Giovanni Battista Niccolini

Giovanni Battista Niccolini
1864 portrait by Stefano Ussi
Born	29 October 1782 Bagni San Giuliano
Died	20 September 1861 Florence
Nationality	Italian
Occupation	poet and playwright

Giovanni Battista Niccolini (29 October 1782 – 20 September 1861) was an Italian poet and playwright of the Italian unification movement or Risorgimento.

Niccolini was born in Bagni San Giuliano in 1792.

He wrote his first play in Greek in 1810. The play was strongly based on Greek legeng and it was called Polissena. This tragedy about the sacrifice of a virgin was so favourably received that his next three plays were also tragedies.

In 1846 his play, Arnold of Brescia: A Tragedy. was translated by the English immigrant Theodosia Trollope into English and published. This work was also taken up by Robert Browning. The work was written in support of the formation of Italy.

Niccolini died in Florence in 1861

Some of his words were used in the book reading by La lettrice sculpture created by Pietro Magni.

There is a Via Giovanni Battista Niccolini in Chinatown in Milan.

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Wikipedia