DE AMICIS, EDMONDO. - Writer and journalist, b. at Oneglia on 31 Oct. 1846, d. at Bordighera on 11 March 1908.
He attended the Military School of Modena, from which he emerged in '65 as a second lieutenant of infantry, in order to take part the following year in the war against Austria. In 1867 he was directing in Florence the newspaper L'Italia militare, publishing in it the Bozzetti, later collected in a volume (La vita militare, Milan 1868). Manzoni, of whom De A. always aspired to consider himself a disciple, encouraged him in his career in letters. With the Novelle (Florence 1872) and the Ricordi del 1870-'71 (ibid. 1872) De A. confirmed his qualities as a narrator of short breath but clear vision.
Between 1870 and '80 he traveled in Spain, Holland, Morocco, to London, Constantinople, Paris, journeys later described in books of lively impressions. To the mediocre volume of Poesie (Milan 1880) he made follow a collection of profiles (Gli amici, 2 vols., ibid. 1883). But his best-known book is Cuore, published in Milan in 1886.
On a diary-like scheme De A. constructs a varied and gripping narrative, which portrays the life of a school class, a pretext for sounding the moral climate of families, studying the characters of the boys, their mutual reactions and their relations with adults, and moralizing through the ways of the heart. The work, not free from defects (among which the almost total absence of the religious idea), more than all the others testifies to the important social and national function performed by De A. in the attempt to delineate the essence and the limits of the Italian bourgeoisie in a delicate period of the life of the country. In 1891, outside the field of active politics, De A. adhered to socialism as to a faith in progress for the elevation of humanity.