Collezionare biografie tra Milano e l’Europa. Girolamo Ghilini, la Biblioteca Ambrosiana e il Teatro d’huomini letterati | Collecting Biographies in Milan and Across Europe. Girolamo Ghilini, the Ambrosiana Library and the Teatro d’huomini letterati

This paper offers a new interpretation of Teatro degli huomini letterati (Theatre of Literate Men) by Girolamo Ghilini (1589-1668), a canon from Alessandria (Piedmont). The exemplary nature of Paolo Giovio’s model and the European scope of the biographies included in the work are explained in relation to the close ties that the canon maintained with the Ambrosiana Library and its scholars, in particular Francesco Bernardino Ferrari. In turn, the case of Ghilini helps to understand the role of the institution founded by Federico Borromeo within the Republic of Letters in the mid- 17th century.