ADDISON, JOSEPH. - English man of letters and essayist, b. at Milston (Wiltshire) in 1672, d. at Kensington in 1719. He came from classical studies and in his youth undertook a journey through Italy as a learned humanist, reporting on it in his Remarks on Several Parts of Italy (1705), which were placed on the Index (18 July 1729), together with the French translation Remarques sur divers endroits d'Italie pour servir au voyage de monsieur Misson, vol. IV (17 Jan. 1729), on account of the pessimistic, false, or exaggerated judgments expressed therein against the Catholic clergy. He pursued a brilliant political career in the Whig party and in the last years of his life enjoyed a substantial pension granted him by the government then in office.
His fame is linked to the creation of the Spectator, the greatest newspaper of the time, which he founded in collaboration with Richard Steele in 1711. A moderate Protestant and typical representative of the middle class, A. gave his articles a predominantly moralistic and popularizing character, creating conventional characters that were often artistically vivid. His prose foreshadows, even in its more simply informative aspects and moralistic aims, the rich essayistic and narrative production of the English eighteenth century. A. influenced our eighteenth-century moralists, foremost among them Gaspare Gozzi, who imitated him and praised him lavishly.