Physician, physicist, historian, poet and fable-writer, Lorenzo Pignotti was born on August 3, 1739 at Figline Valdarno, where he lived until the age of five. After his father's arrest and consequent flight from his hometown, he moved with his family to Arezzo, where he completed his studies, writing his first fables and first historical essays. Dedicating himself to science, he was appointed teacher of physics at the University di Pisa in 1775, where he later became Rector. At his death, he was buried in the Pisa Monumental Cemetery. Among his most famous writings are the pre-Romantic poem La tomba di Shakespeare [Shakespeare's tomb] (1779), the book Favole e Novelle [Fables and Novellas] (1782), which contains some concepts (The Flying Balloons, The Designers, etc.) that clearly refer to scientific speculation, and the Storia della Toscana sino al Principato [History of Tuscany up to the Principality] with several essays on science, letters and the arts, written in the capacity of court historian to Grand Duke Ferdinand III di Lorena and published posthumously in 1813.