GIACOSA, GIUSEPPE. - Playwright and short-story writer, b. at Colleretto Parella (Ivrea) on 21 Oct. 1847, d. there on 2 Sept. 1906.
He began his literary activity at a very young age, ever fertile and indefatigable: lectures, speeches, historical and patriotic articles, poetry, narrative prose culminating in Genti e cose della montagna, in Novelle e paesi valdostani (his most genuine and flavorful work), I Castelli Valdostani and Impressioni d'America, some thirty dramas, one-act plays, opera librettos, and comedies, among which the most important are Tristi amori, Diritti dell'anima e Come le foglie (v. tutto il Teatro, edited by P. Nardi, 2 vols., Milan 1948). With his simple yet subtle psychology, G. depicted the minor sentimental crises of bourgeois society at the end of the century, whose problems and passions he knew how to understand and exploit.