Rolli, Paolo Antonio

Paolo Antonio Rolli, (born June 13, 1687, Rome, Papal States [Italy]—died March 20, 1765, Todi), librettist, poet, and translator who, as Italian master to the English royal household, helped to Italianize 18th-century English taste.

The son of an architect, Rolli studied with the major Italian literary critic of the day, Gian Vincenzo Gravina. In 1715 he went to England as the protégé of the 8th earl of Pembroke (or possibly the 2nd earl of Stair, or both) and became the Italian teacher in the family of the prince of Wales (later George II). He served the royal family for nearly 30 years, and during that time he had considerable influence on English taste, partially as a writer of operatic librettos (for George Frideric Handel, Giovanni Bononcini, Alessandro Scarlatti, and others), partially through his own smooth and charming, classically inspired lyric poetry, and partially through extensive translation of Italian classics. In addition, he translated Paradise Lost into Italian blank verse, and his rendition of Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy was the first Italian translation of William Shakespeare. He returned to Italy in 1744.

Rolli’s Italian poetry is probably his finest personal achievement, consisting of easy and delightful lyrics in many forms—odes, endecasillibi (poems written in lines of 11 syllables), and canzonette (songs) based on the Classical models of Horace, Catullus, and Anacreon but endowed with a musical charm all their own.