Guelfo Civinini

An Italian poet, playwright and journalist, who wrote the libretto of La fanciulla del West (1910) with Carlo Zangarini. Born in Livorno, he joined the Corriere della Sera in 1907 and reported from Libya and the Balkans. He covered the First World War and was decorated for valour five times in all. After leaving the paper in 1920 he wrote chiefly prose; his novel Trattoria di paese won the Viareggio Prize in 1937. He led expeditions in Ethiopia, making the documentary film Aethiopia. A signatory of the Fascist intellectuals' manifesto in 1925, he entered the Accademia d'Italia in 1939.