Mario Rapisardi
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Mario Rapisardi (25 February 1844, in
Catania Catania (, , , Sicilian and ) is the second-largest municipality on Sicily, after Palermo, both by area and by population. Despite being the second city of the island, Catania is the center of the most densely populated Sicilian conurbation, wh ...
– 4 January 1912, in
Catania Catania (, , , Sicilian and ) is the second-largest municipality on Sicily, after Palermo, both by area and by population. Despite being the second city of the island, Catania is the center of the most densely populated Sicilian conurbation, wh ...
) was an Italian poet, supporter of Risorgimento and member of the
Scapigliatura ''Scapigliatura'' () is the name of an artistic movement that developed in Italy after the Risorgimento period (1815–71). The movement included poets, writers, musicians, painters and sculptors. The term Scapigliatura is the Italian equivalent ...
(definition but refused).


Life

As a boy, he was taught "grammar, rhetoric and the Latin language" by two priests and "a ''psicontologico'' mixture that he thought was philosophy" by a friar. To please his father, he then unwillingly took the usual course in jurisprudence, but never wanted to take the
laurea In Italy, the ''laurea'' is the main post-secondary academic degree. The name originally referred literally to the laurel wreath, since ancient times a sign of honor and now worn by Italian students right after their official graduation ceremo ...
in that or any other faculty. He wrote at this time "there is nothing noteworthy in my life, unless it is this, that - for good or ill - it formed me, destroying the wretched and false education I had received p to thenand instructing and educating me, in my own way, to be outside whatever school, whatever sect, scornful of systems and prejudices". He began his poetic career at fourteen with an ode to
Saint Agatha Agatha of Sicily () is a Christian saint. Her Calendar of saints, feast is on 5 February. Agatha was born in Catania, part of the Sicilia (Roman province), Roman Province of Sicily, and was martyred . She is one of several virgin martyrs who are ...
, in which he dared to recommend the freedom of his fatherland (then under the Bourbon regime), and in 1863 published a volume of verses under the title ''Canti''. In 1865 he came to
Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...
for the first time, returning there often later in his life. There he got to know Giovanni Prati, Niccolò Tommaseo, Atto Vannucci, Pietro Fanfani, Andrea Maffei, Giuseppe Regaldi, Erminia, Arnaldo Fusinato, Francesco Dall'Ongaro, Terenzio Mamiani and other "illustri e buoni", as he later called them. Also in Florence he published his ''La Palingenesi'' in 1868, recommending a religious revival for humanity. It got good reviews, and
Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romanticism, Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, journalist, human rights activist and politician. His most famous works are the novels ''The Hunchbac ...
read it and wrote to Rapisardi, saying "... t is anoble poem. You are a forerunner". In 1870 he received a teaching post at the University of Catania. Don Pedro II, emperor of Brazil, attended one of his lessons in 1876 and recommended him to the last book of
Dante Dante Alighieri (; most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri; – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer, and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called ...
's '' De Monarchia''. Rapisardi was made ''ordinario'' of Italian literature at the university in 1878, and presented the inaugural lecture of the academic year there in 1879. His topic was "The new scientific concept", one he saw as brave seeing as he was delivering the lecture "before the authorities, in ''this'' country and on ''this'' solemn occasion". In 1881 he began a controversy with Giosuè Carducci. In 1885 the Florentine Amelia Poniatowski Sabernich became his lover, remaining so until his death. In 1886, he was in Rome on the board to discuss universities, and wrote to her "Di Roma non mi piacciono che alcuni ruderi, pochi, non tutti quelli che guardano a bocca aperta i forestieri; le chiese splendide tutte mi fanno rabbia: sono reggie, non tempi. (O Santa Maria del Fiore! Quella sì che è la casa del Dio Ignoto, e tale da fare raccogliere l'animo più incredulo in meditazioni sublimi)". He refused the nomination offered to him by the constituency of Trapani well 6200 votes, a figure so extraordinary, blaming his failing health, the failure of his studies and the nature "devoid of political stores." As a professor in Catania, he wrote a poetic history of humanity called Luzifero. Also wrote Giobbe and Atlantide. He was a Mason (as was Carducci) and a chapter of the higher degrees is named after him. In 1894 he was attacked by some socialists for advising calm during the famous "moti di Sicilia", to which he replied that such events seemed "untimely" and lacked "a common programme" and effective leaders, and that he had been made a "moderator" not a "peacemaker"."La pace sarà fatta dopo un assetto sociale radicalmente diverso di quello onde ora ha regno e delizia la borghesia." In 1897 he answered an invitation to collaborate on the magazine ''L'Università'', excusing himself as not having enough time or the right attitude to write for the newspapers and trying to dissuade the editors from getting him to contribute anything political in character. In 1905 a proposal to dismiss him from the university caused protests from students in several Italian universities, and in 1909 he replied to an invitation by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti by writing that "the obligation on poets is not to found new schools or aggrandize the ancients; his duty is to express things as they are and represent reality as he sees and feels it, with complete sincerity, with heat and with the colour of his soul (...) He died in Catania in 1912, and Catania went into official mourning for three days, with his funeral attracting over 150,000 people (including official representatives sent from
Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...
to attend). However, due to opposition from the church authorities, his body remained unburied in a storage area at the town cemetery for ten days.


Works

*1858 - Ode to sant'Agata *1863 - ''Canti'', a volume of verses *1872, Pisa - ''Le ricordanze'', collection of lyric verses *1875, Florence - '' Catullo e Lesbia'' *1877, Milan - ''Lucifero'', praising
Rationalism In philosophy, rationalism is the Epistemology, epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "the position that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge", often in contrast to ot ...
's triumph over Transcendence. *1879, Milan - Translation of
Lucretius Titus Lucretius Carus ( ; ;  – October 15, 55 BC) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem '' De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, which usually is t ...
's ''
De rerum natura (; ''On the Nature of Things'') is a first-century BC Didacticism, didactic poem by the Roman Republic, Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius () with the goal of explaining Epicureanism, Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. The poem, writte ...
'' *1885, Catania - ''Giustizia'', collection of social-reform poetry. *1884, Catania - ''Giobbe'', poem expressing the accents of human pain. *1887, Catania - ''Le poesie religiose'', advocating religion of a pantheistic mould. *1888 - ''Duetto'', a social-reform poem for which he was tried by the magistrate of
Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...
. *1889, Naples - Translation of the works of Catullus. *1892, Palermo - Translation of Percy Bysshe Shelley's '' Prometheus Unbound''. *1894 - The poem ''Atlantide'', a biting satire and work of caricature about the literati of the day. *1897 - Translation of the '' Odes'' of
Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 BC – 27 November 8 BC), Suetonius, Life of Horace commonly known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). Th ...
. *1902 - ''L'asceta'' and other poems.


Bibliography

* "Mario Rapisardi", atti del convegno a cura di Sarah Zappulla Muscarà, Giuseppe Maimone Editore, Catania 1991


Other projects

*
Italian WikiSource
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Mario Rapisardi
*
Italian WikiQuote
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Mario Rapisardi


Notes


External links

* *
Letter to Francesco Paolo Frontini
from Mario Rapisardi, on the occasion of the publication of the Romanza Lauda di Suora (1889)
Letter to Francesco Paolo Frontini
from Mario Rapisardi (1906)
Epitaph of Mario Rapisardi

Works citing Mario Rapisardi



Life and works of Mario Rapisardi
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rapisardi, Mario 1844 births 1912 deaths Italian poets Italian republicans Italian male poets Italian people of the Italian unification Writers from Catania Sicilian-language poets