On the 18th of December 1949 Sem Benelli died in the Zogli castle, the place that had offered him shelter and hermitage in his final years. As the author of about thirty plays, he is famous for "La Cena delle Beffe", (that represents the Tuscan lifestyle). Although he wrote plays of various styles: the youth "social" works ("Lasalle" and "La terra delle commedie"), the "bourgeois" plays ("La Tignola"), the "twilight" primitive first works ("La vita gaia") and the tragic poems of his maturity. At first the literary critics saw Sem Benelli as an imitator of the famous Gabriele D'Annunzio (considering works such as "La maschera di Bruto", Rosmunda" …) ; but today's critics, see in his plays, an anticipation of the modern tragedy - as Achille Fiocco calls them: the tragedies of the human vanity. An example of the crises of the modern man, is portrayed in the character of Tignola. The audience however, greatly appreciated the historic poems and the folklore "La cena delle Beffe". This is set in Florence and is about the revenge of Giannetto on Neri Chiaramantesi. The first performance of the drama was at the Argentina Theatre in Rome, in April 1909; since then it has been performed many times by professional acting companies. Sem Benelli was born on the 10th of August 1877 in Prato, by a family of craftsmen. His father died when he was very young, and therefore, had to end his studies and find work as a means to support his family. He taught himself, reading a lot, trying to write, and finally he found a job in the editorial office of a newspaper. His first plays dealt with the subject of social rights. In 1908, a representation of Tignola was performed at the Paganini Theatre in Genova, by the Chiantoni-Calabresi-Severi company. The following year his name was known all over the world for the success of the representation of "La cena delle Beffe". Amongst the actors who performed in that play were the great Sarah Bernhardt and the Barrymore brothers. He had been a brave official during the First World War. He became a deputy in 1921, but he broke with Mussolini after the killing (by the fascists) of the socialist deputy Matteotti. During the Second World War he emigrated to Switzerland, and did not return until after the liberation of Italy; consecrating his personal experiences of disappointed nationalist in the polemic pages of the journal "Schiavitů".