Lodovico Castelvetro was an important figure in the development of neo-classicism, especially in drama

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

. It was his reading of Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

 that led to a widespread adoption of a tight version of the Three Unities, as a dramatic standard.

His Poetica d'Aristotele vulgarizzata e sposita ("The Poetics of Aristotle in the Vulgar Language") was called the most famous Italian Renaissance commentary on Aristotle's Poetics.
His supposed involvement in translation of Protestant texts caused him trouble with the Church. He was labelled a heretic in 1557, and lived in exile from his native Italy (he was born near Modena

Modena

Modena is a city and comune on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy....

). His Giunta, a commentary on the Prose della volgar lingua by Bembo

Bembo

Bembo is the name given to a 20th-century revival of an old style serif or humanist typeface cut by Francesco Griffo around 1495.The typeface Bembo seen today is a revival designed under the direction of Stanley Morison for the Monotype Corporation in 1929.It is considered a good choice for...

, is one of the earlier texts on Italian grammar, and linguistics

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

 in general; his contemporaries objected to him that his theories were a little too philosophical for their time.

The polemics with Caro

Castelvetro published some remarks on the language of Annibal Caro which led to some fierce debates; as an outcome of these disputes, a certain Alberigo Longo from Salento was killed, perhaps by the same Castelvetro, because his courage matched his erudition. Benedetto Varchi

Benedetto Varchi

Benedetto Varchi was an Italian humanist, a historian and poet.-Biography:Born in Florence to a family that had originated at Montevarchi, he frequented the neoplatonic academy that Bernardo Rucellai organized in his garden, the Orti Oricellari; there, in spite of the fact that Rucellai was...

 was involved, albeit reluctantly, in this dispute; he speaks of his involvement in the Ercolano

Ercolano

Ercolano is a town and comune in the province of Naples, Campania . It lies at the western foot of Mount Vesuvius, on the Bay of Naples, just southeast of the city of Naples. The medieval town of Resina was built on the volcanic material left by the eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed the ancient...

, one of the books which are dearest to the lovers of the Florentine tongue.

Castelvetra flatly contradicts Aristotle on a number of issues. He did not advocate
the unity of action, the only unity Aristotle felt to be essential.