Career
He was professor of jurisprudence for several years at his native Bologna, Parma, and Ferrara, with the highest reputation. So much admiration did his learning excite, that inscriptions to his honor were placed in the schools in his lifetime. Achillini went to Rome, where he obtained great promises of preferment from popes and cardinals, but they proved only promises.
Odoardo Farnese, duke of Parma, engaged him however on very liberal terms, to occupy the chair of law in his university.
A canzone, which he addressed to Louis XIII on the birth of the dauphin, is said to have been rewarded by Cardinal Richelieu with a gold chain or collar worth 1000 crowns. This reward was not given, as some have asserted, for the famous sonnet beginning, "Sudate o fuochi, a preparar metalli;" and which was parodied by Crudeli in one beginning, "Sudate o forni, a preparar pagnotte," (Sweat, O ye ovens! in preparing cakes!)
Achillini"s poems were published at Bologna in 1632.
He also printed a volume of Latin letters.