Tommaseo, Niccolò

Tommaseo, Niccolò (nēk-kōlô` tōm-mäzā`ō), 1802–74, Italian poet and critic, b. Sibenik, Dalmatia. In addition to poetry, novels, and literary criticism, he wrote well in history, philosophy, lexicography, and philology. He was perhaps most distinguished as a philologist, and his Dizzionario dei sinonimi (1830) is still in use. Una serva (1837), stories in verse, is among the best of Italian romantic poetry. His attacks on the Austrian rule of Italy resulted in a long exile, interrupted by participation in the unsuccessful Revolution of 1848 in Venice.