Dictionary.net

An Italian novelist and poet; born on the yacht Irene in the Adriatic, near Pescara, in 1864. Educated at Prato; went to Rome in 1880; and is one of the most conspicuous Italian writers of the day. He abandoned Italian traditions for the modern French realism. His poems and novels are brilliant but sensual, the later works pessimistic. They include: "Pleasure" (1889); "The Triumph of Death" (1894); and "Maidens of the Crag" (1895). Among his poems are: "The New Song" (Rome, 1882); "Interludes of Verse" (1883); and "Marine Odes" (1893); "The Fire" (1900).