CENA, GIOVANNI. - Poet, journalist, and critic, b. at Montanaro Canavese on 12 Jan. 1870, d. at Rome on 7 Dec. 1917. He studied at Turin, where he was a pupil of A. Graf.
Having come to Rome, he became editor-in-chief of La nuova antologia, and it was there that he carried on his principal activity.
He was concerned with the moral uplift of the poor of the Roman countryside. Though in poor health, he devoted himself unstintingly to his purely philanthropic work and, starting from nothing and overcoming difficulties of every kind, established 70 rural schools for children and adults, with dispensaries, seeking medical collaborators against malaria and teachers against ignorance and poverty. He was the author of poetry (his most substantial, pathetic work is the short poem Madre), critical essays, and a novel, Gli ammonitori, of bold social vision; these were collected by the publishing house «L'Impronta» in the complete edition of his works in 5 vols. (Turin 1929). C.'s is a message of the humble and the dispossessed, for whom life is too painful.