author
Adolfo Mezzanotte
1812–1833
An early 19th-century Italian novelist from Perugia, he is remembered for a single surviving work that blends romance, history, and patriotic feeling. His brief life and slim bibliography give his fiction a rare, almost rediscovered quality.
1 Audiobook
Olimpia; ossia, L'orfana della Selleide : romanzo
by Adolfo Mezzanotte
About the author
Born in Perugia in 1812, Adolfo Mezzanotte was an Italian writer whose life appears to have been very short; authority and catalog records identify him with the dates 1812–1833. The surviving information about him is limited, which makes him one of those authors known more through the trace left by a book than through a full biographical record.
He is chiefly associated with Olimpia; ossia, L'orfana della Selleide, the work listed for him by Project Gutenberg and library catalogs. The novel was published after his death and is set against the backdrop of the Greek struggle for independence, mixing historical drama with romantic storytelling.
That combination of scarcity and atmosphere is part of Mezzanotte's appeal today. For modern listeners and readers, he offers a glimpse of Italian Romantic-era fiction from a writer who died young and left behind only a faint but intriguing literary footprint.