Career
Betrayed by a priest, he was arrested in 1839 and imprisoned at Naples. Although liberated three years later he lost his professorship and had to maintain himself by private lessons. Nevertheless, he continued to conspire, and in 1847 he published anonymously the Protest of the People of the Two Sicilies, a scathing indictment of the Bourbon government.
When reaction set in, once more Settembrini was arrested as a suspect (June 1849) and imprisoned.
After trial, he and two other "politicals" were condemned to death, and nineteen others to varying terms of imprisonment (February 1851). The death sentences were, however, commuted to imprisonment for life, and Settembrini was sent to the dungeons of Santo Stefano.
There he remained for eight years. The exiles received an enthusiastic welcome in London, but Settembrini after a short stay in England joined his family at Florence in 1860.
On the formation of the Italian kingdom he was appointed professor of Italian literature at the university of Naples, and devoted the rest of his life to literary pursuits.
In 1875 he was nominated senator Settembrini"s homosexuality was first mentioned in 1977, the year of the publication of The Neoplatonics, a homoerotic fantasy written while in prison soon after completing his translation of Lucian (1858 - 1859). Left among his papers at his death, the manuscript was afterwards read by Benedetto Croce, who advised against publication.
