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| | CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Italian Literature (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-04) |
 | | Three Jesuits are among the chief prose writers of the century, combining devotion and learning with a literary style which, though far less free than Galileo's from the faults of the age, is unsurpassed by any of their contemporaries. |
 | | The same ideals inform his masterpiece, "I Promessi Sposi" (1827), a realistic romance with a historical background, as admirable in characterization and description, in pathos and in humour, as it is lofty in its idealism. |
 | | To the school of Manzoni, similarly combining fervent Catholicism with nationalistic enthusiasm, belong Tommaso Grossi (1790-1853), poet and novelist; Silvio Pellico (1789-1854), whose "Le Mie Prigioni" describes with pathetic detail and Christian resignation his cruel imprisonment at the hands of the Austrians; and Cesare Cantù (1804-95), better known for his later voluminous works on history. |
| www.newadvent.org /cathen/08245a.htm (5875 words) |
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