The Father of Pinocchio ItalyStories.com Carlo Collodi is remembered throughout the world as the father of Pinocchio, yet behind that name stood a sharp, restless, politically engaged Tuscan writer whose life was far more varied than the fame of a…
The Prince of The Leopard ItalyStories.com – Great Italian Writers Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa belongs to that rare category of writers whose reputation rests largely on a single book, yet whose single book seems large enough to contain an entire…
Between Mystery and Reality ItalyStories.com – Great Italian Writers Dino Buzzati was one of the most distinctive Italian writers of the twentieth century, a storyteller able to make ordinary offices, mountain roads, military outposts, hospitals, and city apartments feel as…
The Poet of Fire and Style ItalyStories.com – Great Italian Writers Gabriele D'Annunzio was not merely a writer who lived in Italy; he attempted to turn his own life into a work of art, a spectacle, and at times a…
The Irony of Modern Life ItalyStories.com – Great Italian Writers Italo Svevo was born Ettore Schmitz in Trieste on December 19, 1861, and the name under which he became famous already tells the story of a divided identity. "Italo" suggested…
Epic Fire and Restless Genius ItalyStories.com Torquato Tasso was born in Sorrento in 1544 into a world in which poetry, politics, religion, and courtly ambition were inseparable. His father, Bernardo Tasso, was already a respected poet and diplomat, and the…
Moonlight, Silence and the Infinite ItalyStories.com Giacomo Leopardi was born in 1798 in Recanati, a small town in the Papal States, and from that apparently remote corner of Italy he created one of the most universal bodies of poetry in…
The Poet of Nests and Small Wonders ItalyStories.com Giovanni Pascoli was born in 1855 in San Mauro di Romagna, and few Italian poets transformed private grief into a poetic language as distinctive as his. At first glance, Pascoli's world can…
The Poet of the Divine Comedy ItalyStories.com Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265 and became the writer through whom medieval Italy found one of its most powerful and enduring voices. Poet, political thinker, exile, philosopher, and creator of…
The Laureate of Love and Solitude ItalyStories.com Francesco Petrarca, known in English as Petrarch, was born in Arezzo in 1304 and became one of the decisive figures in the transition from the medieval world to Renaissance humanism. Poet, scholar, collector…