Jean Galli de Bibiena (French rendering of Galli da Bibbiena) was an 18th-century French-speaking writer (but of Italian descent), born in 1709 in
Nancy and who may have died in 1779 in Italy. He was the son of
Francesco Galli Bibiena
Francesco Galli, called Francesco da Bibiena (or da Bibbiena), a member of the theatrical Galli da Bibiena family and younger brother of Ferdinando Galli, was born at Bologna in 1659. He first studied under Lorenzo Pasinelli; but he was afterwar ...
, of the famous
Galli da Bibiena family.
Biography
Little is known about him, except that he chose France and literature whereas his family was primarily composed of decorative painters and theater architects. If his first two novels "felt a little too foreign," "the following novels were more in the French taste
..They took place in the traditional world of the sentimental and gallant novel.
[Henri Lafon, op.cit.]"
Published in 1747, his novel ''La Poupée'' ("The Doll") tells the story of a
sylph
A sylph (also called sylphid) is an air spirit stemming from the 16th-century works of Paracelsus, who describes sylphs as (invisible) beings of the air, his elementals of air. A significant number of subsequent literary and occult works have be ...
who teaches love to "a young priest still virgin and very conceited
". If we can consider that this novel fits into the current of libertinage, it is nevertheless appropriate to distinguish it from the works of
Crébillon Crébillon is a French surname. Notable people with that name include:
* Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (1674–1762), French poet and tragedian
* Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon
Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (13 February 1707 – 12 Apri ...
,
Sade
Sade may refer to:
People
* Marquis de Sade (1740–1814), French aristocrat, writer, and libertine
* Sade (singer) (born 1959, Helen Folasade Adu), British Nigerian musician and lead singer of the eponymous band
* Sade Baderinwa (born 1969), WAB ...
or
Choderlos de Laclos
Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de Laclos (; 18 October 1741 – 5 September 1803) was a French novelist, official, Freemason and army general, best known for writing the epistolary novel ''Les Liaisons dangereuses'' (''Dangerous Liaisons'' ...
insofar Bibiena, through his characters, presented more an aesthetic pleasure and an art of seduction in which the relations of power and conquest idea played a much smaller role than in other libertine novels of the eighteenth century.
In 1762, his pla
''La nouvelle Italie''met some success.
In 1763, he was convicted of raping a girl and "sentenced to death in absentia since he fled immediately." He may have died in Italy in 1779.
Publications
*1735: ''Mémoires et aventures de Monsieur de ***'', translated from Italian by himself
*1741: ''Histoire des amours de Valérie et du noble vénitien Barbarigo''
*1746: ''Le Petit toutou''
*1747: ''La Poupée''
*1748: ''La Force de l'exemple''
*1750: ''Le Triomphe du sentiment''
*1762: ''La Nouvelle Italie'', heroïco-humorous Italiano-Franco theatre play created at
Comédie Italienne 23 June.
Notice chez editions-harmattan.fr
/ref>
References
External links
Jean-Galli de Bibiena
on data.bnf.fr
{{DEFAULTSORT:Galli de Bibiena, Jean
Writers from Nancy, France
1709 births
18th-century French dramatists and playwrights
18th-century French male writers
1779 deaths