GIRALDI, GIGLIO GREGORIO (LILIUS GREGORIUS GYRALDUS) (1479-1552), Italian scholar and poet was born at Ferrara. Later 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. At Milan in 1507 he studied Greek under Chalcondylas; and shortly afterwards, at Modena, he became tutor to Ercole (afterwards Cardinal) Rangone. About the year 1514 he removed to Rome where, under Clement VII., he held the office of apostolic protonotary; but after the sack of Rome (1527) he returned in poverty once more to Mirandola, whence he was driven by the troubles that followed the assassination of the reign ing prince in 1533. The rest of his life was one long struggle with ill-health, poverty and neglect. He died at Ferrara, and his epi taph makes touching and graceful allusion to the sadness of his end. Giraldi was a man of great learning; his Historia de diis gentium marked an advance in the study of classical mythology ; and his treatises, De annis et mensibus and on the Calendarium Romanurn et Graecum, helped to bring about the reform of the calendar. Among his other works are Progymnasma adversus literas et literatos; Historiae poetarum Graecorum ac Latinorum; De poetis suorum temporum; and De sepulture ac vario sepeliendi rite. Giraldi was also an elegant Latin poet.
His Opera omnia were published at Leyden in 1696.