Giovanni Papini

Early life
Born in Florence as the son of a modest furniture retailer (and former member of Giuseppe Garibaldi's Redshirts) from Borgo degli Albizi Papini was baptized secretly to avoid the aggressive atheism of his father and lived a rustic lonesome childhood. Furthermore Papini sought to create scandal by speculating that Jesus and John the Apostle had a homosexual relationship. Trained as a schoolteacher he taught for a few years after 1899 then became a librarian.

Giovanni Papini (January 9 1881 – July 8 1956) was an Italian journalist essayist literary critic poet and novelist.