The Accademia Fiorentina was founded in Florence on 1 November 1540 as the Accademia degli Umidi,[2]: 175 or "academy of the wet ones", in contrast to – or parody of – the name of the recently-founded Accademia degli Infiammati, or "academy of the burning ones", of Padova. The twelve founding members were Baccio Baccelli, Bartolomeo Benci, Pier Fabbrini, Paolo de Gei, Antonfrancesco Grazzini, Gismondo Martelli, Niccolò Martelli, Giovanni Mazzuoli, Cynthio d'Amelia Romano, Filippo Salvetti, Michelangelo Vivaldi and Simon della Volta.[2]: 175 Within a few months of its foundation, on 25 March 1541,[2]: 175 the academy changed its name to Accademia Fiorentina, in accordance with the wishes of Cosimo I de' Medici.[3]
The principal topic of discussion of the academy was the question of what should constitute the basis for the Italian language, which until about this time was not so called; rather, it was referred to as volgare, roughly "the common tongue". While the Infiammati supported the suggestions of Pietro Bembo and Giovan Giorgio Trissino that the language of Boccaccio and Petrarch should serve as a model for literary Italian, the Umidi believed it should be based on contemporary Florentine usage and on the language of Dante. Three of them, Giambattista Gelli (1498–1563), Pierfrancesco Giambullari (1495–1555)[5] and Carlo Lenzoni (1501–1551),[6] wrote treatises in support of this position.[3]
^Anna Toscano (2004). Accademia Fiorentina (in Italian). Florence: Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza. Archived 6 January 2014.
^Pierfrancesco Giambullari ([1551]). Pierfrancesco Giambullari Fiorentino, De la lingua che si parla & scrive in Firenze. Et uno Dialogo di Giovan Batista Gelli sopra la difficultà dello ordinare detta lingua (in Italian). In Firenze: [Lorenzo Torrentino].
^Carlo Lenzoni (1556). In difesa della lingua fiorentina et di Dante, con le regole da far bella et numerosa prosa. [Colla Orazione di M. Cosimo Bartoli sopra la morte di Carlo Lenzoni] (in Italian). Florenza: Lorenzo Torrentino.
Michel Plaisance (2004). L’Accademia e il suo Principe: cultura e politica a Firenze al tempo di Cosimo I e di Francesco de' Medici; L’Académie et le Prince: culture et politique à Florence au temps de Côme Ier et de François de Médicis. Manziana: Vecchiarelli. (in French)
Iacopo Rilli (1700). Notizie letterarie ed istoriche intorno agli uomini illustri dell'Accademia Fiorentina. Firenze: Piero Matini. (in Italian).
Salvino Salvini (1717). Fasti consolari dell'Accademia fiorentina. Firenze: Nella Stamperia di S.A.R, per Gio. Gaetano Tartini e Santi Franchi. (in Italian).
