CROCE, BENEDETTO

born Feb. 25, 1866, Pescasseroli, Italy died Nov. 20, 1952, Naples historian, humanist, and foremost Italian philosopher of the first half of the 20th century. Additional reading Cecil Sprigge, Benedetto Croce: Man and Thinker (1952), is a compact, most informative biography by a longtime friend and interpreter of Croce to the English-speaking world. Angelo A. De Gennaro, The Philosophy of Benedetto Croce (1961), provides a short introduction. A. Robert Caponigri, History and Liberty: The Historical Writings of Benedetto Croce (1955), is considered the most objective presentation of the whole range of Croce's historical writing, with careful evaluations relative to his theory of historiography; see also David D. Roberts, Benedetto Croce and the Uses of Historicism (1987). Gian N.G. Orsini, Benedetto Croce: Philosopher of Art and Literary Critic (1961), is the best book in English on Croce as literary critic.