The Italian critic, educator, and legislator Francesco De Sanctis (1817-1883) was the foremost Italian literary historian of the 19th century.

Francesco De Sanctis was born in Morra Irpina near Naples. His early inclination toward learning suggested a career in the priesthood. But his interest in pedagogy and his loss of religious faith after 1834 altered his course, and he turned toward education. Trained by the literary scholar and philologist Basilio Puoti, he founded an academy under Puoti's leadership.

De Sanctis supported the short-lived Neapolitan revolution of 1848 and proposed a series of scholastic reforms calling for free compulsory education, improved teacher training, and greater uniformity and continuity in schools. But the tide of reaction in 1849 annulled these proposals and forced De Sanctis to leave Naples. In December 1850 he was imprisoned on a fabricated charge of plotting to kill the king. When released two years later, De Sanctis traveled to Turin...