GUERRAZZI, FRANCESCO DOMENICO. - Writer and politician, b. at Livorno on 12 Aug. 1804, d. at Cecina (Livorno) on 23 Nov. 1873. Turbulent and obstinate from boyhood, while he was studying law at Pisa he took part in riots that were partly political and was suspended from his studies for a year. In 1821 he met Byron there, who became his model, and to whose memory he was inspired for the Stanze, his literary debut (Livorno 1825).

After collaborating on the Indicatore livornese and repeatedly suffering imprisonment for political reasons, he was elected deputy and was called by Montanelli to Florence (1848) as minister of the interior. On 8 Feb. 1849, after the grand duke had fled, he was triumvir together with Montanelli and Mazzoni. He took violent measures with the help of Livornese bands, which he later claimed he had been unable to control, and he opposed the union of Tuscany with Rome. After 12 Apr. (the grand-ducal restoration), he refused to leave Florence; he was therefore arrested and sentenced to 15 years of penal servitude, commuted to exile in Corsica (1853). From there he fled in 1857 to Genoa, where he remained until '62.

Elected deputy to the Subalpine Parliament, he was a fiery anticlerical and republican. In 1870, not re-elected, he retired to Livorno and then to his villa at Cecina.

He made his debut with tragedies of scant success: great stir was aroused instead by his historical novels, with patriotic aims, in which the terrible and the grotesque are romantically mingled, with a declamatory style full of apostrophes, and with the movement of poetic prose in evident dependence on Byronic models: La battaglia di Benevento (1827), L'assedio di Firenze (1836), Veronica Cybo (1839), Isabella Orsini (1844), Il Marchese di S. Prassede (1853), Beatrice Cenci (1854), Pasquale Paoli (1860). In them history is often distorted by practical aims, sometimes also for violently anticlerical purposes.

Novels of manners, of a more moderate and humorous tone, but still burdened with long disquisitions, are: Il buco nel muro (1862) and Il secolo che muore (published posthumously in 1885); satirical works: La serpicina (1847), I nuovi tartufi (1847), L'asino (1857). The various autobiographical writings and the correspondence collected by Carducci (Livorno 1880-82) are important. Placed on the Index are: L'assedio di Firenze (decree of 14 Feb. 1837), Isabella Orsini (decree of 8 Aug. 1844) and Beatrice Cenci (decree of 14 Dec. 1854).

Bibliography8 works

BIBL.: R. Guastalla, La vita e le opere di F. D. G., Rocca S. Casciano 1903 (only vol. I, on his life); G. Busolli, F. D. G., Parma 1912; F. Martini, Due dell'Extrema: il G. e Brofferio, Florence 1920; F. D. G. Studi e documenti, ibid. 1924 (collective volume edited by the Comitato toscano per la storia del Risorgimento); A. Luzio, in Profili biografici, ecc., I. Milan 1927, pp. 394-401; P. Miniati, F. D. G. (guida bibliografica), Rome 1927; B. Croce, in Lett. d. nuova Italia, I, 3rd ed., Bari 1929, pp. 27-44; G. Papini, Uno del '45: G., in Il sec. XIX nuova, 8 Apr. 1948.

Fausto Montanari

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Guerrazzi, Francesco Domenico

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