Francesco Dall Ongaro, an Italian poet, born at Oderzo, Venetia, in 1808, died in Naples, Jan. 10, 1873. He completed his studies in Padua and took orders; but his sermons being regarded as too independent, his preaching \vas interdicted. Subsequently he became a journalist at Trieste. His drama Fornoretto and two other plays appeared in 1838. He was expelled from Trieste in 1847 for some political remarks at a banquet in honor of Cobden. Afterward he lived in the principal Italian cities, and acquired celebrity by his hymn Il ritorno del tricolore. He left Rome for Venice in March, 1848, having declined to edit the official organ of Pius IX., became one of the leaders of the Venetian movement, and founded a journal, Fatti e non parole. He aided in organizing the Garibaldi legion in Rome, and became a member of the constituent assembly. On the capture of Rome by the French he went to Ancona, and subsequently to Switzerland, whence he was expelled in 1852, and spent four years in Belgium, where he repeated the lectures upon Dante which he had formerly given in Trieste. He afterward wrote for newspapers and periodicals in Paris, and was only saved by the intervention of an influential French official from expulsion at the time of Orsini's attempt upon the life of Napoleon. In 1859 he returned to Italy, and subsequently became professor of literature in Milan and in Naples. He achieved a high reputation as author of tales, novels, poetry, and dramas, and of a work on dramatic literature.

His Novelle nuove e vec-chie, containing sketches of Italian life, has passed through several editions. In 1865 some of his tales were translated into French by Caroline Cornan, under the titles of Le palais des diable8 and Fanny.