Camillo Federici (9 April 1749 – 23 December 1802) was an Italian

dramatist A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

and

actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li ...

. He was born at

Garessio Garessio is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Cuneo in the Italian region Piedmont, located about south of Turin and about southeast of Cuneo. The former Savoy family palace, the Reggia di Val Casotto is located within the town li ...

, a small town in

Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

. His real name was Giovanni Battista Viassolo; he took his pen-name from the title of one of his first pieces, ''Camillo e Federico''. He was educated at

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

, and showed an early fondness for literature, especially for the theatre. The praise he received for his early attempts made him persevere this choice of career, and he obtained engagements with several companies both as writer and actor. He made a happy marriage in 1777, and soon afterwards left the stage and devoted himself entirely to writing. He settled at

Padua Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...

, and the reputation of his numerous comedies rapidly spread in Italy, for a time eclipsing that of his predecessors. Most of his plays were

melodrama A modern melodrama is a dramatic work in which the plot, typically sensationalized and for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or exces ...

s, and his work became repetitive, but he caught something of the new spirit appearing in German dramatic literature, in the works of Schiller, Iffland and

Kotzebue Kotzebue ( ) or Qikiqtaġruk ( , ) is a city in the Northwest Arctic Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is the borough's seat, by far its largest community and the economic and transportation hub of the subregion of Alaska encompassing t ...

. When his financial success came to an end, he found a helpful friend in a wealthy merchant of Padua, Francis Barisan, for whose private theatre he wrote many pieces. In 1791 he became dangerously ill and was unable to work for several years. His works, in the absence of any copyright law, were published by others without his permission. In 1802, he undertook to prepare a collected edition; but of this four volumes only were completed when he was again taken ill, and died at Padua. The publication of his works was completed in 14 volumes in 1816. Another edition in 26 volumes was published at Florence in 1826 to 1827. A biographical memoir of Federici by

Neymar Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior (born 5 February 1992), known as Neymar, is a Brazilian professional association football, footballer who plays as a Forward (association football), forward for Ligue 1 club Paris Saint-Germain F.C., Paris Sain ...

appeared at Venice in 1838. Federici's son Carlo was also a playwright.Bassi, Shaul (2016)
''Shakespeare's Italy and Italy's Shakespeare: Place, "Race," Politics''
pp. 44–45. Springer.

References

* *D'Agostino, John

Online English translation of biography of Federici. Retrieved 30 December 2012 Italian male actors Italian dramatists and playwrights 1749 births 1802 deaths People from the Province of Cuneo {{Italy-stage-actor-stub