DE SANCTIS, Fit %Nurse° (1S17 s:n. \it Dalian literary critic and statesman.
lie was born at Alorra Irpitio, and at an early 111.Voted to the of literature and philosophy. Ile eompleted his edneation in the renowned institute of the \larches,. Basilic) and when barely eighteen of age entered upon the career of r.vr t WO years he taught in the military •olkgio della Niniziatellt at Naples, and then founded a prkate school of I IM /I M111111 M on the highest repu tation. Ili, critieal t he classic all 1 1 ta Ilan attracted :t multitude of students.
held oll ee in the Department of Ptiblie Instruction tinder the IZe‘ohitionary I:o%erninen. of Isis, he was arrested on the restoration of tit. Bourbons, and for three tears kept in close eon tine meta ill the t astello dell' at Naples, On his release he took refuge in Malta, and thence went to Turin, where his original and eloquent lectures on the Dirina conimeilio commanded universal admiration. and led to his being called, in 1S56, to the Polytechnic Institute at Zurich as professor of ;esthetics and Italian literature. In 1860 he was made Minister of Public Instrue thin at Naples, and held the same (ace for the Einrdom of Italy three times—in 1861-62, under t'avour and Ilicasoli ; in 1S7S, under Cairoli; and again in 1S79-80, under the administration of Cairoli-Depretis. As a member of the Italian
Chamber of Deputies, after 1561. lie was a parti san of the Moderate Liberals. On his first retire ment from public °thee, in 1862, lie resumed his profession of teaching at Naples, where he also founded and edited the journal L'Itolia. In 1871 he was appointed professor at the University of Naples.
De Sancti, exercised considerable influence on contemporaneous Italian literature as a critic, but even more as a teacher, giving a new im petus to literary criticism in Italy. His writ lot 23 are few. but of the highest order. Fore most them is to be mentioned his Storia drlla letteratura italiana (3(1 ed. 1579). Be sides this, lie published: Saggi critici (186S; 41.1i ed. ISS1) ; Naggio critic() sill Petra••a (18(9); Nuori saggi eritiei (1872). After his death went' published: Studio su thucomo Leo pardi (1SS5) ; La letteratu•a itulianu net secolo SIX. (15971; Seritti rarii incditi (MS).