Son of Giuseppe dei Melzi Malingegni and Teresa dei Conti Prata, he was educated in the Collegio dei Nobili of Parma, where he met the Jesuit Juan Andrés, author of Dell'origine, progressi e stato attuale d'ogni letteratura.[1]
Gaetano Melzi later produced two works that have become a working tool for librarians: the "Bibliography of Italian novels and poems of chivalry",[2][3] and the three volumes of the "Dictionary of anonymous and pseudonymous works of Italian writers",[4] used for the identification of anonymous authors of the past. His library of over 30,000 volumes, inherited in the thirties of the twentieth century by the Meli-Lupi family of Soragna, was gradually dismembered.[5]
Gaetano Melzi was also a passionate music lover: he corresponded with many musicians of his time (including: Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi), and left a voluminous correspondence, of considerable interest, currently kept at the Museo Teatrale alla Scala in Milan.
↑Gaetano Melzi, Bibliografia dei romanzi e poemi cavallereschi italiani, seconda edizione corretta ed accresciuta, Milano: P. A. Tosi, pp. VIII, 380, 1838.
↑Gaetano Melzi, Note bibliografiche del fu D. Gaetano Melzi, edite per cura di un bibliofilo milanese con altre notizie, Milano: Tip. Bernardoni, 1863
↑Gaetano Melzi, Dizionario di opere anonime e pseudonime di scrittori italiani o come che sia aventi relazione all'Italia, Milano : L. di G. Pirola, 1848-1859, 3 volumi:
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