LEVI, GIULIO AUGUSTO

LEVI, GIULIO AUGUSTO (1879–1951), Italian literary critic. Levi, who was born in Turin, was from 1904 to 1938 a secondary-school teacher. In 1926 he was baptized and became a Roman Catholic. In 1938 he was forced to leave his position by the Fascist anti-Jewish laws. Levi was rescued by private individuals and Christian institutions during the anti-Jewish persecution of the Fascist regime and escaped deportation during World War II. After the war, he was appointed professor of Italian literature at the University of Florence. As a critic, he mainly devoted himself to an analysis of Leopardi's works and, with his own method of study, deliberately moved away from both positivism and the idealism of Croce. He wrote for several newspapers and journals and his publications appeared throughout the first half of the 20th century. Levi's critical works include Studi estetici (1907); Storia del pensiero di Giacomo Leopardi (1911); Il Comico (1913); Breve storia dell'estetica e del gusto (1924); Giacomo Leopardi (1931), his best-known study of the poet; Da Dante al Machiavelli (1935); and Vittorio Alfieri (1950). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: E. Levi, C. Jannaco, Alla memoria di Giulio Augusto Levi (1956), with a biography and a bibliography of G.A.L. (Louisa Cuomo)