{{Short description|Italian writer (1867–1927)}} {{Use dmy dates |date=March 2025}} thumb|''Augusto Novelli'' '''Augusto Novelli''' (17 January 1867 – 7 November 1927), also known as '''Novellino''', was an Italian Florentine satirical journalist, dramatist, and novelist.
Aa a prolific playwright who completed more than fifty dramatic pieces, many of which are in the Florentine dialect of the Tuscan language, Novelli is regarded as one of the founding fathers of the modern Florentine vernacular theatre.
==Biography== Well known for his lifelong association with the city of Florence, Augusto Novelli was born there on 17 January 1867. Largely self-educated, Novelli succeeded in becoming an erudite intellectual despite a minimal formal education that ended only after three years of primary school.<ref name = "ABPN">Bencistà, Alessandro (2008). [http://www.pannostrale.it/vernacolo-fiorentino.html "La commedia in vernacolo fiorentino dall'abate Zannoni a Giovanni Nannini".] Retrieved 24 July 2010. {{in lang|it}}</ref>
Fascinated by the creative world of the Italian theatre from an early age, Novelli managed to complete the farce ''Una sfida ai bagni'' (''A Challenge to the Baths'') as a teenager and wrote early plays such as ''La capanna del veterano'' (''The Veteran's Cabin'') and ''La Società dei senza testa'' (''Society of the Headless'') in the 1880s.<ref name = "ABPN"/>
After founding the satirical magazine ''Il vero Monello'' (''The True Rogue'') and becoming its chief editor in 1888, he soon focused his attention on Florentine drama, which began to appear in Novelli's journal in the Florentine vernacular form in 1892.<ref name = "Haller 1999">Haller, Hermann W. (1999). ''The Other Italy: The Literary Canon in Dialect''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. p. 196. {{ISBN|978-0-8020-4424-2}}.</ref><ref>Carlson, Matvin (1981). ''The Italian Stage from Goldoni to D'Annunzio''. Jefferson, N.C. and London: McFarland & Company. p. 174. {{ISBN|978-0-89950-000-3}}.</ref>
As a politically active member of the intelligentsia from the beginning of his career, Novelli was around the establishment as a young man. In the 1890s, he was given a fifteen-month prison term as punishment for his adherence to the socialist movement during a period of fierce political conservatism.<ref name = "MacClintock 1951">MacClintock, Lander (1951). ''The Age of Pirandello''. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 113.</ref><ref name = "Nove da Firenze 2000">[http://www.nove.firenze.it/vediarticolo.asp?id=a0.02.15.12.10 "La Libreria Chiari riscopre le commedie vernacolari di Augusto Novelli"] (15 February 2000). ''Nove da Firenze''. Retrieved 11 July 2010. {{in lang|it}}</ref> Despite this political martyrdom, Novelli would later be expelled by the Italian Socialist Party's radical elements for being too reformist, or impermissibly moderate. <ref name="Carmignano">[http://www.carmignanodivino.prato.it/eventi/htm/verna.htm "Il vernacolo di Augusto Novelli"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110722045056/http://www.carmignanodivino.prato.it/eventi/htm/verna.htm |date=July 22, 2011 }} (2003). ''Insieme a Carmignano''. Associazione Turistica Pro Loco di Carmignano. Retrieved 24 July 2010. {{in lang|it}}</ref>
Novelli's ''Il morticino'' (''The Dead Child''), a play written during his prison term, premiered in 1893 while the dramatist was still carrying on his work from behind bars.<ref name = "CCI Marco Polo">[http://win.association-marcopolo.org/IT/7-Tea/pag12.html "Teatro della Rosa e L’Associazione Musicale Schola Cantorum di Rosignano presentano L'Acqua Cheta..."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110725021706/http://win.association-marcopolo.org/IT/7-Tea/pag12.html |date=2011-07-25 }} Centre Culturel International Marco Polo. Retrieved 11 July 2010. {{in lang|it}}</ref> The subsequent year witnessed the debut of Novelli's ''Purgatorio, Inferno, Paradiso'' (''Purgatory, Inferno, Paradise''). In Britain, the Victorian era freethinker Samuel Porter Putnam observed that "Novelli. . . was cheered when acquitted on the charges of irreverence and blasphemy."<ref name = "Putnam 1894">Putnam, Samuel P. (1894). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=DuYqAAAAYAAJ&q=400+Years+of+Freethought 400 Years of Freethought.]'' New York: The Truth Seeker Company. [https://books.google.com/books?id=DuYqAAAAYAAJ&q=Vero+Monello&pg=PA643 p. 643.]</ref>
The play regarded as Novelli's most notable theatrical work, ''L'acqua cheta'' (''Still Water''), first opened at Florence's Teatro Alfieri on 28 January 1908. Though since hailed as a classic masterpiece of Florentine comedy{{spaced ndash}}even described as the beginning of the modern Florentine vernacular theater<ref name = "ABPN"/>{{spaced ndash}}the work opened to mixed critical reviews that were largely negative, at first receiving a positive review from only one critic, Mario Ferrigni.<ref name = "Nove da Firenze 2000"/> It nonetheless enjoyed an overwhelming popular success among theater-goers.<ref name = "ABPN"/> The play was later turned into an operetta after receiving a musical score from composer Giuseppe Pietri. The Novelli-Pietro operetta premiered on 27 November 1920 in Rome.
The numerous other productions born out of Novelli's fruitful association with the Alfieri, included the premieres of ''Acqua passata'' (''Water Under the Bridge'') in 1908; ''Casa mia'' (''My House''), ''L'ascensione'' (''The Ascension''), and ''L'Ave Maria'' (''Ave Maria'') in 1909; ''Gallina vecchia'' (''The Old Hen'') in 1911; ''La Cupola'' (''The Cupola'') in 1913; and ''Canapone'' in 1914.
Aside from his two decades with ''Il vero Monello'', Novelli's contributions to periodicals included material for ''Firenze a zig-zag'' in 1912 and ''La Kultureide'' in 1916.<ref name = "ABPN"/> Novelli's other efforts outside of drama included the 1902 ''Lotte sociali'' (''Social Struggles''), an original translation of Victor Hugo's notes regarding his participation in attempts to effect social and political change in France, and ''Firenze presa sul serio'' (''Florence Taken Seriously''), a novel first published for the Florentine readers in 1902. Novelli's novel ultimately reappeared in a 1908 edition illustrated by Gustavo Rosso and prefaced by author and politician Otello Masini.
Among Novelli's collaborators in the theatrical world was the influential actor-manager Andrea Niccoli (1862–1917), remembered as an instrumental promoter of Novelli's ''L'acqua cheta'' and other plays. <ref name = "Pontiero 1982">Noccioli, Guido, and Giovanni Pontiero (Ed.) (1982). ''Duse on Tour: Guido Noccioli's Diaries, 1906-1907''. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. p. 163. {{ISBN|978-0-87023-369-2}}.</ref>
Novelli died on 7 November 1927 in Carmignano. He was aged sixty years at the time, five years after dictator Benito Mussolini's fascist takeover of the country. He spent his final years in seclusion from public life in the Tuscan community about 20 km west of Florence where a commemorative bust, installed in the municipal chamber, now honours him. <ref name = "Carmignano"/>
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20110604145759/http://www.liberliber.it/biblioteca/h/hugo/lotte_sociali/pdf/lotte__p.pdf Electronic version of ''Lotte sociali'' (1902)]{{spaced ndash}}Novelli's Italian translation of Victor Hugo in PDF format from the Manuzio Project / Liber Liber <http://www.liberliber.it>
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