Giorgio Bassani was an Italian novelist, poet, essayist, editor, and international intellectual.

Born into a prosperous Jewish family in Bologna on March 4, 1916, Bassani spent his childhood in Ferrara with his mother Dora, father Enrico (a doctor), brother Paolo, and sister Jenny. He completed his secondary education at the liceo classico L. Ariosto in Ferrara in 1934.

Initially passionate about music and considering a career as a pianist, Bassani's focus shifted to literature. In 1935, he enrolled in the Faculty of Letters at the University of Bologna, studying under art historian Roberto Longhi. He admired the Liberal historian and philosopher Benedetto Croce as his ideal of the "free intellectual."

Bassani is best known for his series of novels collectively titled "Novels of Ferrara", and particularly for The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1962).