Franco Cuomo was an Italian journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 and writer.

Best known for his historical novel

Historical novel

According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...

s set in the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

, he was short-listed twice for the Strega Award (the most prestigious literary prize

Literary award

A literary award is an award presented to an author who has written a particularly lauded piece or body of work. There are awards for forms of writing ranging from poetry to novels. Many awards are also dedicated to a certain genre of fiction or non-fiction writing . There are also awards...

 in Italy), first with Gunther d'Amalfi, cavaliere templare (Gunter D’Amalfi, Knight Templar) in 1990 and then Il Codice Macbeth in 1997.

Cuomo gained a degree in law and then simultaneously worked in journalism and the theatre, moving on to fiction

Fiction

Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...

 and historical studies.

His most recent works included the novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

s I sotterranei del cielo, Il tatuaggio, and Anime perdute. Notturno veneziano con messa nera e fantasmi d'amore and the nonfiction

Non-fiction

Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...

 I dieci examined the Italian scientist

Scientist

A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...

s who signed the "Racial Manifesto" in 1938 leading to the introduction of racial laws.

Among his other works of fiction are I semidei, a spy story

Spy fiction

Spy fiction, literature concerning the forms of espionage, was a sub-genre derived from the novel during the nineteenth century, which then evolved into a discrete genre before the First World War , when governments established modern intelligence agencies in the early twentieth century...

 set in contemporary Italy with clear references to many of the major figures involved in Tangentopoli

Tangentopoli

Tangentopoli is a term which was coined to describe pervasive corruption in the Italian political system exposed in the 1992-6 Mani Pulite investigations, as well as the resulting scandal, which led to the collapse of the hitherto dominant Christian Democracy party and its allies.-Popular distrust...

 inspired by his work as journalist, Il signore degli specchi on the life of Nostradamus

Nostradamus

Michel de Nostredame , usually Latinised to Nostradamus, was a French apothecary and reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that have since become famous worldwide. He is best known for his book Les Propheties , the first edition of which appeared in 1555...

, and Scroll on the legend that Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 may not have been English. He is also the author a five-volume series on the origins of Europe, Il romanzo di Carlo Magno, and a biography of Rita da Cascia, Santa Rita degli impossibili. The latter, rejecting a sort of hagiographic

Hagiography

Hagiography is the study of saints.From the Greek and , it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common...

 stance, instead reconstructs the mystery in which the medieval mystic was involved surrounding the murder of her husband.

His works of nonfiction include works on idleness (L'ozio), seduction (Elogio del libertino), Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...

 Victorian

Victorian era

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

 decadence (Chi ha guardato negli occhi la bellezza), the tragedy of Beatrice Cenci

Beatrice Cenci

Beatrice Cenci was an Italian noblewoman. She is famous as the protagonist in a lurid murder trial in Rome....

 and historical themes concerning the formation and influence of the collective imagination, such as Le grandi profezie (on prophecies from the dawn of human civilization to the modern age) and on knight

Knight

A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....

hood (Gli ordini cavallereschi nel mito e nella storia).

He was the author of a vast theatrical body of works, stage in Italy and abroad by such directors as Carmelo Bene, Maurizio Scaparro, Sergio Fantoni, and Françoise Petite. They include Faust o Margherita (with Carmelo Bene), Romeo e Giulietta (with Carmelo Bene and Roberto Lerici), Compagno Gramsci, Il caso Matteotti, Caterina delle misericordie (Premio Riccione), Nerone (Premio Idi), Giovanna d'Arco e Gilles de Rais (Premio Vallecorsi), Addio amore (Beatrice Cenci) (Premio Fondi), Una notte di Casanova (Premio Flaiano) and the recent Gladiator.

Among his awards were the Fregene Prize for journalism (1984), the Premio per la Cultura della Presidenza del Consiglio (1989), the Ravello (1990), the Vanvitelli

Luigi Vanvitelli

Luigi Vanvitelli was an Italian engineer and architect. The most prominent 18th-century architect of Italy, he practiced a sober classicizing academic Late Baroque style that made an easy transition to Neoclassicism.-Biography:Vanvitelli was born at Naples, the son of a Dutch painter of land and...

 (1995), and the Blow In (1997).

He translated Utopia by Thomas More

Thomas More

Sir Thomas More , also known by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and, for three years toward the end of his life, Lord Chancellor...

 and numerous classics for stage productions including Cyrano de Bergerac

Cyrano de Bergerac

Hercule-Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac was a French dramatist and duelist. He is now best remembered for the works of fiction which have been woven, often very loosely, around his life story, most notably the 1897 play by Edmond Rostand...

and Albert Camus

Albert Camus

Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...

' Caligula, directed by Maurizio Scaparro, as well as works by Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian, next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his mysterious death.A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May...

, Ben Jonson

Ben Jonson

Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...

, Plautus

Plautus

Titus Maccius Plautus , commonly known as "Plautus", was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus...

 and Alfred de Musset

Alfred de Musset

Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist.Along with his poetry, he is known for writing La Confession d'un enfant du siècle from 1836.-Biography:Musset was born on 11 December 1810 in Paris...

.

He worked with public broadcaster

Public broadcasting

Public broadcasting includes radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing and commercial financing.Public broadcasting may be...

 RAI

RAI

RAI — Radiotelevisione italiana S.p.A. known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane, is the Italian state owned public service broadcaster controlled by the Ministry of Economic Development. Rai is the biggest television company in Italy...

and directed or advised on a wide variety of radio and television programmes on cultural topics (L'occhio sul teatro and Magico e nero for Videosapere) as well as ones appealing to a more general audience (Cararai, Cronache del cinema e del teatro, Obbiettivo Europa and Cineteatro).

Over his life he was on the editorial staff of a number of newspapers and periodicals as special correspondent, critic and editor-in-chief of culture sections, as well as co-edito of magazines (Fiera and Achab) and author of monographs for specialized magazines (Medioevo and Ulisse 2000).

He frequently appeared as a guest on television programmes on RAI, Mediaset and other broadcasters, taking part in the programmes Stargate, Voyageur, Unomattina, Maurizio Costanzo, Top Secret and SpecialestoriaTG1, among others.