DI BREME, LODOVICO ARBORIO GATTINARA

DI BREME, LODOVICO ARBORIO GATTINARA. - B. in Torino in 1780, d. there on 15 Aug. 1820. Almoner to Eugène Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy, and Councillor of State in the first Kingdom of Italy; after Napoleon’s fall, he withdrew into private life. He derived his extensive culture from the most vital Italian thinkers and poets of the eighteenth century and from the works of Mme De Stäel, A. G. Schlegel, and Sismondi; nor had his contacts with Byron and Stendhal been unfruitful. D. B. reached his position affirming the most absolute idealism through a passionate refutation of sensationalism and rationalism, before the Romantic movement entered Italy; he was therefore regarded as a precursor. He promoted the first Italian Romantic periodical (Il bersagliere, subsequently entitled Il conciliatore), in which he wrote numerous articles. He opposed deism, sensationalism, and also atheism, which seemed to him the most anti-hypothetical of states of mind.