Benelli, Sem

Benelli, Sem 

Born Aug. 10, 1877, in Filettole, Prato; died Dec. 18, 1949, in Zoagli, Genoa Province. Italian playwright.

Benelli participated in the Fiume episode of 1919 (when Italian fascist forces, with G. D’Annunzio at their head, took the Yugoslav city) and in the colonial Italian war with Ethiopia in 1935–36 (the book Me in Africa, 1936). He acquired fame in 1908–15 with his historical plays written in free verse; he appeared in them as a neo-romantic and a literary rival of G. D’Annunzio. Of special interest are his dramas The Jest (1909) and Torn Raincoat (1911), which recreate the atmosphere and mores of Renaissance Florence. Benelli’s later plays are comedies of manners.

WORKS

Le opere complessive, vols. 1–30. Edited by Mondadori. Milan [no date].
In Russian translation:
Rvanyi plashch. Uzhin shutok. Dramaticheskie poemy. With introductory articles by A. V. Amfiteatrov and A. V. Lunacharskii. Petrograd-Moscow, 1923. (Translated from Italian.)

REFERENCES

Apollonio, M. Letteratura dei contemporanei [Brescia, 1956.]
Fusco, E. M. Scrittori e Idee. Turin [1956].

Z. M. POTAPOVA