Giorgio Caproni (

Livorno Livorno () is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of 152,916 residents as of 2025. It is traditionally known in English as Leghorn ...

, 7 January 1912 – 22 January 1990,

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) was an Italian

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 ...

literary critic A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature' ...

and

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, especially from French. His work was also part of the literature event in the art competition at the

1948 Summer Olympics The 1948 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XIV Olympiad and officially branded as London 1948, were an international multi-sport event held from 29 July to 14 August 1948 in London, United Kingdom. Following a twelve-year hiatus cau ...

Early years

Caproni left Livorno at the age of ten to complete his primary studies in

Genoa Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...

, where he studied first music, then literature, and where he wrote his first poems. After participating in

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

as a member of the

Italian resistance movement The Italian Resistance ( ), or simply ''La'' , consisted of all the Italian resistance groups who fought the occupying forces of Nazi Germany and the fascist collaborationists of the Italian Social Republic during the Second World War in Italy ...

, he spent many years as an elementary school teacher.

Career

In 1945, he went to

, where he contributed to a number of journals; besides poetry, he also wrote criticism and

novella A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most novelettes and short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) ...

s and contributed translations. His book ''Il passaggio di Enea'' collected all of his poems written to 1956 and reflected his experiences in combat during World War II and serving with the Resistance. He also oversaw a series of translations of foreign works, chief among which was '' Death on Credit'' by Louis-Ferdinand Céline. In 1959, Caproni and fellow poets Antonio Seccareccia, Elio Filippo Accrocca, and Ugo Royal began the

Frascati Frascati () is a city and in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital in the Lazio region of central Italy. It is located south-east of Rome, on the Alban Hills close to the ancient city of Tusculum. Frascati is closely associated with science, ...

National Poetry Prize, an annual poetry competition for previously unpublished works. The annual prize began as a

cask A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids ...

of wine; in 1974, it was changed to a cash prize of 1,000,000

Italian lira The lira ( , ; : lire, , ) was the currency of Italy between 1861 and 2002. It was introduced by the Kingdom of Italy (Napoleonic), Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy in 1807 at par with the French franc, and was subsequently adopted by the different s ...

. Caproni's poetry touches on a number of recurring themes, most notably Genoa, his mother and birthplace, and travel, and combines a sense of refinement in both meter and style to immediacy and clarity of feeling. Among his other works: *''Le stanze della funicolare'' (1952) *''Il seme del piangere'' (1959) *''Congedo del viaggiatore cerimonioso & altre prosopopee'' (1965) *''Il muro della terra'' (1975) *''Il franco cacciatore'' (1982) *''Conte di Kevenhüller'' (1986) *''L'opera in versi'' (1998), containing his complete output *''Per lei''

References

External links

Giorgio Caproni
on Enciclopedia Treccani
Giorgio Caproni
on

Encyclopædia Britannica The is a general knowledge, general-knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Caproni, Giorgio 1912 births 1990 deaths Italian anti-fascists Italian male poets Italian educators Italian resistance movement members People from Livorno 20th-century Italian poets 20th-century Italian male writers Art competitors at the 1948 Summer Olympics Italian military personnel of World War II