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Antonio Fogazzaro, the most eminent Italian novelist since Manzoni, was born at Vicenza, on March 25, 1842. He was happy in his parents, his father, Mariano Fogazzaro, being a man of refined tastes and sound learning, while his mother, Teresa Barrera, united feminine sweetness with wit and a warm heart. From childhood they influenced all sides of his nature, and when the proper time came they put him in charge of a wise tutor, Professor Zanella, who seems to have divined his pupil's talents and the best way to cultivate them. Young Fogazzaro, having completed his course in the classics, went on to the study of the law, which he pursued first in the University of Padua, and then at Turin, whither his father had taken up a voluntary exile; for Vicenza, during the forties and fifties, lay under Austrian subjection, and any Italian who desired to breathe freely in Italy, had to seek the liberal air of Piedmont.

Fogazzaro received his diploma in due season, and began to practise as advocate, but in that casual way common to young men who know that their real leader is not Themis, but Apollo. Ere long he abandoned the Bar and devoted himself with equal enthusiasm to music and poetry, for both of which he had unusual aptitude. Down to 1881 he printed chiefly volumes of verse, which gave him a genuine, if not popular reputation. In that year, he brought out his first romance, Malombra, and from time to time during the past quarter of a century he has followed it with Daniele Cortis, Il Mistero del Poeta, Piccolo Mondo Antico, Piccolo Mondo Modemo, and finally, in the autumn of 1905, Il Santo. This list by no means exhausts his