Pellico, Silvio

Related Category: Italian Literature: Biographies

(sēl´vyō pĕl´lēkō), 1789–1854, Italian dramatic poet. His principal work is Francesca da Rimini (1815, tr. 1856). Imprisoned for eight years by the Austrians as a Carbonarist (see Carbonari), he wrote a candid and moving account of his prison life, Le mie prigioni (1832, tr. My Prisons, 1833), which created widespread sympathy for the Risorgimento movement.