Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi

He began to practice in Livorno, but soon gave up law in favour of politics and literature, being particularly influenced by Byron,[1] to whom he dedicated his "Stanze" (1825).

While confined to Montepulciano he began work on his most famous novel, L'Assedio di Firenze - based on and greatly glorifying the life of the 16th Century Florentine soldier Francesco Ferruccio.

In 1848 Guerrazzi was appointed a minister, with some idea of mediating between the reformers and the grand duke of Tuscany, Leopold II.

When in 1854 Beatrice Cenci was lambasted by Francesco de Sanctis (who now favored the House of Savoy leadership for Italy), he wrote to a friend: "Honoured Alessandro Manzoni, I am put down... to think that as far back as '40 Britons and Germans saw us as leaders of two different schools, and his they labelled sleep-inducing".

In one of his prison letters Gramsci refers to Guerrazzi and Bresciani as left and right variants of the same bitterly sectarian type of historical novel.