FOGAZZARO, ANTONIO (1842-1911), Italian novelist and poet, was born at Vicenza on March 25, 1842. He was a pupil of the Abate Zanella, one of the best of the modern Italian poets, whose tender, thoughtful and deeply religious spirit continued to animate his literary productions. He began his literary career with Miranda, a poetical romance (1874), followed in 1876 by Valsolda, which, republished in 1886 with considerable additions, is perhaps his best poem. To the classic grandeur of Carducci and D'Annunzio's impetuous torrent of melody Fogazzaro opposes a Wordsworthian simplicity and pathos. His novels, Malombra (1882), the hero of which, Corrado Silli, is said to reflect his own personality, Daniele Cortis (1887), Misterio del Poeta (1888), did not gain universal popularity until they were discovered and taken up by French critics in 1896. The demand then became prodigious and a new work, Piccolo Mondo antico (1896), which critics far from friendly to Fogazzaro's religious and philosophical ideas pronounced the best Italian novel since I Promessi Sposi, went through many editions; it is a tale of the liberation of Lombardy and Venetia. Even greater sensation was caused by his novel Il Santo (The Saint, 1906), on account of its being treated as unorthodox by the Vatican; and Fogazzaro's sympathy with the Liberal Catholic movement—his own Catholicism being well known—made this novel a centre of discussion in the Roman Catholic world. He is also concerned with ethical and religious problems in the volumes of stories Fedele, ed altri racconti (1887 ) and Idilli sj5ezzati (1900, and in his essays : Discorsi (1898) and Ascensioni umane (5899). He died at Vicenza on March 7, 1911. Many of his works have been translated, but, as their beauty depends so much on atmosphere, they lose in the process.
See E. Donadoni, Antonio Fogazzaro (1913) ; L. Gennari, Fogazzaro (1918) and Ritratto di un poeta, Antonio Fogazzaro (Bergamo, 1921) ; F. Crispolti, Antonio Fogazzaro; Discorso Commemorativo (191I) ; Gallarati-Scotti, The Life of Antonio Fogazzaro (1922).