To-day there is a Carducci cult in Italy. There are individuals and groups who have the same kind of reverence for him that they or others have for Leonardo. There is no praise for him that is too fulsome, no adulation too great. Admirers like Panzini, Panzacchi, and Papini ransack dictionaries and archives to find words that will convey their devotion to him. He was a man who incited the admiration and affection of those who came personally in contact with him. His was a sturdy personality, which inspired confidence, generated respect, and mediated an easy belief in his inspiration. The son of a country doctor, he was born in a little village in Tuscany in 1836. Thus his childhood and early youth coincided with those years in which king, pope, and emperor seemed to vie with one another in crushing independent thought in Italy; those years in which men dared not write, fearing their words might be misconstrued, or, writing, were obliged to publish clandestinely. During these years Carducci's thirst for liberty and freedom, political, social, and religious, developed, and for a third of a century after he had reached the age of man he externalized it in moving, majestic, musical verse, which made known Italy's rights and aspirations, and encouraged her loyal sons to continue their struggles. After teaching a few years in the high schools of San Miniato and Pistoia, during which time he published a selection of religious, moral, and patriotic juvenile poems entitled "Juvenilia," he went to Bologna. In 1860 he was called to the chair of Italian literature in the University of Bologna and soon published "Giambi ed Epodi" ("Iambs and Epodes"). In this he preached republican doctrines so openly that he gave offense to the crown and was suspended from his position, which, however, he soon regained.