Poets: Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in
1265, from a low-aristocracy family of the
guelfo party.
In his youth, he was a Stilnovo poet. After
the death of the woman he deeply loved,
Bice di Folco Portinari (Dante mentioned
her in his work with the name of Beatrice),
Dante began studying philosophy and
theology in depth.
In the following five years he started his
political career that grew quickly, and
culminated in his becoming a governor in
1300. But in Florence the contrasts
between white and black guelfi became
harder and serious internal struggles began.
Dante’s party was accused of fraud. He was
sentenced to death.
From this moment on, Dante roamed many
Italian courts never again to return
to Florence. He died in Ravenna in 1321.
Dante Alighieri : The Divine Comedy
The Divina Commedia (Italian for "divine comedy") is Dante’s
masterpiece and is the best literal expression of medieval culture.
The Commedia it’s the description of Dante’s travel through the
three afterlife kingdoms: Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio)
and Heaven (Paradiso). During this imaginary journey, Dante tries
to describe the situation of the human souls after their deaths.
The whole journey can be also seen as a moral and religious
conversion of the protagonist, Dante. The protagonists of this
travel are three, above all. The first one is Dante himself, symbol
of the whole mankind. The second one is Virgil, symbol of human
reason. He’s Dante’s guide through Inferno and Purgatorio. The
third is Beatrice, a woman loved by Dante during his life. In
the Commedia, she’s the symbol of God’s love which can help the
man to be saved. She guides Dante through Paradiso. The journey
begins in 1300, and lasts seven days.
The poem is divided into three books, each one representing a
kingdom: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Each book is
composed by 33 cantos, except for the Inferno, which has 34
cantos so, the Commedia is composed by 100 cantos. The cantos
are composed by triplets, rhyming with an ABABCBC... scheme
(rima concatenata). Each verse is 11 syllables long. This
uniformity and well-organized structure represent the structure
of God’s Trinity and reveal the strong religious culture of the
author. Dante’s main purpose in writing the Commedia was to
preach the necessity of a moral and religious renew for
everybody, in order to get ready for the after-life and to ascend
to Heaven, eternally saved.
Poets: Giuseppe Ungaretti
Italian poet, critic, and translator, Ungaretti spent his
youth in North Africa, where he was greatly influenced
by nomadic culture. His service in the Italian infantry
during World War I provided the background for his
first mature poems, written in the trenches, which
dealt with love and the precariousness of life.
Ungaretti's style had already achieved a remarkable
purity by condensing his poetic expression to its
essentials. He stressed the musical properties of the
individual word and the illuminating power of a single
striking image. Ungaretti's poetry was spare and
Intense. The movement that he inaugurated in poetry
was named Hermeticism. The poems in “Sentimento
del tempo” (1933) and Il “dolore” (1947) mark a return
to the traditional Meters of Italian poetry. Ungaretti
also wrote essays and translated the works of
Shakespeare, Racine, and others. He was a teacher at
Sao Paulo’s and Rome’s Universities. His works are
collected in 12 volumes under the title “Vita d'un
uomo “ (Life of a Man).
N o velists : Alessandro Manzoni
Alessandro Manzoni was born in Milan in 1785. Educated at religious
schools, Manzoni then went to Paris and in that cosmopolitan atmosphere,
imbued with the ideas of the Enlightenment, Manzoni came in contact with
many of the great minds of Europe.
His Inni sacri (Sacred Hymns) intended to commemorate Christian holidays.
Although he had planned 12 hymns, only 5 were completed, among which
the last "Pentecost" (1817) is considered artistically most successful. In all
these are found Manzoni's Enlightenment views on human equality and the
brotherhood of nations fused with the belief that religion have benefited
mankind.
Manzoni's study of theater history, awoke in him the possibility of pursuing
truth through dramatic works based on psychological realism. Looked for
plausible tragedies with protagonists whose sufferings would cause the viewer
to meditate on life and the transcendent forces at work upon man. Manzoni
developed a romanticism that was fundamentally religious in feeling and held
that a study of real things could lead to the discovery of historical and moral
truths mixed with middle class values like good will, pragmatism, wisdom and
a deep analysis of human soul. This conception, differing greatly from that of
other European romantics, brought Manzoni much closer to the realists of
the following generation.
Alessandro Manzoni: The Betrothed
Manzoni began his masterpiece in 1823 but he
dedicated the next 13 years recasting this long novel,
which achieved definitive form in 1840. This work gives
him a big opportunity to reconstruct historically the
events and circumstances of early-17th-century Italy
and to give literary expression to his view of history and
man.
The plot consists of the attempts of Lucia and Renzo to
get married despite the obstacles posed by the lustful,
corrupt Spanish nobleman Don Rodrigo, whose
machinations separate the young lovers. Only at the
end, when Manzoni has demonstrated that a firm faith
in God can alleviate man's sufferings, he eliminate the
evil Rodrigo via the plague and permits Renzo and Lucia
to marry in their native village. This short summary
cannot pay adequate tribute to Manzoni's subtle irony,
satirical wit, historical knowledge, and extraordinary
ability to create both major and minor characters to
populate the universe that he so credibly brings to life.
Manzoni's important role in Italian letters stems from
his discovery of a national prose language, his creation
of the first modern Italian novel, and his giving literary
expression to earlier nationalistic ideals.
Novelists: Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello was born in 1867 in Agrigento on the island of
Sicily. Novelist and prolific dramatist. He is one of the leaders
of Italian Decadence literary current. The leitmotiv of his works
is the struggle between reality and appearance. Each man is
what he wants to be or he is just what society expects him to
be? According to Pirandello every man always wears a mask
like an actor. This mask was assigned to him and he knows that
he’ll have to wear it to be accepted and live among others.
Pirandello wrote his first widely acclaimed novel, ”The Late
Mattia Pascal”, in 1904. By the time the First World War broke
out ten years later, he had published two other novels and
numerous short stories. It was not until 1916, however, that he
turned his attention to the theatre. He quickly became In love
by this new medium, and became quite prolific, turning out as
many as nine plays in one year.
Pirandello was clearly the greatest Italian playwright of his
time, and he has left a lasting mark on all the playwrights that
have followed him. Perhaps he best summed up his art when
he said, "I have tried to tell something to other men, without
any ambition, except perhaps that of avenging myself for
having been born.“
He received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1934.
Philosophers : To mmaso C ampanella
Tommaso Campanella was born in Stilo, a
town in Calabria, one of the southern
regions of Italy, in 1568.
At the age of 14 he entered the Dominican
Order. In 1588, while in Cosenza, another
Calabrian town. He was one of the most
important philosophers of the late
Renaissance.
His best-known work is the utopian
treatise La città del Sole (The City of the
Sun); but, in reality, his thought was
extremely complex and engaged with all
fields of learning.
The fundamental core of his thinking, was
concerned with the philosophy of nature
(what would nowadays be called science),
magic, political theory and natural religion.
Tommaso Campanella: The city of sun
City of the Sun, written in 1602, is Campanella's contribution to the body of literature
concerned with utopia, the philosophical search for the perfect society.
Campanella's utopia was based on a form of communism in which all possessions, including
women and children, were shared by men. The great city was ruled by a spiritual leader
named Metaphysic, whom Power, Wisdom, and Love served, overseeing all aspects of the
society. Wisdom ensures that the sciences are properly taught, while Love ensures that
men and women breed the most perfect children. Those with an interest in philosophy and
sociology will find this book an intriguing take on the structure of an ideal society.
Philosophers : Galileo Galilei
He was born on 15 February 1564 in
Pisa.
Physicist, mathematician, astronomer,
and philosopher, he played a major role
in the scientific revolution. His
achievements include improvements to
the
telescope
and
consequent
astronomical observations and support
for Copernicanism. Galileo has been
called
the
"father
of
modern
observational astronomy", the "father of
modern physics", the "father of
science",and "the Father of Modern
Science".
Galileo Galilei: the telescope
In 1608, the telescope was invented in the
Netherlands. Over the next year, Galileo heard
about it and decide it could be helped with his own
improvements. With his improved telescope, he was
able to observe the heavens more closely than ever
before and identified three of Jupiter's moons. This,
along with observing the phases of Venus, provided
support for the Copernican heliocentric model of the
universe over Ptolemy's geocentric model.
Galileo Galilei: The Heliocentric Universe
Galileo's support of a heliocentric theory
was seen by the Roman Catholic Church as
contradicting various passages of the holy
books.
In 1632, Galileo published Dialogue
Concerning the Two Chief World
Systems with the permission of Pope Urban
VII. But pope Urban had two conditions for
him:
- Galileo had to include arguments for
both heliocentric and geocentric
Viewpoints.
- Urban's own views on the matter had
to be included.