From law studies to journalism
Ugo Ojetti was born in Rome on 15 April 1871, the son of the lawyer and deputy Raffaello Ojetti. He studied law at Bologna but was drawn instead to literature and art, and began his journalistic career in Rome in the early 1890s before moving to Florence, then the centre of Italian literary life, where he became one of the leading contributors to the review Il Marzocco between 1896 and 1899. His early foreign correspondence work, including reporting from Egypt for the daily La Tribuna, established him as a journalist of range before he turned to art criticism as his main field, a shift that took him from general reporting to the specialised cultural commentary for which he became known.
Art critic and cultural organiser
Ojetti's central role was as an art critic, writing for Corriere della Sera for decades and briefly serving as the newspaper's director between March 1926 and December 1927. His criticism combined a grounding in classical culture with close attention to contemporary art, and his columns shaped Italian taste over a long career. He was also an active organiser: he directed the Venice Biennale in 1919-1920 and took part in the reorganisation of the Uffizi Galleries, extending his influence beyond print into the institutions that shaped Italian art itself, at a time when both the Biennale and the Uffizi were adapting their presentation to a more international audience.
A writer and magazine founder
Alongside his criticism, Ojetti wrote novels, short stories and essays. His best-known work, 'Cose viste', is a large collection of articles, notes, diaries and memoirs, published across several editions, that documents Italian cultural and social life from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth, recording encounters with leading artists and writers alongside Ojetti's own reflections on the political currents of his time. He founded the art journal Dedalo in Milan in 1920, directing it until 1933, and launched the literary review Pan in December 1933, editing it until it closed in December 1935.
Fascism and later years
Like many Italian intellectuals of his generation, Ojetti signed the 'Manifesto degli intellettuali fascisti' in 1925 and was appointed to the Royal Academy of Italy in 1930. His relationship with the regime was pragmatic rather than doctrinaire: he saw in Fascism a chance to reorganise the Italian state and promote national culture, while trying to preserve some independence for the cultural institutions he ran, and his private writings show growing reservations about the regime's more repressive turns.
Legacy
Ojetti died in Fiesole on 1 January 1946. His long career as a critic, editor and organiser, and above all 'Cose viste', remain a significant source for historians of Italian cultural life across the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.