1719–1789 · Italian literary critic, translator and lexicographer
Giuseppe Marc’Antonio Baretti was born in Turin in 1719 and settled in London in 1751, where he taught Italian, compiled two influential English–Italian dictionaries, and became a fixture of Samuel Johnson’s circle alongside Reynolds, Garrick and Burke. He was a combative critic — his journal La Frusta letteraria was suppressed in Venice, and in 1769 he was tried for murder in London and acquitted on grounds of self-defence, with Johnson and Reynolds testifying to his character. The Italian Library (1757), the book that carries the Galileo anecdote, was his first notable work: a catalogue of Italian authors written to introduce them to English readers.