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Francesco D'Ambra was born in Florence on July 29, 1499 to Giovanni and Costanza da Filicaia. His family was noble, and many of its members held public office. Little is known about D'Ambra's youth. After registering in the Arte del Cambio, he was able to participate in political life and hold public office. In 1527 he was declared eligible for the Great Council. In the meantime, he had married Ginevra di Niccolò Biffoli, with whom he had a son Vincenzo in 1538. He registered in the Arte della Seta di Por Santa Maria on February 6, 1555.D'Ambra was a friend of Cattani di Diacceto, a Platonic philosopher and follower of Marsilio Ficino. Around 1540 he was among the founders of the Accademia degli Umidi, later Accademia Fiorentina, which held symposia on and readings of the major Tuscan poets. D'Ambra specialized in Petrarch's sonnets. In 1543 he was elected advisor to the Accademia's consul.On November 8, 1544, his first comedy, ""Il Furto"" (The Theft), was premiered at the Accademia Fiorentina's Sala del Papa. A few days later, Duke Cosimo de' Medici, informed of its success, expressed the desire to attend a new performance of it. The first edition of ""Il Furto"" appeared posthumously in Florence in 1560, with a preface by Frosino Lapini. His success as a playwright favored D'Ambra's rise to the highest positions in the Accademia: counselor, censor, member of the Balia, consul.He dedicated his second comedy, ""I Bernardi,"" written between the end of 1547 and the beginning of 1548, to Duke Cosimo. While ""Il Furto"" is in prose, ""I Bernardi"" is written in verse. On June 14, 1548, D'Ambra was named a member of the Collegio. On November 22, 1551, the Accademia elected him a ""riformatore della lingua toscana"" as part of a five-member commission.The annals of the Accademia stop at 1552, and the last years of D'Ambra's life can only be reconstructed through conjecture. He died in Rome in 1558, but it is not known when he moved there or for what reason.A third play, ""La Cofartaria,"" was written between 1550 and 1555 but premiered only on December 25, 1565 for the wedding of Francesco de' Medici with Giovanna of Austria. D'Ambra also wrote a ""Storia dei suoi tempi,"" which has not survived, and began a translation of the ""Storie of Sabellico."" Both works were interrupted by his death.D'Ambra, like many playwrights of the sixteenth century insisted on the ""novità "" of his comedies. In the prologue of ""I Bernardi"" he stated that his works were the same as those of Terence or other Latin authors, ""but are what our times produce, which are not similar to those of ancient times."" The ""new"" comedy did not mean abandoning ancient modes and themes, however, but placing them into contemporary contexts, such as the Sack of Rome in ""Il Furto"" or the continuous reference to women kidnapped by the Turks throughout his work.While D'Ambra's comedies follow the forms of his Latin sources - astute servants who amuse themselves at the expense of old men in love with young women, sycophants, etc. - there are also characters drawn from the reality of his own times, such as the necromancer or the doctor.- Source: Vera Lettere, ""Dizionario Bioografico degli Italiani"" 32 (1986). Vanni Bramanti (Dottore in Lettere, University of Florence, and Professor Emeritus of Italian Literature at the universities of Florence and Padua) is the author of the canonical scholarly treatments of the life and work of Ugolino Martelli, the editor of many scholarly editions of period literary texts, and the author of numerous studies of the literature of the time. He is the recipient of the Festschrift, Varchi e altro Rinascimento: Studi offerti a Vanni Bramanti, edited by Salvatore Lo Re and Franco Tomasi (Manziana: Vecchiarelli, 2013). Linda L. Carroll (Ph.D. Harvard University) is Professor Emerita of Italian at Tulane University. A specialist in Italian Renaissance linguistic usage and texts, she is the translator of a range of period literary works and the author of numerous studies on Italian Renaissance theatre. Her works include Thomas Jefferson's Italian and Italian-Related Books in the History of Universal Personal Rights: An Overview (New York: Bordighera Press, 2019) and Commerce, Peace and the Arts in Renaissance Venice: Ruzante and the Empire at Center Stage (London: Routledge, 2016). She is the editor and translator of Angelo Beolco (Il Ruzante), La prima oratione (London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2009) and the co-editor of Sexualities, Textualities, Art and Music in Early Modern Italy: Playing with Boundaries (London: Routledge, 2014); Antonio Molino (Il Burchiella), I dilettevoli madrigali a quattro voci (Rome: Istituto Italiano per la Storia della Musica, 2014); and Michele Pesenti, Complete Works (Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, 2019).
