Name
De Amicis, Edmondo

Gender
Male

Birth
October 21, 1846

Death
March 11, 1908

Descriptive Note

A novelist, journalist, poet, and short-story writer, Edmondo De Amicis gained international fame with his novel Cuore (Heart).

 

De Amicis attended the Military Academy in Modena and served as Army Officer in the Kingdom of Italy, participating in the Battle of Custoza in the Third War of Independence, where the Savoy army was defeated by the Austrian Empire.  After leaving the army, he devoted himself to writing short stories about  his frontline experience, collected as La vita militare ("Military Life", 1868), and first published by the journal L'Italia Militare. After joining the staff of La Nazione (Rome), he traveled extensively and collected his experiences in a series of publications: Spagna (1873), Olanda (1874), Ricordi di Londra (1874), Marocco (1876), Costantinopoli (1878), Ricordi di Parigi (1879). 

 

Cuore was published by Treves on 17 October 1886 and enjoyed great success and translated into dozens of languages.The strong nationalist message of Cuore was combined with a socializt thrust that brought de Amicis to join the Socialist party in 1896, and to deal with social problems such as the ploght of Italian emigrants (Sull'oceano, 1889). Other works include:  Il romanzo di un maestro (1890), Amore e ginnastica (1892), Maestrina degli operai (1895), La carrozza di tutti (1899), L'idioma gentile (1905), and Nuovi ritratti letterari e artistici (1908).

 

He contributed to the Turin-based Il grido del popolo and his articles were collected as Questione sociale ("Social Issues", 1894).

 

Edmondo De Amicis penned several articles on the Turin 1911 exposition in various newspapers and exposition publications.

 

 

Roles
Writers (Composers), Poets;
Writers (Composers), Novelists

Related Locations