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Lauro De Bosis

Born

in Roma, Italy

December 09, 1901

Died

October 03, 1931

Genre

Poetry, Nonfiction

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Lauro Adolfo De Bosis (Rome, 9 December 1901 – Tyrrhenian Sea, 3 October 1931) was an Italian poet, aviator, and anti-fascist.

Lauro de Bosis was born in 1901. His mother was Lillian Vernon, a New Englander, and his father, Adolfo, a minor poet and editor of the review, Convito. Their home was a type of intellectual salon. His father translated Shelley, while Lauro himself translated tragedies by Aeschylus and Sophocles, and James Frazer's Golden Bough. At university he studied chemistry.

De Bosis became quickly disillusioned with Mussolini after the 1924 murder of the anti-fascist politician Giacomo Matteotti. In 1928 he won a silver medal in the art competitions of the Olympic Games for his verse-drama "Icaro", an anti-fascist allegory disg Lauro Adolfo De Bosis (Rome, 9 December 1901 – Tyrrhenian Sea, 3 October 1931) was an Italian poet, aviator, and anti-fascist.

Lauro de Bosis was born in 1901. His mother was Lillian Vernon, a New Englander, and his father, Adolfo, a minor poet and editor of the review, Convito. Their home was a type of intellectual salon. His father translated Shelley, while Lauro himself translated tragedies by Aeschylus and Sophocles, and James Frazer's Golden Bough. At university he studied chemistry.

De Bosis became quickly disillusioned with Mussolini after the 1924 murder of the anti-fascist politician Giacomo Matteotti. In 1928 he won a silver medal in the art competitions of the Olympic Games for his verse-drama "Icaro", an anti-fascist allegory disguised as a retelling of the Greek myth. That same year he met actress Ruth Draper and commenced a relationship that continued until his death.

De Bosis shuttled back and forth between Italy and the United States, where he taught Italian literature at Harvard. In the summer of 1930, De Bosis resigned from the Italy-America Society to found the "Alleanza Nazionale" and concentrate on the group's mission—the clandestine circulation of anti-Fascist newsletters in Italy. Inspired by another anti-Fascist who earlier had flown over Milan dropping leaflets denouncing Il Duce, de Bosis decided to embark upon a similar flight over Rome. The following summer De Bosis took flying lessons.

A black and white photo of a man in a suit and bow tie, wearing a pilot helmet, standing in front of a small propeller-driven monoplane
Lauro De Bosis in front of his Klemm L 25 in 1931
On 3 October 1931, with only seven-and-a-half hours flying time and a partially filled fuel tank, De Bosis took off from Marseille on a small Klemm L 25, heading for Corsica and then Italy. He reached Rome and circled for half an hour over the city centre, including Piazza Venezia – where Mussolini was sitting in council – dropping thousands of antifascist leaflets during the crowded evening hour. He was gone by the time the Italian Air Forces responded. The small wooden plane headed out to sea for Corsica never to be seen again. According to the pilots who had fuelled the plane, he was an inexperienced pilot and had told them that he intended to fly from Nice to Barcelona and back, so his plane had not been fully fuelled. A promising poet, at the time of his death he had been editing a volume of Italian poetry for the Oxford University Press. His papers are saved in Houghton Library, Harvard University.

In 1938, actress Ruth Draper made an endowment to maintain a lecture series on Italian culture, history and society, named after De Bosis in Harvard University.

Thornton Wilder dedicated his novel Ides of March (1948) to him. ...more

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Average rating: 3.61 · 295 ratings · 26 reviews · 14 distinct works

	Il ponte di San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder, Lauro De Bosis (Translator) 3.79 avg rating — 39,016 ratings — published 1927 — 334 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Il ramo d'oro: studio sulla magia e la religione by James George Frazer, Lauro De Bosis (translator), Paola Sacchi (translator) 4.02 avg rating — 8,755 ratings — published 1890 — 622 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Il ramo d'oro: Studio sulla magia e la religione, Vol 1 by James George Frazer, Lauro De Bosis (Translator) 3.97 avg rating — 778 ratings — published 1890 — 62 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Storia della mia morte by Lauro De Bosis, Gaetano Salvemini (Preface), Sibilla Aleramo (Contributor) 4.22 avg rating — 9 ratings — published 1931 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	In Volo su Roma 3.86 avg rating — 7 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Icaro by Lauro De Bosis, Ruth Draper (Translator), Gilbert Murray (Introduction) it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 1930 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Story of My Death by Lauro De Bosis, Lauro De Bosis really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	La Religione della Libertà: e altre conferenze americane su Europa e umanismo 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Icaro 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The story of my death, 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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