C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Giovanni Battista Casti (1724–1803)
Casti, Giovanni Battista (käs’tē). An Italian poet (1724–1803). He entered the service of the Emperor Joseph II.; accompanied embassies to St. Petersburg, etc. He won fame by his ‘Gay Stories in Ottava Rima,’ and added to it by his witty satiric ‘Talking Animals’ (1802), translated by W. S. Rose, as ‘The Court and Parliament of Beasts’ (1819). Casti wrote also two very successful comic operas, and a poetic satire on court life in the reign of Catharine II. of Russia.