GINGUENÉ, Pierre Louis (1748-1815), the author of the Histoire littéraire d'Italie, was born on 25th April 1748 at Rennes in Brittany. He was educated at a Jesuit college in his native town, but he owed most of his literary tastes and accomplishments to his father, who early imbued him with a love of music and the languages of England and Italy. His first literary effort, a poetical piece entitled Confession de Zulmé, brought him into notice among the literary coteries of Paris, from the circumstance that, when published at first anonymously, it was claimed by six or seven different authors. Though the value of the piece is not very great, it is Ginguené’s poetical chef d'oeuvre. The part he took as a defender of Piccini against the partisans of Gluck made him still more widely known; and the reputation he acquired as a promising political writer secured employment for him in the public service in 1780. He hailed, however, the first symptoms of the Revolution, joined Rabaut, St Étienne, and Cerutti in producing the Feuille Villageoise, and celebrated in an indifferent ode the opening of the states-general. A more creditable effort was his Lettres sur les Confessions de J. J. Rousseau, 1791, in which he defended to the uttermost the life and principles of his author. Refusing to countenance the excesses of the Revolution, he was thrown into prison, whence he only escaped with life by the downfall of Robespierre. Some time after his liberation he assisted, as director-general of the “commission exécutive de l'instruction publique,” in reorganizing the system of public instruction. When the Institute was established in 1796, he was elected a member of the division called the academy of moral and political sciences. In 1798 the directory appointed him minister ...plenipotentiary to the king of Sardinia, whose ruin, begun by force of arms, they had determined to complete by treachery. A less promising tool could not have been found for carrying out their design. After fulfilling his duties for seven months, very little to the satisfaction of his employers, Ginguené retired to his country house of St Prix, in the valley of Montmorency, and there he prosecuted his literary labours till the Revolution of the 18th Brumaire called him once more before the world. He was appointed a member of the tribunate, which made a show of maintaining democratic opposition to the first consul; but Napoleon, finding that he was not sufficiently tractable, had him expelled at the first “purge,” and Ginguené once more joyfully returned to his favourite pursuits. These were now more than ever a necessity of life to him, as his only other source of income was the small endowment attached to his seat in the Institute. Fortunately he was nominated one of the commission charged to continue the literary history of France, which had been brought down by the Benedictines to about the close of the 12th century; and the three volumes of this series which appeared in 1814, 1817, and 1820 are for the most part the result of his labours. But the work by which Ginguené will be longest remembered is his Histoire littéraire T Italie (9 vols. 8vo, 1811-1819), to which he was putting the finishing touches when he was cut off by a painful disease, November 16, 1815. The first six volumes appeared before their author’s death; the seventh is entirely his except a few pages; and of the eighth and ninth he wrote about a half, the other half being composed by Salfi, and revised by Daunou. The success of the history in Italy was astonishing: editions were published in various parts of the peninsula, with notes and comments by the best scholars, and three translations appeared respectively at Milan, Naples, and Venice.
Ginguené was originally led to make Italian literature his special study by finding how ill that subject was understood, and how little it was appreciated, by his countrymen. In the composition of his history he was guided for the most part by the great work of the Jesuit Tiraboschi, but he avoids the prejudices and party views of his model. His own style, though occasionally forcible and eloquent, is noi unfrequently too tame for the subject, and he often trespasses on his reader’s patience by over-minuteness of detail; but these faults are more than atoned for by fine critical discernment, impartiality, and freedom. On the score of accuracy, indeed, Ginguené sometimes offends, but seldom in matters of great moment; and his slips are such as are almost inevitable to a foreigner, who could hardly be said to have even seen the country whose literary history he relates. The Italians felt grateful to him for having placed their literature in its proper light, and readily forgave the excessive eulogies which he passed on many of their writers, whose very names had been forgotten in their own country.
During the latter years of his life Ginguené wrote extensively for the press, and he edited the Décade philοsοphupue, politique, et littéraire, till it was suppressed by Napoleon in 1807. He contributed largely to the Biographic universelle, the Mercure de France, and the Encyclopédie méthodique; and he edited the works of Chamfort and of Lebrun. Among his minor productions are an opera, Pomponin ou le Tuteur mystifié, 1777; La Satire des Satires, 1778; De l’autorité de Rabelais dans la révolution qrrésente, 1791; De Μ. Neckar, 1795; Fables inédites, 1814. See “Éloge de Ginguené,” by Dacier, in the Mémoires de ΐ Institut, tom. vii.; “Discours” by Μ. Daunou, prefixed to the 2d edit, of the Hist. litt. d'Italie·, D. J. Garat, Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de P. L. Guingené, Paris, 1817
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