Angelo de Gubernatis

Count Angelo de Gubernatis
File:Angelo De Gubernatis.jpg
Born	1840 (1840) Turin
Died	February 26, 1913 (aged 72–73) Rome
Nationality	Italian
Occupation	Philologist, poet
Awards	Nobel Prize nominee

Count Angelo De Gubernatis (1840–26 February 1913), Italian man of letters, was born in Turin and educated there and at Berlin, where he studied philology. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature fourteen times.

Life

In 1862 he was appointed professor of Sanskrit at Florence, but having married a cousin of the Socialist Bakunin and become interested in his views he resigned his appointment and spent some years in travel. He was reappointed, however, in 1867; and in 1891 he was transferred to the University of Rome La Sapienza. He became prominent both as an orientalist, a publicist and a poet. He maintained close ties with Romanian orientalists. At International Congress of Orientalists from Florence in 1878 he invited Bogdan Petriceicu Haşdeu, a prominent Romanian writer and philologist. He was a good friend with the Romanian Princess Dora d'Istria (Elena Ghica) who collaborated with him at Rivista Orientale.

He founded the Italia letteraria (1862), the Rivista orientale (1867), the Civiltà italiana and Rivista europea (1869), the Bollettino italiano degli studii orientali (1876) and the Revue internationale (1883), and in 1887 became director of the Giornale della società asiatica. In 1878 he started the Dizionario biografico degli scrittori contemporanei. He also published a similar anthology for the visual arts and architecture.

His Oriental and mythological works include the Piccola enciclopedia indiana (1867), the Fonti vediche (1868), a famous work on zoological mythology (1872), and another on plant mythology (1878). Between 1881 and 1884 he conceived and directed a magazine for young women titled Cordelia, and in the first issue he invited readers to send in something to be published. One very early contributor, who later became the magazine's director, was Maria Majocchi who, at that time, preferred the pseudonym Margheritina di Cento and later became widely known as Jolanda.

De Gubernatis also edited the encyclopaedic Storia universale della letteratura (1882–1885). His work in verse includes the dramas Gala, Romolo, Il re Nala, Don Rodrigo, Savitri, etc. He was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1886.

In later years he published a series of lectures on Italian poetry (1907), and a Dictionnaire internationale des écrivains du monde latin (1905–6). He died in Rome.

Works

• Piccola enciclopedia indiana (1867)
• La vita e i miracoli del dio Indra nel Rigveda (1867)
• Storia comparata degli usi natalizi, nuziali e muliebri in Italia e presso gli altri popoli indo-europei (1867)
• Le fonti vediche dell'epopea indiana (1867)
• Memorie intorno ai viaggiatori italiani nelle Indie orientali dal secolo XIII a tutto il XVI (1867)
• Studi sull'epopea indiana e su l'opera biblica (1868)
• Zoological Mithology or The Legends of Animals (1871; 2 volumes)
• Cenni sopra alcuni indianisti viventi (1872)
• Letture sopra la mitologia vedica (1874)
• Max Muller e la mitologia comparata (1875)
• Alessandro Manzoni: studio biografico. Letture fatte alla Taylorian Institution di Oxford nel maggio dell'anno 1878 (1879)
• Dizionario biografico degli scrittori contemporanei (1879)
• Letture di archeologia indiana (1881)
• Storia universale della letteratura (1883-1885; 18 volumes)
• Peregrinazioni indiane (1887)
• Mitologia comparata (1887)
• Dante e l'India (1889)
• Gli studi indiani in Italia (1891)
• Piccolo dizionario dei contemporanei italiani (1895)
• I popoli asiatici (1900)
• Fibra. Pagine di ricordi (1900)
• Isabella Morra. Le Rime (1907)
• Storia dell'etnologia (1912)
• Mario Rapisardi (1912; with Remo Sandron)

External links

• Works by Angelo De Gubernatis at Project Gutenberg