Niccolò Tommaseo - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Niccolò Tommaseo was an Italian Dalmatian linguist, journalist and essayist, the editor of a Dizionario della Lingua Italiana in eight volumes (1861-74), of a dictionary of synonyms (1830) and other works. He is considered a precursor of the Italian irredentism.

Biography

Born at Sebenico (Šibenik

Šibenik

Šibenik is a historic town in Croatia, with population of 51,553 . It is located in central Dalmatia where the river Krka flows into the Adriatic Sea...

), which was in quick succession under Venetian, Napoleonic and Habsburg domain, Tommaseo was culturally and ethnically Italian, but expressed also genuine interest in the Illyrian popular culture. His education, pursued at Split/Spalato

Split (city)

Split is a Mediterranean city on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea, centered around the ancient Roman Palace of the Emperor Diocletian and its wide port bay. With a population of 178,192 citizens, and a metropolitan area numbering up to 467,899, Split is by far the largest Dalmatian city and...

, was a humanistic one with a sound Catholic basis.

He moved to Italy to graduate in law at the University of Padua

University of Padua

The University of Padua is a premier Italian university located in the city of Padua, Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 as a school of law and was one of the most prominent universities in early modern Europe. It is among the earliest universities of the world and the second...

in 1822. He then spent several years as a journalist roving between Padua and Milan, where he came in contact with Alessandro Manzoni

Alessandro Manzoni

Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Manzoni was an Italian poet and novelist.He is famous for the novel The Betrothed , generally ranked among the masterpieces of world literature...

and Antonio Rosmini-Serbati

Antonio Rosmini-Serbati

Blessed Antonio Rosmini-Serbati was an Italian Roman Catholic priest and philosopher. He founded the Rosminians, officially the Institute of Charity or Societas a charitate nuncupata.-Biography:...

. In this period of life he began his collaboration in the Antologia of Giovan Pietro Vieusseux, founder of the Gabinetto Vieusseux

Gabinetto Vieusseux

The Gabinetto Scientifico Letterario G. P. Vieusseux, founded in 1819 by Giovan Pietro Vieusseux, a merchant from Geneva, is a library in Florence, Italy...

, the reading room and intellectual centre in Florence. He also corresponded with Petar II Petrović Njegoš of Montenegro

Montenegro

Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...

.

Having moved to Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

in the autumn of 1827, he became a friend of Gino Capponi

Gino Capponi

Marquis Gino Capponi was an Italian statesman and historian.The Capponi family is one of the most illustrious Florentine houses, and is mentioned as early as 1250; it acquired great wealth as a mercantile and banking firm, and many of its members distinguished themselves in the service of the...

and soon became one of the important voices in the Antologia. In 1830 appeared the Nuovo Dizionario de' Sinonimi della lingua italiana which confirmed his public reputation. Following the protests of the Austrian government against an article defending the Greek revolution that resulted in the closure of the journal in which he was publishing, he sought voluntary exile in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

.

During his years in Paris he published the political work Dell'Italia (1835), the volume of verses, Confessioni (1836), the historical fiction Il Duca di Atenehttp://books.google.cl/books?id=AVNHAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=niccolo+tommaseo&lr=&as_brr=3&cd=27#v=onepage&q=&f=false (1837), a commentary on the Divine Comedyhttp://books.google.cl/books?id=j3kNAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false (1837), and his Memorie Poetiche (1838).

From Paris he moved to Corsica

Corsica

Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....

, where with the support and collaboration of the magistrate and essayist of Bastia, Salvatore Viale, he worked to compile the copious Italian oral traditions of the island, where he claimed to find the purest Italian dialect in the book Canti populari: Canti Corsi http://books.google.cl/books?id=jMoFAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=niccolo+tommaseo&lr=&as_brr=3&cd=6#v=onepage&q=&f=false

In Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

he published the first two installments of his novel Fede e Bellezza, praised today as an early example of the psychological novel. His anthology of popular songs, Canti popolari italiani, corsi, illirici, greci (1841) and the Scintille/Iskrice (1842) are rare examples of a metropolitan culture above nationalism

Romantic nationalism

Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs...

.

In 1847 he returned to the journalistic forum, and as an outspoken defender of liberalizing laws for a wholly free press

Freedom of the press

Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the freedom of communication and expression through vehicles including various electronic media and published materials...

was arrested, causing a scandal: he was freed during the liberal revolution headed by Daniele Manin

Daniele Manin

Daniele Manin was an Italian patriot and statesman from Venice. He is a hero of Italian unification .-Early life:...

and assumed responsibilities in the briefly renewed Venetian Republic, which cost him an exile (because accused of Italian irredentist) in Corfù

Corfu

Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the edge of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered as a single municipality. The...

when Habsburg control was reasserted over Lombardy-Venetia. In Corfù, with his eyesight failing, he nevertheless managed to write numerous essays, among which, in Rome et le mondehttp://books.google.cl/books?id=dFIpAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false (written in French), he declared, as a good Catholic, the necessity of the Church's relinquishing temporal power in the Papal States

Papal States

The Papal State, State of the Church, or Pontifical States were among the major historical states of Italy from roughly the 6th century until the Italian peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia .The Papal States comprised territories under...

. In this time he abandoned his hopes for the "moderate" road to the Unification of Italy through the House of Savoy

House of Savoy

The House of Savoy was formed in the early 11th century in the historical Savoy region. Through gradual expansion, it grew from ruling a small county in that region to eventually rule the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 until the end of World War II, king of Croatia and King of Armenia...

In 1854, with his sight ever more compromised, he moved to Turin

Turin

Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

(1854), then once again to Florence (1859), where he took a villa at Settignano

Settignano

Settignano is a picturesque frazione ranged on a hillside northeast of Florence, Italy, with spectacular views that have attracted American expatriates for generations...

. His opposition to the House of Savoy made him refuse all honours, including a seat in the Senate. In his final years he devoted himself to the weighty dictionary of the Italian language, in seven volumes, which was completed in 1874, after his death.

Main Works

Nuovo Dizionario de' Sinonimi della lingua italiana (1830)
Canti popolari italiani, corsi, illirici, greci (1841)
Le lettere di Santa Caterina di Siena (1860, 4 Bde.)
Il secondo esilio (1862, 3 Bde.), eine Sammlung seiner politischen Schriften
Sulla pena di morte (1865)
Nuovi studj su Dante (1865).
Dizionario di sinonimi della lingua italiana (7. Aufl. 1887, 2 Bde.)
Leben Rosminis
Dizionario estetico (neue Aufl. 1872).

External links

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