Saggi E Riviste: 3: Gli Umoristi

Saggi E Riviste: 3: Gli Umoristi. This volume gathers critical portraits of major humorists, presented in Italian as part of the Saggi E Riviste series. It surveys celebrated writers such as Francesco Rabelais, Montaigne, Swift, Richard Steele, Gian-Paolo Richter and Sydney Smith among others, through biographical sketches, literary analyses, and excerpts from contemporaries’ letters and contexts. The editor frames the project with an introductory note on humor and biography, and each essay examines how the author employed irony, satire, or humane insight to reflect social, religious, and intellectual life. The volume pairs biographical narrative with literary critique, showing how these figures helped shape modern ideas of wit, humanity, and culture. It situates their works within broader literary histories from medieval to Enlightenment and beyond, illustrating how humor served as a instrument for moral reflection, social criticism, and cultural memory. The collection offers a panoramic view of the “humorists” as literary types and cultural agents.