BORSI, GIOSUÈ. — Born in Livorno on 10 June 1888. From his father Averardo, a writer and journalist, he inherited his inclination toward letters.
His father’s renown won him an easy welcome in the literary circles of his time. His life consists of two periods, both in the spiritual and in the literary sphere. The first is characterized by the restless and almost frantic search for a path in life and for expressive means in art: he feels the pressing need to define his own personality. The second period is characterized by possession of the new path, which in his eyes appears to have been found by a miracle, but which is very arduous to follow, accompanied by the more or less spontaneous application of the new style. The transition from one period to the other was caused, at least apparently, by the worsening, in the household of the B., of a series of family misfortunes and financial reverses. Having returned to the truth and discipline of faith, he expressed in his writings the anxieties, joys, and even the discouragements of his new condition; his moral and artistic masterpiece remains the Last Letter to His Mother, written from the front a few days before his death.
He was a poet, journalist, and writer, as well as an exquisite reciter,
and a talented actor. Belonging to the first period are the poems, among which the Hymn to His Mother is noteworthy for its inspiration and form; the short stories (the characteristic Piorrancino, in which the linguistic quest is evident, and the Life of St. Christopher, notable for the incisive elegance of its narration); and several dramatic compositions (the Dindestè). At the dawn of the second period came Confessions to Giulia, followed by the Conversations, which received the greatest acclaim.
He died in the assault on the low houses of Zagora on 10 November 1915; his blood stained his Dantino: a pocket edition of the Divina Commedia that B. always carried with him, now preserved in the Florentine house on Via Faenza.
His remains, buried at Plava in a cemetery along the Isonzo, were scattered after the retreat from Caporetto.