Attilio Hortis

Mario Attilio Francesco Carlo Hortis (born May 13, 1850 in Trieste , Austrian Empire ; died February 23, 1926 in Trieste ) was an Italian literary historian and politician.

Life

Bust of Attilio Hortis in the piazza of the same name in Trieste

Attilio Hortis was born on May 13, 1850 as the son of a lawyer in Trieste , which was part of the Austrian Empire . After finishing school in his hometown, Hortis studied philology and law at the University of Padua . After he had received his law degree in 1871, he repeated the exam again in Graz in 1872 to obtain a title recognized by Austria-Hungary . After completing his studies, he traveled to France, Germany, England and the Netherlands.

After a short career as a lawyer in Trieste, he increasingly devoted himself to literature and was appointed head of the Trieste City Library in 1873 at the age of 22 . As a result, he gave up being a lawyer. From 1875 to 1886, Hortis took over the management of the Archeografo Triestino , a scientific newspaper published regularly by the Società di Minerva . As editor of the Archeografo Triestino , Hortis published important works such as Scritti inediti di Francesco Petrarca (1874), Alcune lettere di Pietro Metastasio pubblicate dagli autografi (1876) and Studi sulle opere latine del Boccaccio (1879). Hortis' writings caught the attention of the public at the time and met with both criticism and recognition at national and European levels. Hortis turned down the subsequent offer to the chair for Romance Philology at the University of Graz and an offer from the prefecture of the national library in Rome.

When Hortis' father died, he left his son in great debt. Due to his now economically limited opportunities, Hortis gave up his time-consuming and costly research into Italy's literary past. He now concentrated increasingly on a political career and became a member of the Partito Liberale Nazionale Giuliano . The highly educated Hortis developed into a party member highly valued by the population. As early as 1897 he was promoted to a member of the Reichsrat in the Vienna Parliament, in which he participated for almost a decade.

After the end of the First World War , Hortis was appointed Senator of the Kingdom on February 24, 1919 , when he represented in particular the interests of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region .

Hortis died on February 23, 1926 in his hometown of Trieste.

On April 26th of the same year, in memory of the Trieste patriots, the Piazza degli Studi , located in the historic center of Trieste between Via dell'Annunziata and Via S. Giorgio, was renamed Piazza Attilio Hortis . In 1950 the name of the city library was changed to Biblioteca Civica Attilio Hortis .

Works

His works, mainly devoted to older Italian literature, are:

• Scritti inediti di Fr. Petrarca , pubblicati ed illustrati (Trieste 1874);
• G. Boccacci, ambasciatore in Avignone, etc. (Trieste 1875);
• Cenni di G. Boccacci intorno a T. Livio (Trieste 1877);
• Le donne famose, descritte da G. Boccacci (Trieste 1877);
• Accenni alle scienze naturali nelle opere di G. Boccacci etc. (Trieste 1877);
• MT Cicerone nelle opere del Petrarca e del Boccaccio (Trieste 1878);
• Studii sopra le opere latine di G. Boccacci (Trieste 1879) and others

literature

• Michele Gottardi:  Hortis, Attilio. In: Mario Caravale (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 61:  Guglielmo Gonzaga-Jacobini. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2003.
• Hortis Attilio. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 2, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1959, p. 429.

Web links

• Entry in the Senatori dell'Italia liberale database of the Historical Archives of the Italian Senate
• Bust of Attilio Hortis