Author. He was an Italian poet, literary critic, and translator who was born in Messina, the son of politician, Don Francesco from the Domenica Arena. Among his achievements, he was the first to translate Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy" into Sicilian, which he published in 1904. As a teenager, from 1854 to 1857, he studied literature with Vincenzo Amore and philosophy with Giuseppe Crisafulli Trimarchi, but, as a true self-taught, he committed himself to the study of foreign languages, and was able to know them perfectly in spelling and phonetics. Critics have mentioned the beauty and grace of his French. In 1860 he followed the rebellious Italian patriot Garibaldi, enlisting in the corps of the Lighthouse Hunters. His first literary work was a pamphlet in French verse, "La Voir," published in Messina in 1862. For a year, he traveled around Europe visiting France, Spain, England, Malta, meeting important writers, including Victor Hugo, who became a long-time colleague. In February of 1863, Cannizzaro met Adèle Hugo, daughter of the great French writer. He asked her to become his wife for the first time on May 4, 1863 and a second time on June 2, 1863, yet both times she refused. He made second tour of Europe in 1888. Considered a historian, poet, critic of high value, his name is among the members of the Academy of France, of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, of the Academy of Coimbra, of that of S. Luca in Rome, of the Accademia Peloritana dei Pericolanti and others. His literary production was both of original works and of translations in French, Spanish, Portuguese, English, German, Swedish, Bohemian, Magyar languages. In 1884 a Bohemian publisher, Professor Jaroslav Vrchlický, collected many of Cannizzaro's poems in one volume, with the title "Výbor básní –Tom. Cannizzaro", which was published in Prague in 1884. He also wrote "India" in 1899. Two of his most noted collections of poetry are "Thorns and Roses" and the two-volume, "In Solitude." Many places in Messina were named in his honor.