BONGHI, bentO, (182S-95). An Italian man of letters and politician. lle was horn in Naples, March 20, 1828. Big literary activity began at the age of 20. with a trans lation of Plato's Philebus. His active share in the political events of 1848 forced him into temporary exile; and a chance meeting at Lake Maggiore with Manzoni and Rosmini-Ser bati soon bore fruit in his much-discussed Critical Letters on the Reason Why Italian Lit erature is Not Popular (3d ed.. 1873). In 1858 appeared his translation of Plato, Opere di Pla tone, and of the Metaphysics of Aristotle; and the following year he refused to receive from Austria a chair of philosophy in the University of Pavia, but afterwards accepted it from his own country, when Pavia had reverted to Italy. Thereafter he was connected successively with the universities of Turin, Florence, Milan. and filially (1870) Borne. where he was professor emeritus of ancient history at the time of his death. Bonghi was
a man of great activity and many interests. From 1860 he sat almost continuously in the Chamber of Deputies, where he supported the Conservative Party. in 1874-76 he was :Minister of Public Instruction. In journalism he was equally active, editing successively the Verse veranza of and the Unite, Nazionale of Naples, and founding the Stamit, which is still the leading journal of Turin. and the magazine Cultura. which he edited until his death in 1895. Ile was for many years president of the Italian Press Association. Among his many published works may be mentioned: Pius IX. and the Pa tare Pope (1877): Leo Sill, and Italy (1878); Contemporaneous Portraits: Ca roar, Bismarck, niers (1879); Disraeli and Gladstone (1882); History of Rome (1884-88) ; Arnaldo do Brescia (1884); The Roman. Pestirols (1891).