ALAMANNI, LUIGI (1495-1556).
An Italian poet. He was born in Florence, and, like Dante. was destined to spend his best years in exile. The Alamarmi were zealous partisans of the Medici, whose favor Luigi himself enjoyed until some fancied grievance led him to conspire against the life of the cardinal Giulio de' :Medici. later Pope Clement Vii. Being detected, he fled, and eventually took refuge at the French court, where he stood high in favor with Francis I. and afterward with Henry II., both of whom as signed him to important embassies. Except for a brief interval, when Florence threw off the yoke of the Medici and he returned home to urge. un successfully, that the republic should seek the protection of the Emperor, Charles V.. Alantanni spent the remainder of his life in France. and there most of his poems were written. His col lected works include translations, epigrams. plays. La coltirazione, a didactic poem in imita tion of Vergirs Georgics; Opere toseanc. vigor ous satires which have been imitated in English by Sir Thomas Wyatt; and two long poems based upon the Arthurian romances: Girone it Cortese, in twenty-four cantos, and the Ararchidc, in twenty-five, the latter being in structure the story of the Iliad, freely adapted to fit the siege of Asarco (the modern Bruges), and chiefly in teresting as marking the transition from the complicated adventures of Ariosto's c)rlando Furioso to the classic unity of Tasso. Alanianni's
Tarsi c prose, edited with a biography, by P. RallneIli, was issued in two volumes (Florence, 1859).
ALAMEDA. 1V15-mit'dit. A beautiful residen tial city in Alameda Co., California. It is six miles across the bay from San Francisco, with which it is connected by ferry lines, and is on the Southern Pacific Railroad (Map: California. B 3). The executive power of the city is vested in the president of a hoard of trustees. consist ing of five members. The electric light plant is owned and operated by the municipality. In 185•, with a population of 100, Alameda was incorporated. Its growth has been rapid since 1870. Pop.. 1890. 11,165: 1900, 16,464.