Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi (1804 - September 25, 1873), was an Italian writer and politician.

Born at Livorno, he was educated for the law at Pisa, and began to practise at Livorno. He soon gave up law in favour of politics and literature, under the influence of Lord Byron, and his novel, the Battagli di Benevento (1827), brought him into notice. Mazzini made his acquaintance, and, together with Carlo Bini, they started a newspaper, the Indicatore, at Leghorn in 1829; it was quickly suppressed. Guerrazzi himself was imprisoned several times for his activity in the cause of "Young Italy", and it was in Portoferrato in 1834 that he wrote his most famous novel Assidio di Firenze.

He was the most powerful Liberal leader at Leghorn, and in 1848 became a minister, with some idea of exercising a moderating influence in the difficulties with the grand duke of Tuscany. In 1849, when the latter fled, he was first one of the triumvirate with Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Montanelli, and then dictator, but on the restoration he was arrested and imprisoned for three years. His Apologia was published in 1852.

On his release from prison, he was exiled to Corsica, but subsequently was restored and was for some time a deputy at Turin (1862-1870), before dying of apoplexy at Leghorn. He wrote a number of other works besides the novels already mentioned, notably Isabella Orsini (1845) and Beatrice Cenci (1854), and his Opere were collected at Milan (1868).

See the Life and Works by Bosio (1877), and Giosuè Carducci's edition of his letters (1880).

Reference

• This entry incorporates public domain text originally from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.