI, ALEARDO, COUNT (1812-1878), Italian poet, was born at Verona on Nov. 4, 1812, and thus soon after his birth became an Austrian subject. Inspired from his cradle with a hatred of the foreigner, he found himself unable to publish his patriotic verses. But the revolutionary year 1848 made an open ing for his Lettere a Maria. He took an active part in the popular uprising, and was for some time imprisoned. In 1856 he produced the finest of his pieces, an ode to the maritime cities of Italy, and in 1858 a poem on his own misfortunes. After the expulsion of the Austrians from Lombardy he returned to Verona, published his poems in a collected edition (1862), became professor at the Academy of Fine Art, member of the Italian parliament and eventually senator. Aleardi's warmth of patriotic feeling hardly finds adequate expression in his poetry ; it is his merit to excel in description, but his fault to substitute description for action.