Storia della letteratura italiana. Tomo 1

Francesco De Sanctis initially planned to be a priest. Diminished faith and heightened interest in academia, however, led him to education and politics, in which careers he served intermittently as professor and legislator. As minister of education for Italy, he advocated reforms that would increase the quality of education; he also distinguished himself as a literary critic, producing such collections as his Critical Essays and acclaimed History of Italian Literature. De Sanctis's work has been advocated by such twentieth-century scholars as Benedetto Croce.