Gerolamo Araolla, also known as Hieronimu Araolla, (
Sassari
Sassari ( ; ; ; ) is an Italian city and the second-largest of Sardinia in terms of population with 120,497 inhabitants as of 2025, and a functional urban area of about 260,000 inhabitants. One of the oldest cities on the island, it contains ...
, 1542 -
Rome
Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
, 1615) was a
Sardinia
Sardinia ( ; ; ) is the Mediterranean islands#By area, second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia an ...
n
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...
and
priest
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...
.
Early life
Gerolamo Araolla was born into a distinguished family. He was a pupil of the Sassari physician and philologist Gavino Sambigucci. After studying literature and philosophy, Araolla graduated with a law degree from the
University of Pisa
The University of Pisa (, UniPi) is a public university, public research university in Pisa, Italy. Founded in 1343, it is one of the oldest universities in Europe. Together with Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and Sant'Anna School of Advanced S ...
in 1567. Shortly after graduation, he took his vows and became a priest in
Bosa
Bosa is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Oristano (until May 2005 it was in the province of Nuoro), part of the Sardinia region of Italy. Bosa is situated about two-thirds of the way up the west coast of Sardinia, on a small hill, about ...
in 1569.
Poetry
Araolla was a significant poet, writing a number of verses in the three hegemonic languages of the island:
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas
**Spanish cuisine
**Spanish history
**Spanish culture
...
,
Sardinian, and
Tuscan/
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance languag ...
. He said that poetry is especially delicate, sweet, and moving. He felt, however, that it was necessary to overcome the humanistic conception of poetry as polite and
imitatio dei. Araolla was a
Petrarch
Francis Petrarch (; 20 July 1304 – 19 July 1374; ; modern ), born Francesco di Petracco, was a scholar from Arezzo and poet of the early Italian Renaissance, as well as one of the earliest Renaissance humanism, humanists.
Petrarch's redis ...
ist, profoundly cultured, with a great knowledge of
Torquato Tasso
Torquato Tasso ( , also , ; 11 March 154425 April 1595) was an Italian poet of the 16th century, known for his 1591 poem ''Gerusalemme liberata'' (Jerusalem Delivered), in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between ...
; his
Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism is a version of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a series of thinkers. Among the common id ...
rested on the solid foundation of
Augustinian thought.
Araolla enthusiastically participated in the cultural ferment that animated his Sassari youth, and entered into friendships with the leading Sassarian intellectuals of the 16th century.
In 1582, he published his poem ''Sa vida, su martiriu, et morte dessos gloriosos Martires Gavinu, Brothu et Gianuari,'' based on folk tales about
Saint Gabinus Saint Gabinus (commonly anglicized as Saint Gavin or Saint Gabin) is the title given to two personages.
* Saint Gabinus, who died as a martyr at Porto Torres, Sardinia, Italy (the ancient Turris) sometime in the second century under Emperor Hadrian ...
. This work, consisting of 244 stanzas and approximately two thousand verses, had wide circulation on Sardinia. It was probably distributed by the village clergy as an aid to pastoral work. The poem is the largest attempt at the construction of a literary Sardinian language, aiming at "exhalting and enriching our Sardinian language, like all the other nations in the world already did with their own language" (''magnificare, & arrichire sa limba nostra Sarda; dessa matessi manera qui sa naturale insoro tottu sas naciones dessu mundu hant magnificadu & arrichidu'', Incipit
). Even the metrical structure of the work,
ottava rima
Ottava rima is a rhyming stanza form of Italian origin. Originally used for long poems on heroic themes, it later came to be popular in the writing of mock-heroic works. Its earliest known use is in the writings of Giovanni Boccaccio.
The ottav ...
, is an attempt to connect his work in the Sardinian language with Italian literature.
Some time after 1590, Araolla commemorated
Pier Michele Giagaraccio with the sonnet ''onor di Sassari e delizia dell'
Arno
The Arno is a river in the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the most important river of central Italy after the Tiber.
Source and route
The river originates on Monte Falterona in the Casentino area of the Apennines, and initially takes a sou ...
'' (Honor of Sassari and delight of the Arno).
A few years later, the introduction of his work: ''Rimas diversas spirituales'' (1597), focused on notions of poetics and rhetoric in an effort to prove that Sardinian has the same dignity as
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
, Spanish, and Italian (''tengiat cognitione de sa limba Sarda comente tenet de sas de pius'', int. 35). ''Rimas diversas spirituales'' was dedicated to Don Blascu d'Alagon.
[''Rimas Diversas Spirituales de Su Dottore Hieronimu Araolla Sardu Sassaresu'', Hieronimu Araolla](_blank)
/ref>[Francesco Cherubini]
Carlo Clausen
(1902)
Works
* ''Sa vida, su martirio, et morte dessos gloriosos martires Gavinu, Brothu et Gianuari'', per Francisci Guarneriu istampadore de Nicolau Canellas, Calaris (Cagliari) 1582
References
Bibliography
* F. Delitala, ''Oratio de Hyeronimo Araolla poeta secerensi habita in solemni studiorum instauratione a Fulgentio Delitala philos. Collegii doctore'', Saceri assari Ex Typ. Arch. Raymundi Azara, 1840.
* P. Mossa, ''Saggio di versione italiana del Gavino trionfante di Gerolamo Araolla'', "La Stella di Sardegna”, Sassari, Tipografia Azuni, 3, 1876, vol. 2, pp. 172–174.
* P. Nurra, ''Antologia dialettale dei classici poeti sardi: G. Araolla'', Sassari, G. Dessì, 1897.
* R. Garzia, ''Gerolamo Araolla'', Bologna, Stabilimento Poligrafico emiliano, 1914.
* F. Alziator, ''Storia della letteratura di Sardegna'', Cagliari, 3T, 1982, pp. 104–110.
* ''Girolamo Araolla and his Solution to the Sardinian "Questione della lingua"'', AAIS, April, 1990, University of Virginia.
* N. Tanda, ''Letteratura e lingue in Sardegna'', Sassari, Edes, 1991, pp. 17–18, 60-61, n. 17.
* D. Manca, ''Introduzione'' a . CANO ''Sa Vitta et sa Morte, et Passione de sanctu Gavinu, Prothu et Januariu'', Cagliari, Centro di Studi Filologici Sardi/Cuec, 2002, p. 345
* G. Porcu, ''Régula castigliana. Poesia sarda e metrica spagnola dal '500 al '700'', Il Maestrale, Nuoro 2008, pp. 13, 14, 21, 61, 145, 146, 153-156, 158, 164.
* D. Manca, ''La comunicazione linguistica e letteraria dei Sardi: dal Medioevo alla «fusione perfetta»'', «Bollettino di Studi Sardi», IV, 4 (2011), Centro di Studi Filologici Sardi, Cagliari, Cuec, 2011, pp. 49–75.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Araolla, Gerolamo
People from Sassari
Sardinian literature
Spanish-language writers from Sardinia
Sardinian-language poets
Italian poets
Italian male poets
1542 births
1615 deaths