TOMMASEO, NICCOLÒ. - Writer and politician, b. at Šibenik on 9 Oct. 1802, d. at Florence on 1 May 1874. After completing his early studies at the seminary of Split, he went in 1817 to Padua for legal studies; there he met Rosmini, to whom he was thereafter always bound by an intimate but troubled friendship, and he broadened his culture through the study of the major modern Italian and foreign philosophers and writers.
Between 1819 and 1824 he stayed now at Padua, now at Rovereto in Rosmini's house, and for brief periods at Šibenik and Venice. His restless, proud, sullen, polemical temperament made it difficult for him to remain long in one place, and in 1824 bitter literary polemics drove him to move to Milan, where he met Manzoni and took part in the controversy between Romantics and Classicists (v. ROMANTICISMO), writing in favor of the Romantic theses the pamphlet Il Perticari confutato da Dante (1825) and various articles. In Oct. 1827 he moved to Florence at the invitation of G.
P. Vieuxseux, to collaborate on the Antologia founded and directed by the latter. There he formed a most affectionate friendship with Gino Capponi and took part in political life, adhering to Catholic liberalism and establishing ties with Lambruschini, with Lamennais, with Montalembert. Already suspected by the police, when in March 1833 the Antologia was suppressed, partly because of an article of his, he left for France, hoping to publish more easily his principal work on political subjects, Dell'Italia, aimed at maintaining that the rebirth of the nation could not come about by force of arms and conspiracies, but through a renewal of consciences and of Christian religious life. His exile in France (from 1833 to 1838, between Paris, Marseille, Nantes, and Corsica) was a period of material poverty and spiritual suffering, marked also by a moral bewilderment, for which all his subsequent life was meant to be an expiation. There T. greatly broadened his linguistic and cultural knowledge, managing to become an excellent writer in French, and there he composed or published several of his most important works: the books Dell'Italia (Paris 1835); the volume of poems Confessioni (ibid. 1837); the historical novel Il Duca d'Atene (Paris 1837); the other novel Fede e bellezza (published in Venice in 1840, but written in Corsica); the commentary on the Divina Commedia (also published in Venice in 1837). Having returned to his homeland at the end of 1839, taking advantage of an amnesty, after a short time he went to Venice, where the insurrection of 1848 caught him. Imprisoned in January together with Daniele Manin for his patriotic writings and speeches, he was freed by the people, appointed by the provisional government minister of Public Education and sent to France to ask that government for aid. Of republican sentiments, he resigned after the vote for the annexation of Venice to Piedmont, but he did not abandon the struggle for the defense of the city. After the fall of Venice, he lived in exile, in Corfu, from 1849 to 1854, and in 1851 he married there Diamante Pavello, widow Artale. When his stay there became difficult for various reasons, in May 1854 he moved with his family first to Turin and then, in 1859, to Florence, whence he never moved again, tirelessly occupied with literary works, and in particular with the compilation of the great Dizionario della lingua italiana, despite his blindness in his last years.
Rich in virtues and in vices, and more in genius, T. is one of the most complex personalities of the nineteenth century. Among his fundamental traits is religious faith, lived with intensity and intransigence, even if at times with excessively personal accents and with dangerous nuances (of his books, the Studi filosofici and Roma e il mondo were placed on the Index, decrees of Sept. 13 and Apr. 20, 1842). His intransigence and his ardor lead T. to judgments at times one-sided and unjust, both in the moral and political field and in the literary one. But the habit of considering everything in the light of faith, of living continually in a religious atmosphere, communicates to all the particulars of his life a meaning and a depth that make them the elements of an exceptional spiritual experience. With it are connected the habit of introspective inquiry and a singular knowledge of the psychology of sin, together with an original intuition of universal life and of the relations between the physical and the moral world: an intuition akin to that of the German Romantics and the Symbolists. From this inner life, rich though disharmonious, the thought and art of T. draw novelty and intensity of accents.
More than completed logical constructions, one finds in T. flashes, gleams, presentiments. Especially notable are many reflections of an aesthetic and linguistic character, often of a very modern flavor. In language T. sees the form of the inner man and in its history the history of the human spirit. All his philological activity is informed by these principles, an activity which for breadth and complexity, knowledge of the language, acumen and sensitivity in interpreting it has no equal in our nineteenth century (besides the Dizionario della lingua italiana, of great importance is the Dizionario dei sinonimi). To the philological activity is linked the critical activity which, although not supported by a unified method, has its most original and felicitous manifestations in observations of a stylistic character. Also to be remembered are the numerous writings of moral and educational inspiration, such as those collected in Dell'educazione (Lugano 1836).
As a poet T. is among the most original of the nineteenth century. In many of his rhymes he transferred his own personal experiences, especially amorous ones, representing by preference states of mind uncertain between friendship and love, pleasure and remorse, sensuality and piety (cf. Voluttà e rimorso, Una serva, La contessa Matilde), and in often boldly realistic ways. In the second period of his life religious inspiration prevails, whereby the poet's imagination ranges over all creation, from the humble flower to the luminous stars, from the insect to the angelic creatures, and everywhere finds correspondences and harmonies, which merge into the supreme harmony that is God (cf. I mondi, Gli spiriti, Le altezze, Pe' morti, etc.). New in its themes, rich in profound thoughts and in delicate, or grandiose and powerful, images, T.'s lyric poetry is, however, often fragmentary.
Even in prose, more than a narrator and logician, T. is a lyric poet and artist; the novel Fede e bellezza has largely an autobiographical character, and more than for the construction of characters and for the movement of the narrative, it is valuable for its lyrical-descriptive parentheses, especially for the impressions of nature, fixed with an extremely sensitive language, exquisitely coloristic and musical. It is notable also for new and delicate psychological analyses, while from the moral point of view, despite the author's intention of representing the expiation of sin through faith and sorrow, the general tone is rather uncertain.
T. also produced numerous beautiful translations (cf. in particular those of the Canti popolari illirici e greci and those of the Salmi and of the Vangelo).
Bibliography9 works
Mario Puppo