Cosimo Alessandro Collini (Florence, 14 October 1727-Mannheim, 21 March 1806) was an Italian historian and Voltaire's secretary from 1752 to 1756.
Collini was born into a noble family and studied law.[1]
He met Voltaire in Berlin in 1750 and was taken on as his secretary, alongside Joseph Du Fresne de Francheville (son of another Joseph Du Fresne de Francheville [fr]), in April 1752.[2] When Voltaire left the service of Frederick the Great in 1753 Collini accompanied him, and was confined with him and Madame Denis on Frederick's orders for three weeks in Frankfurt.[3] In 1755 the young Jean-Louis Wagnière was made his assistant and, just over a year later, took his place when Collini was dismissed from Voltaire's service for insulting Madame Denis.[4][5]
Collini then entered the service of Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria as his private secretary and historiographer.[6]
He staged Voltaire's Olympie at the Schlosstheater Schwetzingen in 1762.[7]
In 1763 he became a member of the Palatine Academy of Sciences and director of the Mannheim Cabinet of Natural History. In 1784 he was the first person to describe the pterosaur that Georges Cuvier went on the identify, seventeen years later, as a flying reptile.[6]
In his later years, he denounced the fanaticism of the French revolutionary wars and in 1799 he defended the collections in his cabinet from destruction, and managed to have them transferred, four years later, to Munich.[6]
A street in Mannheim is named after him, as is the Collini-Center development in the city.