Italian Poetry

Today we read Rinovazione del buon Capo d’Anno a D. Ciccio per l’ingresso del 1683, by Giovanni Francesco Lazzarelli.

Not sure what the very best way to start a year might be, but one can’t go wrong starting with a smile.

So let me wish everyone an excellent 2025 using the same verses that our friend Lazzarelli employed to wish a great 1683 to his nemesis, Don Ciccio: may all the planets bring you joy, bless you and conserve you!

Well… all verses, except the last one, where he wished Don Ciccio to always remain an ass, for our eternal enjoyment.

(Also see this other sonnet for more background on la Cicceide.)

The original:

Today we read Natale, by Giuseppe Ungaretti.

Christmas happens every year, even when we are at war. This poem by Ungaretti is introduced by the indication “Napoli il 26 dicembre 1916”: he was on temporary leave from the front of WW1, and visiting his friend’s house in Naples.

If we didn’t know that, we could read these verses as just a statement of laziness: the poet explains he isn’t in the mood to go out to celebrate in the loud, cold, busy streets of the city (and describing Naples’ roads as a ball of yarn is a nice euphemism). He’d rather rest and lie in front of the fire, like a “forgotten thing.”

But we do know he was fighting in the war, and so we attach a whole different meaning to the weariness he complains about. He’s so tired that even punctuation is too much, so that he ends up using none at all. His signature broken verses are even shorter than usual, as if stringing words required too much effort.

The original:

Today we read Io vidi già seder nell’arme irato, by Leon Battista Alberti.

Leon Battista Alberti was one of the great architects of the Italian Renaissance, but like many humanists of the period he wore several other hats: he was a mathematician and cryptographer, a linguist, an inventor.

The hat we are interested in now, however, was that of poet, and in particular of poet writing in vulgar, i.e. in Italian. After writing sonnets after the manner of Petrarca, in 1441 he organized the Certame Coronario, a poetry competition for verses written in Italian on the theme of friendship. The judges, being stuck-up big-wigs that looked down on anything in the “new language,” decided that no one had deserved the prize (a silver laurel crown, hence the name), but the staging of the thing was worthy in itself.

In this sonnet, Leon Battista Alberti explores the mismatch between human desire and things as they turn out, and in particular the frustrating effect of wanting something too much, and for that reason, losing it. As he pithily puts it in the last verse, troppo voler mal corrisponde: “too much willing is a bad match.”

To drive the point home, the poem shows us a sequence of examples: an enraged man ready for battle, yet trembling; a lover so sorrowful that he can’t cry; someone so hungry he can’t even eat; a dog so fast that he loses his prey.

The original:

Today we read Non, Vita, perché tu sei nella notte, by Camillo Sbarbaro.

We recently read how Quasimodo, in his Ed è subito sera, referred to life as a “ray of light,” soon disappearing. Sbarbaro starts this poem with a similar, but much more fiery, simile: a quick burst of flame.

It is surprising how much intensity is hidden in this apparently quiet composition, written in plain language and slow, deliberate rhythm.

The glorious aspect of living, the flame, and its tolerable sides, like when Nature calms the poet’s suffering, occupy only the first four verses. The insistent repetition of per and perché (not for this, not for this…) moves the enumeration of the facts of life along, highlighting the lacking and the inadequacy and the ephemerality.

Only at the very and, when we have lived though all the (mostly painful) experiences of a human life, we have the declaration of love for it. We love life not because of rare moments of bliss, or for the long stretches in which nothing much is felt, and not in spite of the pain. We love it because of the desire, though unsatisfiable; because of love, though destined to be never enough; because of the limitless darkness that we can ever only very partially explore.

The original:

Today we read Caro luogo, by Umberto Saba.

Two young lovers are looking for a place where they can “make one life out of two.” All the afternoon they wander around under the sun, surrounded by the noise and the comings and goings of adult, everyday life.

But then the night comes, the moon rises, and they find a quiet spot, where the only noise if that of crickets. And here the poem stops and the poet falls silent, presumably intent in better things than writing poetry.

Saba was an admirer of Tasso, and this poem might remind us of this sonnet of his.

The original:

Today we read L’orologio da rote, by Ciro di Pers.

Complaining about technology is not something modern. So while today we blame social media for decline in mental health and ai for stealing jobs and possibly killing everybody (and I’m not saying I disagree…), back in the 1600s one would complain about… clocks.

Channeling something of a pre-Marxist sensibility, Ciro da Pers sees in mechanical clocks, and in particular in their relentless regularity, a tool that violently cuts up the days, and a stark reminder of the passage of time.

When he hears its tolling he is urged to act, before his allotted time expires.

The concluding terzina is particularly striking. Ciro states that, in a sense, the clock is the cause of time running on; and that when it strikes its bell, it’s actually knocking on our tomb, so that it opens to receive us.

The original:

Today we read Ed è subito sera, by Salvatore Quasimodo.

How do you put the whole of human existence in three verses? Well, this is one way.

Are you an uncharitable reader who isn’t impressed by Quasimodo’s Nobel Prize and would quip “I could also write three lines without even a rhyme”? You then might also maintain that this poem is a fancy way to put the saying “life sucks and then you die.”

But of course there’s more than meets the eye, even just at the technical level. The verses are a double senario, a novenario and a settenario, of descending length as life ends its course.

The endwords of the lines are “Earth”, “Sun” and “evening,” moving from the everyday, to the possibility of something higher, to death.

The original:

Today we read La Nencia di Barberino, by Lorenzo de Medici.

The attribution of today’s poem to Lorenzo il Magnifico is not certain, but has a long tradition. Despite such a lofty author, the topic is very prosaic: a rustic shepherd sings the beauty and various charms of his beloved, Nencia, who gives the title to the composition.

It is a pretty standard theme. The twist is the dramatic change in the social class of the people involved: whereas we are used to courtly love of learned poets for elegant and refined ladies, here we find an illiterate youngster from the lower classes using the language he normally uses (more or less…), and drawing his similes from what he knows in his everyday life.

Here we present only two of the twenty ottave that make up the complete work, just to give a taste of its irony and playfulness.

We are told that Nencia’s teeth are whiter not than pearls, but than horse’s teeth. And that she has more than twenty teeth per side, imagine that!

Also she dances really well: not like an angel, but rather like a cute little goat, skipping around. And when she spins, she is not like the moon or the sun, but rather like the wheel of a mill.

The original:

Today we read Non ha l’ottimo artista, by Michelangelo Buonarroti.

Besides painting, sculpting and designing buildings, Michelangelo also wrote poetry. He might not be often remembered for his literary efforts, which he himself considered a “silly thing,” but his sonnets are quite accomplished.

Love is as usual a recurring theme, but it is seldom explored in itself, in the fashion of Petrarca: most of the time themes like death, sin and eternal salvation are interwoven or take center stage.

The result is often a more expressive, sometimes difficult style, with a dark and ominous outlook.

Today’s sonnet is dedicated to the poetess Vittoria Colonna. Michelangelo uses the trope according to which the sculptor doesn’t invent anything, but rather uncovers what is already hidden in the original block of marble.

The original:

Today we read Sembran fere d’avorio in bosco d’oro, by Anton Maria Narducci.

You gotta love Baroque poetry.

A more realistic turn. You see, in the 1600s hygiene was not what it is today, so it must not have been a rare occurrence to see people scratching their heads with suspicious frequency and intensity.

The beloved of the poet — real or imagined, it doesn’t really matter — still has a fabulous golden mane, just like Petrarca’s did. The difference, and it is a remarkably substantial one, lies in its cleanliness, or lack thereof.

Such is the Baroque equilibrium between poetic and disgusting, commonplace and exalted, traditional and rebellious.

The original:

le fère erranti onde sí ricca siete;