A Grammar of the Italian Language. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1838. Simultaneously published in London by Richard James Kennett.

Born Ignazio Batolo, Bachi (b. Palermo, 1787; d. Boston, 1853) received his law degree at the University of Padua, but fled the country in opposition to Bourbon rule in 1815.

He became instructor of Italian at Harvard in 1826 (a year after Lorenzo Da Ponte’s appointment at Columbia) not long after his arrival in the U.S., under the advocacy of George Ticknor, the first Smith Professor of Modern Languages, a major supporter of hiring native speakers for instructing modern languages; this occurred only two years after Bachi’s arrival in America.

Reflecting the same trend as Da Ponte experienced, Americans were keen on learning Italian.

As a result of Ticknor’s effort, Bachi was the first Italian-educated faculty member appointed at Harvard.

A popular teacher, Bachi had as students Henry David Thoreau (for four years), Oliver Wendell Holmes, Edward Everett Hale, and James Russell Lowell.