Niccolini, Giambattista - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VIII, p. 1065

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

NICCOLINI, GIAMBATTISTA. - Man of letters, born at Bagni di S. Giuliano (Pisa) on 29 Oct. 1782, died at Firenze on 20 Sept. 1861.

He was a member of the Accademia della Crusca. A republican in politics, he accepted the monarchy when he saw that the unity of Italy depended upon it; but, faithful to a secular liberalism, he regarded the Neo-Guelph idea as utopian. His anti-papal attitude is epitomized in Arnaldo da Brescia (1837), his masterpiece, though lacking a historical foundation. N. owes his fame, more than to the posthumous works Storia della Cosa di Svezia in Italia (1873) and Il Vespro Siciliano (1882), to his tragedies, whose verse he derived from classical models (Polissena, Edipo nel bosco delle Eumenidi, Agamemone, Medea), from history (Antonio Foscarini, Giovanni da Procida, Lodovico Sforza, Arnaldo da Brescia, Filippo Strozzi), and from fictional or sentimental events (Matilde, Beatrice Cenci). N.'s theatre is more vital for the gravity and solemnity of its language than for its inner dramatic power. Arnaldo da Brescia was placed on the Index (decree of 15 Jan. 1844).

BIBL.: ed.: Opere di G. B. N., 8 vols., Milano 1860-80. Studies: A. Vannucci, Ricordi della vita e delle opere di G. B. N., Firenze 1886; M. Ostermann, Il pensiero politico di G. B. N. nelle tragedie e nelle opere minori, Milano 1900; P. Arcari, G. B. N. e la sua opera drammatica, ivi 1901; R. Guastalla, La vita e le opere di G. B. N., Livorno 1917; B. Croce, Fu poeta G. B. N., in Conversazioni critiche, III, Bari 1923, pp. 334-37; G. Mazzoni, L'Ottocento, Milano 1938, part 2°, pp. 829-34 and passim. Manaceto Lombardi-Lotti