BUTTI, Enrico Annibale
Comedian and novelist, born in Milan on Feb. 19, 1868, died Nov. 29, 1912.
He began with a series of novels: *L'automa* (1892), *L'anima* (1893), *L'immorale* (1894), *L'incantesimo* (1897), whose fundamental note is a tendency toward anguished meditation on the mystery of life. Equally rich in reflection and ideas are his dramas, which react against the "verismo" of French stamp prevailing at the time, bringing moral, social, and religious problems onto the stage. The most significant are: *La corsa al piacere* (1900), *Lucifero* (1901), *Una tempesta* (1903). Notable is the dramatic poem *Il castello del sogno* (1910), in which the author invokes redemption for society through faith and love. B. was a true artist; of a sensitive and meditative temperament, he devoted himself entirely to the tormented search for transcendent values that might give meaning to his life and to that of others; yet, despite his asserted need for faith, he failed to escape from skeptical discouragement and to adhere to a positive religious creed, just as his pedagogical stance did not rise above the limits of secular morality nor did it refrain from insisting on censurable themes and situations.