Born July 27, 1835, in Val di Castello, Tuscany; died Feb. 16, 1907, in Bologna. Italian poet.

The son of a doctor who was a Carbonarist, Carducci graduated from the secondary school in Pisa. In the 1860’s he supported G. Mazzini and G. Garibaldi. Later, when Italy was united, Carducci accepted the bourgeois monarchy. In the 1890’s he held the post of senator. As a poet, Carducci opposed the sentimental, religious works of the romantics and favored courageous and joyous poetry in the spirit of classicism. His narrative poem Hymn to Satan (published 1865) praises freedom, worldly pleasures, and the victory of human reason over religion. In his most significant collection, Iambs and Epodes (1867–79), Carducci grieves for the heroes who died for Italy and castigates the bourgeois opportunists who used the victory of the people for their own selfish ends. In his lyrical collection New Rhymes (1861–87), romantic motifs and a tendency to realism are evident. His poems in the collection Barbarian Odes (1877–89) are based on ancient metrics. Carducci is also famous as a critic; he wrote articles on Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1906.