Nationality Italian Occupation poet and playwright | Name Giovanni Niccolini Role Poet | |
Born 29 October 1792 Bagni San Giuliano Died September 20, 1861, Florence, Italy | ||
Giovanni Battista Niccolini (29 October 1782 – 20 September 1861) was an Italian poet and playwright of the Italian unification movement or Risorgimento.
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Life
Niccolini was born in Bagni San Giuliano in 1792.
He wrote his first play in Greek in 1810. The play was strongly based on Greek legeng and it was called Polissena. This tragedy about the sacrifice of a virgin was so favourably received that his next three plays were also tragedies.
In 1846 his play, Arnold of Brescia: A Tragedy. was translated by the English immigrant Theodosia Trollope into English and published. This work was also taken up by Robert Browning. The work was written in support of the formation of Italy.
Niccolini died in Florence in 1861
On popular culture
Some of his words were used in the book reading by La lettrice sculpture created by Pietro Magni.
Legacy
There is a Via Giovanni Battista Niccolini in Chinatown in Milan.