Luigi Settembrini (17 April 1813,

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

– 3 November 1877,

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

) was an Italian man of letters and politician.

Biography

Born in Naples, his paternal grandfather was an immigrant from Bollita (the actual

Nova Siri Nova Siri is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Matera, in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata. Nova Siri is close to the site of the ancient Ionians, Ionian colony of Siris (Magna Graecia), Siris. Nova Siri is formed by two small town ...

), in the

province of Matera The province of Matera ( it, Provincia di Matera; Materano: ) is a province in the Basilicata region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Matera. It has an area of and a total population of 201,133; the city Matera has a population of 61,204. Th ...

. Aged 22, he was appointed professor of eloquence at

Catanzaro Catanzaro (, or ; scn, label= Catanzarese, Catanzaru ; , or , ''Katastaríoi Lokrói''; ; la, Catacium), also known as the "City of the two Seas", is an Italian city of 86,183 inhabitants (2020), the capital of the Calabria region and of its p ...

, and married Raffaela Luigia Faucitano (1835). While still a young man he had been affected by the wave of

liberalism Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for c ...

then spreading all over Italy, and soon after his marriage he began to conspire mildly against the Bourbon government. Betrayed by a priest, he was arrested in 1839 and imprisoned at Naples; although liberated three years later he lost his professorship and had to maintain himself by private lessons. Nevertheless, he continued to conspire, and in 1847 he published anonymously the ''Protest of the People of the Two Sicilies'', a scathing indictment of the Bourbon government. On the advice of friends he went to

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

on a British warship, but although, when King Ferdinand II granted a constitution (February 16, 1848), he returned to Naples and was given an appointment at the ministry of education, he soon resigned on account of the prevailing chaos, and retired to a farm at

Posillipo Posillipo (; nap, Pusilleco ) is an affluent residential quarter of Naples, southern Italy, located along the northern coast of the Gulf of Naples. From the 1st century BC the Bay of Naples witnessed the rise of villas constructed by elite Roma ...

. When reaction set in, once more Settembrini was arrested as a suspect (June 1849) and imprisoned. After trial, he and two other "politicals" were condemned to death, and nineteen others to varying terms of imprisonment (February 1851). The death sentences were, however, commuted to imprisonment for life, and Settembrini was sent to the dungeons of Santo Stefano. There he remained for eight years. His friends, including

Antonio Panizzi Sir Antonio Genesio Maria Panizzi (16 September 1797 – 8 April 1879), better known as Anthony Panizzi, was a naturalised British citizen of Italian birth, and an Italian patriot. He was a librarian, becoming the Principal Librarian (i.e. head ...

, then in England, made various unsuccessful attempts to liberate him, and at last he was deported with sixty-five other political prisoners. The exiles received an enthusiastic welcome in London, but Settembrini after a short stay in England joined his family at

in 1860. On the formation of the Italian kingdom he was appointed professor of Italian literature at the university of Naples, and devoted the rest of his life to literary pursuits. In 1875, he was nominated senator. His chief work is his ''Lezioni di letteratura italiana'', of which the dominant note is the conviction that Italian literature "is as the very soul of the nation, seeking, in opposition to medieval mysticism, reality, freedom, independence of reason, truth and beauty" ( P. Villari). Settembrini's homosexuality was first mentioned in 1977, the year of the publication of The Neoplatonics, a homoerotic fantasy written while in prison soon after completing his translation of Lucian (1858–1859). Left among his papers at his death, the manuscript was afterwards read by Benedetto Croce, who advised against publication.Robert Aldrich, Garry Wotherspoon. ''Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History'', 2013

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Settembrini, Luigi 1813 births 1877 deaths Italian academics 19th-century Neapolitan people Italian gay writers Italian LGBT politicians Italian people of the Italian unification Members of the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy Exiled Italian politicians