1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Guerrazzi, Francesco Domenico

GUERRAZZI, FRANCESCO DOMENICO (1804–1873), Italian publicist, born at Leghorn, was educated for the law at Pisa, and began to practise in his native place. But he soon took to politics and literature, under the influence of Byron, and his novel, the Battagli di Benevento (1827), brought him into notice. Mazzini made his acquaintance, and with Carlo Bini they started a paper, the Indicatore, at Leghorn in 1829, which was quickly suppressed. Guerrazzi himself had to endure several terms of imprisonment for his activity in the cause of Young Italy, and it was in Portoferrato in 1834 that he wrote his most famous novel Assidio di Firenze. He was the most powerful Liberal leader at Leghorn, and in 1848 became a minister, with some idea of exercising a moderating influence in the difficulties with the grand-duke of Tuscany. In 1849, when the latter fled, he was first one of the triumvirate with Mazzini and Montanelli, and then dictator, but on the restoration he was arrested and imprisoned for three years. His Apologia was published in 1852. Released from prison, he was exiled to Corsica, but subsequently was restored and was for some time a deputy at Turin (1862–1870), dying of apoplexy at Leghorn on the 25th of September 1873. He wrote a number of other works besides the novels already mentioned, notably Isabella Orsini (1845) and Beatrice Cenci (1854), and his Opere were collected at Milan (1868).

See the Life and Works by Bosio (1877), and Carducci’s edition of his letters (1880).