DE AMICIS, EDMONDO. – Writer and journalist, born in Oneglia on 31 October 1846, died in Bordighera on 11 March 1908.
He attended the Military School of Modena, from which he graduated in 1865 as a second lieutenant of infantry, taking part the following year in the war against Austria. In 1867 he directed the newspaper L'Italia militare in Florence, publishing there the Bozzetti, later collected in a volume (La vita militare, Milan 1868). Manzoni, whose disciple De A. always wished to consider himself, encouraged him in his literary career. With the Novelle (Florence 1872) and the Ricordi del 1870-'71 (ibid. 1872), De A. confirmed his qualities as a narrator of limited scope but clear vision.
Between 1870 and 1880 he travelled in Spain, Holland, and Morocco, and to London, Constantinople, and Paris; he later described these journeys in books of lively impressions. He followed the mediocre volume of Poesie (Milan 1880) with a collection of portraits (Gli amici, 2 vols., ibid. 1883). But his best-known book is Cuore, published in Milan in 1886.
Using a diary-like framework, De A. constructs a varied and gripping narrative portraying the life of a class of schoolchildren, a pretext for examining the moral climate of families, studying the characters of the young people, their mutual reactions and their relations with adults, and moralizing through the pathways of the heart. The work, not free from defects (among them the almost total absence of the religious idea), more than any of the others testifies to the important social and national function performed by De A. in his attempt to delineate the essence and limits of the Italian bourgeoisie during a delicate period in the life of the country. In 1891, outside the sphere of active politics, De A. embraced socialism as a faith in progress for the elevation of humanity.