ALESSANDRO

ANCONA (1835– )  , Italian critic and man of letters, was born at Pisa on the loth of February 1835, of a wealthy Jewish family, and educated in Florence; at the age of eighteen he published his essay on the life and work of the philosopher Tommaso Campanella . In 1855 Ancona went to Turin, nominally to study law, but in reality to act as intermediary between the Tuscan Liberals and Cavour; he was an intimate friend of Luigi Carlo Farini (q.v.) and represented Tuscany in the Society Nazionale . On the fall of the Austrian dynasty in Tuscany (April 27, 1859) he returned to Florence, where he edited the newly founded newspaper La Nazione . In 1861 he was appointed professor of Italian literature at the university of Pisa . Among his works the following may be mentioned: Opera di Tommaso Campanella, 2 vols . (Turin, 18J4); Sacre Rappresentazioni dei secoli XI V., X V., e X VI . (3 vols., Florence, 1872); Origini del Teatro in Italia (2 vols., Florence, 1877); La Poesia popolare italiana (Livorno, 1878), besides several volumes of literary essays, editions of the works of Dante and other early Italian writers, &c .