| Vamba | |
| Birth Name: | Luigi Bertelli |
| Birth Date: | 1860 3, df=yes |
| Birth Place: | Florence, Italy |
| Death Place: | Florence, Italy |
| Occupation: | Author |
Luigi Bertelli (19 March 1860 - 27 November 1920), best known as Vamba, was an Italian writer, illustrator and journalist.
Born in Florence, having completed his studies Bertelli became a railway employer, working first in Rimini and later in Foggia.[1] He later started collaborating with the Roman newspaper Capitan Fracassa and in 1884 he was officially employed as a journalist and caricaturist.[1] He soon adopted the pseudonym "Vamba", named after the clown of Walter Scott's Ivanhoe.[1] After collaborating with several newspapers, in 1890 he founded and directed L'O di Giotto, a newspaper close to the radical political positions of Felice Cavallotti, and in 1901 he co-founded the regional newspaper Il Bruscolo.[1] Best known as a children's author, in 1893 Vamba wrote his first pedagogical novel, Ciondolino, and in 1906 he founded and directed until 1911 the nonconformist children magazine Il giornalino della Domenica.[1] Here, he released in sequential installments his best known novel, Il Giornalino di Gian Burrasca, the pedagogical and humorous story of a lively 9 year old.[1] In the summer of 1920 he fell ill, dying on 27 November 1920.[1]
A funerary monument made by the sculptor Libero Andreotti was inaugurated in Florence on 14 January 1923.[1]