Gubernatis

Gubernatis, ANGELO DE, an eminent Italian orientalist and busy littérateur, who was born at Turin, April 7, 1840. He studied at the university there, and afterwards at Berlin under Bopp and Weber; and was appointed extra-ordinary professor of Sanskrit at Florence in 1863, and ordinary professor in 1869. Becoming attracted by the wild socialistic dreams of Bakunin, he left his chair in order to be more free, and married Bakunin's niece; but a closer acquaintance with subversive socialism soon restored him to his reason. He became a candidate anew for his chair, and after some not unnatural hesitation was re-elected. His earliest works were mostly contributions to Sanskrit scholarship, alternating with incessant contributions to his own and to others' journals. He made his reputation European by his Zoological Mythology (Lond. 1872), a work hopelessly marred by rashness in speculation, but yet serviceable; Storia comparata degli usi Natalizi (1872), Storia comparata degli usi Funebri (1873), Mitologia Vedica (1875), Storia dei Viaggiatori Italiani nelle Indie orientali (1875), Mythologie des Plantes (Paris, 1878), Lettre sopra l'Archaeologia Indiana (1881), and Lettre sopra la Mitologia comparata (1881). In the region of biography and literary history he has published Ricordi biografici (1873), the great Dizionario biografico degli Scrittori contemporanei (1879-80); monographs upon Giovanni Prati, Manzoni, and others; and finally Manuale di storia della Letteratura Indiana (1882), and the ponderous Storia universale della Letteratura (15 vols. 1882-85). De Gubernatis has shown phenomenal industry and many-sidedness, and has made real contributions to learning, but he must not be taken too seriously as a mythologist. He became professor of Sanskrit at Rome in 1891.