Federico De Roberto


Federico De Roberto was an Italian writer, who became well known for his historical novel I Viceré, translated as The Viceroys.

Biography

Born in Naples, he moved as a child with his family to Catania, where he lived practically all of his life. He began his writing career working as a journalist for national newspapers, where he met Giovanni Verga and Luigi Capuana, the most prominent writers of the Verismo movement. Verga introduced him into the literary circles of Milan.
Like Capuana and Verga, De Robertohe too observed the psychological makeup of his characters in the light of the positivist science of his times. But in contrast to his older contemporaries, he emphasized less the power of human passions and desires than their relation to an inner world of illusion and deception in which, he believed, they originated. His collections of short stories, La sorte, Documenti umani, Processi verbali, and L'albero della scienza, all explore the psychological dimension of his characters' actions. His first novel, Ermanno Raeli, is largely autobiographical, while L'illusione is devoted to a female protagonist and her illusion of love.
In 1894 his novel I Viceré was published. It was the result of years of hard work, but obtained little success upon its release. Disillusionment and nervous disorders induced De Roberto to resume journalistic work: he became a writer for the Corriere della Sera and the Giornale d'Italia. Only later, after some experience as a playwright, he returned to the novel, with L'Imperio, an unfinished sequel to I Viceré. The novel concentrated on the public and political life of Rome, viewed through the life of the reactionary Prince Consalvo, who, at the conclusion of I Viceré, was elected to parliament by popular vote. In L'imperio, De Roberto takes his negative perspective to the extreme point of social and political nihilism. He died in Catania on 26 July 1927, at age 66.

I Viceré

The novel consists of three parts and is based upon the story of the fictional Uzeda princes of Francalanza, a noble family of Catania of Spanish origins. This family served as viceroys during the previous Spanish rule. The plot, focusing on the social and political background of the time, follows the private history of the Uzedas during the last year of Bourbon domination in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the first decades of the Kingdom of Italy, portraying the transition from feudalism to a parliamentary system.
The Uzedas are depicted, in their will to power, desperation, and cruelty, as representatives of a race that has degenerated into madness. Yet, however delirious and blind to social and political realities, they are capable of adapting to the new order, accommodating their economic interests with those of the bourgeoisie to retain their privileges and capacity to rule. De Roberto's wholely negative message is that history is monotonous repetition; what looks like change is only an illusion: the nobility will always find a way of being in control. It is a message meant to undermine bourgeois belief in social progress.
De Roberto uses the literary style of verismo and adopts no privileged point of view, but instead displays a plurality of voices. Mass scenes are present, as well as the detailed description of various social backgrounds. The primary aim of all members of the Uzeda family is to retain power regardless of the changes that occur, even if this requires actions that the reader will undoubtedly judge to be cynical or even absurd. De Roberto portrays a world undergoing fundamental change, but which seemingly holds no hope for the future: no aspect of society is represented as free from corruption.
The novel influenced Pirandello's I vecchi e i giovani and Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's The Leopard. It was adapted to cinema by director Roberto Faenza in 2007.

Works

Monographs

  • The Uzeda Family chronicles

  • , reprinted Milan: Aldo Garzanti, 1959; published in English as The Viceroys, London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1962, translated by Archibald Colquhoun.

  • Short story collections

  • Milan: Libreria editrice Galli. 1892. Milan: Fratelli Treves. 1910. Milan: Fratelli Treves. 1919.
  • Milan: Fratelli Treves. 1890 Milan: Libreria editrice Galli. 1896. Milan: Galli, Baldini & Castoldi. 1898.

  • Letters

  • Edited by Sarah Zappulla Muscarà. Catania: Tringale. 1978.
  • Edited by Sarah Zappulla Muscarà. Rome: Bulzoni. 1979.
  • Critical edition edited by Teresa Volpe. Rome: Aracne Editrice. 2013.

    Poetry

  • Theatrical works

  • Il Rosario
  • La tormenta – dramatic treatment of Spasimo from 1897
  • La strada maestra – dramatic treatment of La messa di nozze from 1911

    Other writings

  • Edited by Niccolò Giannotta 1881.
  • Edited by Niccolò Giannotta. 1883.
  • Milan: Baldini, Castoldi & C. 1902. Milan; Rome: Mondadori. 1923.
  • Published in English as
  • Catania 1907 Expo. Illustrated album compiled under the direction of Federico De Roberto. Catania: Galatola. 1908.
  • Edited by Sarah Zappulla Muscarà. Rome: Curcio. 1979.
  • Edited by Carlo A. Madrignani for the collection I Meridiani. Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. 1984. ** Contains: L'illusione; I Viceré; L'Imperio; La sorte; La disdetta; Nel cortile; La malanova; Documenti umani; Donato Del Piano; Il rosario; I vecchi La scoperta del peccato; Il gran rifiuto; Il paradiso perduto; La paura; Leopardi e Flaubert; Carlo Baudelaire; Gustavo Flaubert – L'opera; Gustavo Flaubert – L'uomo; preface to Documenti umani; preface to Processi verbali; L'albero della scienza; Come si ama; Leopardi – La misantropia; chapter XV from Una pagina della storia dell'amore – Il matrimonio di Bismarck; Il volo di Icaro; Domenico Castorina e Giovanni Verga; to Ferdinando Di Giorgi; to his mother; to Luigi Albertini.