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Italian historian From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cesare Cantù (Italian pronunciation: [ˈtʃeːzare kanˈtu, ˈtʃɛː-]; December 5, 1804 – March 11, 1895) was an Italian historian, writer, archivist and politician. An immensely prolific writer, Cantù was one of Italy's best-known and most important Romantic scholars.
Cantù was born December 5, 1804, at Brivio, near Como in Lombardy. He studied in Milan, at the Barnabite College of St. Alexander, and began his career as a teacher.[1] In 1822 he began teaching literature at the liceo in his native Brivio. He went on to teach in Como, and in 1832 in Milan. His first literary essay (1828) was a romantic poem entitled Algiso, and in the following year, he produced a Storia della città e della diocesi di Como in two volumes (Como, 1829). Shortly afterwards appeared Ragionamenti sulla Storia Lombarda nel secolo XVII (Milan, 1832), which was published later under the title Commento storico ai Promessi Sposi de A. Manzoni, o la Lombardia nel secolo XVII.[2] The death of his father then left him in charge of a large family, and he worked very hard both as a teacher and a writer to provide for them. His prodigious literary activity led to his falling under the suspicions of the Austrian police, who thought he was a member of Young Italy, and he was arrested in 1833.[3]
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While in prison, writing materials were denied him, but he managed to write on rags with a tooth-pick and candle smoke, and thus composed the historical novel Margherita Pusterla (Milan, 1838). On his release a year later, as he was prohibited from teaching,[1] literature became his only recourse. In 1836 the Turinese publisher, Giuseppe Pomba, commissioned him to write a universal history, which his vast reading enabled him to do. In six years the work was completed in seventy-two volumes, and immediately achieved a general popularity; the publisher made a fortune out of it, and Cantù's royalties amounted, it is said, to 300,000 lire (£12,000).[3] The work was often reprinted, and has been translated into English, German, French, and Spanish.[2] It is the first historical work by an Italian which, in a well-finished and vigorous style, gives a philosophical treatment of the development of all civilized peoples from the remotest times to the pontificate of Pius IX.[2] In 1846 Cantù published a successful collection of poems for children entitled Fior di memoria pei bambini.[4] He collaborated with the most important Italian academic journals, including the Annali universali di statistica, directed by Gian Domenico Romagnosi, the Antologia, directed by Giovan Pietro Vieusseux, and the Ricoglitore italiano e straniero, which mainly dealt with historical and literary subjects.[5]
Just before the revolution of 1848, being warned that he would be arrested, he fled to Turin, but after the Five Days he returned to Milan and edited a paper called La Guardia Nazionale. Between 1849 and 1850 he published his Storia degli Italiani (Turin, 1855) and many other works. In 1857 the archduke Maximilian tried to conciliate the Milanese by the promise of a constitution, and Cantù was one of the few Liberals who accepted the olive branch, and went about in company with the archduke. This act was regarded as treason and caused Cantù much annoyance in later years. He continued his literary activity after the formation of the Italian kingdom, producing volume after volume until his death. He was a member of Parliament from 1859 to 1861; in 1873 he founded the Lombard historical society, and was appointed superintendent of the State Archives of Milan.[3] In 1875 he became a member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.[6]
Cantù died in Milan on March 11, 1895, and was buried in his hometown of Brivio.[1] Cantù showed the influence of the Romantic school, of which Alessandro Manzoni is the most important representative, and he sought to combine Church and State, politics and religion. The effect of the Romantic movement is particularly evident in those works in which Cantù treated the history of Italy of his own time, as in: Storia dei cent'anni, 1750-1850 (5 vols., Florence, 1851); Storia degli Italiani (3 vols., Turin, 1879).[2] His brother Ignazio (1810-1877) was, like him, a teacher and prolific writer, principally of historical and educational works of a strongly moralizing nature. His best-known fiction is the historical novel Il marchese Annibale Perrone (1842), which, like its Manzonian model, is set in the 17th century.
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