GIUSTI, GIUSEPPE (1809-185o), Tuscan satirical poet, was born at Monsummano, a small village of the Valdinievole, on May 12, 1809. In 1826 he went to study law at Pisa; he spent eight years in the course, instead of the customary four. He lived gaily, and learned to know the world, its vices and follies. The experience thus gained he turned to account in his satires.
With the poem called La Ghigliottina a vapore (1833) Giusti revealed his genius. From this time he showed himself the Italian Beranger. In 1834 Giusti began nominally to practice as an advo cate in Florence. To this period belong the Dies Irae (1835) on the death of the emperor Francis I. and many of his finest verses which for some years passed from hand to hand. His poems were published clandestinely at Lugano, at some risk, as the work was destined to undermine the Austrian rule in Italy. Giusti thoroughly established his fame by his Gingillino, ex posing the vileness of the treasury officials, and the base means they used to conceal the necessities of the state. The Gingillino has all the characteristics of a classic satire. His Delenda Carthago (1846), Alli spettri del 4 Settembre (1847), La Republica (1848), furthered the revolution. Giusti entered heart and soul into the political movements of 1847 and 1848, served in the national guard, sat in the parliament for Tuscany ; but finding that there was more talk than action, that to the tyranny of princes had succeeded the tyranny of demagogues, he expressed his opinions freely and in 1848 was regarded as a reactionary. His friendship for the marquis Gino Capponi, who had taken him into his house during the last years of his life, was enough to compromise him in the eyes of Guerrazzi, Montanelli and Niccolini. On May 31, 185o he died at Florence in the palace of his friend, the marquis Gino Capponi.
The best of the many editions of Giusti's poems are those of Carducci (1859; 3rd ed., 1879), G. Fioretti-Donati (1913 and 1926), and F. Martini 0914). For translations see W. D. Howells, Modern Italian Poets (1887). See his letters, Epistolario, ed. G. Frassi (1859), and F. Martini (3 vols., Florence, 1904) ; and Memoire inedite ed. F. Martini (3 vols., Milan, 1890, 1904) .