Guelfo Civinini

Guelfo Civinini (1 August 1873, Livorno – 10 April 1954, Rome)[1] was an Italian poet, playwright, novelist, journalist, critic, opera librettist, academic, military combatant, Western explorer, documentary filmmaker, and archaeologist.

Best known internationally as the author of the libretto for Giacomo Puccini's opera La fanciulla del West (1910), Civinini began his career as a writer in the 1890s working as both a journalist and critic of literature and art for a variety of Italian newspapers and magazines.

In 1934 he purchased the Tower of Santa Liberata in Monte Argentario where he performed his own excavations which resulted in the discovery of the Villa Enobarbi built at the time of the Roman Empire.

He began his career as a writer working as a journalist and both a literary and art critic for several publications in the 1890s, including the magazine Il Marzocco and the Rome newspaper La Tribuna among others.

He had his first major critical success with his poem Gattacieca for which he won a national literary prize in 1906; an award adjudicated by Giovanni Verga, Luigi Capuana, and Federico De Roberto.

[3] His output of literature also included books of poetry, non-fiction, and fiction; short stories; literary criticism, and plays.

[1] A believer in the "journalist-fighter", Civinini not only reported on the war but also participated as a combatant earning multiple military awards for bravery.

Initially accused of wrong-doing by the Commissione di epurazione in 1945, an official anti-Italian Facisct commission equivalent to the denazification tribunals in Germany following the Second World War, he was eventually cleared of all charges in 1948.

[1] His other experiences in Africa were chronicled in the autobiographical works Sotto le piogge equatoriali (1930, Rome) and Ricordi di carovana (1932, Milan).

In 1939 he was elected as a member of the Royal Academy of Italy and was named "Honorary Inspector for Monuments, Excavations and Works of Antiquity and Art for Monteargentario and Orbetello" by that institution.