Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi

Patrizia Poli
2 min readApr 10, 2022

Having a book by Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi (1804- 1873) in the house meant being arrested. Yet, his novels, animated by Risorgimental patriotic tension and a pessimistic spirit, met with enormous popular success.

Guerrazzi was born in 1804, in the old Livorno, while the yellow fever epidemic was spreading in the city; his birth was not well received by his parents and this saddened him throughout his life, helping to forge his sad, solitary, vindictive, brawler character. He studied with the Barnabites but did not like the school, considering it gloomy, he quarreled with his father and ran away from home. He was involved in fights with Jews and expelled from the university.

Throughout his existence he went back and forth from prison, again for political reasons, underwent trials, convictions and exile. A fervent Mazzinian affiliated with the Young Italy and an ardent republican, he had a large part in the uprisings of 48, even becoming a dictator for fifteen days, during the Tuscan revolution. He was imprisoned in the Forte della Stella together with Carlo Bini, with whom he had founded the Indicatore Livornese, then suppressed by the regime.

Revolution theorist, but also quite realistic in politics, he always saw his aspirations disregarded, developing a growing bitterness and disillusionment. Only the education of his grandchildren distracted him, in part, from his commitment.

In addition to active politics, he also devoted himself to writing, always understood as a vehicle of Risorgimental and civil ideas. He met Byron and his poetics, especially his early poetics, were influenced by him.

His most famous texts are “The Siege of Florence”, “Beatrice Cenci” and “The Battle of Benevento”, it can be said that the historical novel of the Risorgimento was born with him.

In his exuberant and violent fantasy”, explains Cappuccio, “in his taste for the grim, the macabre, the horrendous, in the very ways of the convulsive and emphatic expression, are reflected, more perhaps than in any of the other Italian writers of ‘Nineteenth century, certain extreme aspects of European romanticism, from Byron to Victor Hugo ”.

The fact remains that his novels were selling a lot despite the very high price. They passed from hand to hand, and were liked for their ideals but also for their sensationalism, in spite of what Sapegno defines as “turgid oratory tribunal”. Carducci was also an admirer of Guerrazzi, who defended the Italian linguistic tradition, was of a classicist orientation and did not even disdain humorous traits. The success faded in the second half of the nineteenth century, with the affirmation of positivism.

Guerrazzi spent his last years at the “Cinquantina”, a farm near Cecina, where he took care of his grandchildren until his death in 1873.

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Patrizia Poli

Patrizia Poli was born in Livorno in 1961. Writer of fiction and blogger, she published seven novels.