Mario Rapisardi
Encyclopedia
Mario Rapisardi was an Italian poet, supporter of Risorgimento and member of the Scapigliatura
.
in that or any other faculty. He wrote at this time "there is nothing notworthy in my life, unless it is this, that - for good or ill - it formed me, destroying the wretched and false education I had received [up to then] and 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 sant'Agata
, 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
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
read it and wrote to Raspardi, saying "...[it is a] noble 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
'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)». Rifiutò la candidatura offertagli dal collegio elettorale di Trapani con ben 6200 suffragi, cifra allora straordinaria, accusando la sua debole salute, l'insufficienza dei suoi studi e l'indole «aliena da negozi politici."
In 1894 he was attacked by some socialists for adivising 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". 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 aggrandise 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
to attend). However, due to opposition from the church authorities, his body remained unburied in a store at the town cemetery for ten days.
Italian WikiSource has material related to Mario Rapisardi 
Italian WikiQuote has material related to Mario Rapisardi
Scapigliatura
Scapigliatura is the name of the artistic movement which developed in Italy after the period known as Risorgimento,...
.
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 laureaLaurea
In Italy, the laurea is the main post-secondary academic degree.-Reforms due to the Bologna process:Spurred by the Bologna process, a major reform was instituted in 1999 to introduce easier university degrees comparable to the bachelors...
in that or any other faculty. He wrote at this time "there is nothing notworthy in my life, unless it is this, that - for good or ill - it formed me, destroying the wretched and false education I had received [up to then] and 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 sant'Agata
Agatha of Sicily
Saint Agatha of Sicily is a Christian saint. Her memorial is on 5 February. Agatha was born at Catania, Sicily, and she was martyred in approximately 251...
, 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
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
for the first time, returning there often later in his life. There he got to know Giovanni Prati
Giovanni Prati
Giovanni Prati was an Italian poet born in what then was part of the Austrian Empire and educated in law at Padua...
, Niccolò Tommaseo
Niccolò Tommaseo
Niccolò Tommaseo was an Italian Dalmatian linguist, journalist and essayist, the editor of a Dizionario della Lingua Italiana in eight volumes , of a dictionary of synonyms and other works...
, Atto Vannucci, Pietro Fanfani, Andrea Maffei
Andrea Maffei
Andrea Maffei was an Italian poet, translator and librettist.-Life:Maffei was born in Molina di Ledro, Trentino.A follower of Vincenzo Monti, he formed part of the 19th century Italian classicist literary culture. Gaining laurea in jurisprudence, he moved for some years to Verona, then to Venice...
, Giuseppe Regaldi, Erminia, Arnaldo Fusinato, Francesco Dall'Ongaro
Francesco Dall'Ongaro
Francesco Dall'Ongaro was an Italian writer, poet and dramatist-Biography:Born in Mansuè, Veneto, Dall'Ongaro was educated for the priesthood, but abandoned his orders, and taking to political journalism founded the Favilla at Trieste in the Liberal interest.In 1848 he enlisted under Garibaldi,...
, 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 Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
read it and wrote to Raspardi, saying "...[it is a] noble poem. You are a forerunner".
In 1870 he received a teaching post at the University of Catania
University of Catania
The University of Catania is a university located in Catania, Italy, and founded in 1434. It is the oldest university in Sicily, the 13th oldest in Italy and the 29th oldest university in the world...
. Don Pedro II
Pedro II of Brazil
Dom Pedro II , nicknamed "the Magnanimous", was the second and last ruler of the Empire of Brazil, reigning for over 58 years. Born in Rio de Janeiro, he was the seventh child of Emperor Dom Pedro I of Brazil and Empress Dona Maria Leopoldina and thus a member of the Brazilian branch of...
, emperor of Brazil, attended one of his lessons in 1876 and recommended him to the last book of Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
's De Monarchia
De Monarchia
De Monarchia is a treatise on secular and religious power by Dante Alighieri. With this Latin text, the poet intervened in one of the most controversial subjects of his period: the relationship between secular authority and religious authority...
. 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
Giosuè Carducci
Giosuè Alessandro Michele Carducci was an Italian poet and teacher. He was very influential and was regarded as the official national poet of modern Italy. In 1906 he became the first Italian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.-Biography:...
. 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)». Rifiutò la candidatura offertagli dal collegio elettorale di Trapani con ben 6200 suffragi, cifra allora straordinaria, accusando la sua debole salute, l'insufficienza dei suoi studi e l'indole «aliena da negozi politici."
In 1894 he was attacked by some socialists for adivising 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". 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
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti was an Italian poet and editor, the founder of the Futurist movement, and a fascist ideologue.-Childhood and adolescence:...
by writing that "the obligation on poets is not to found new schools or aggrandise 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
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
to attend). However, due to opposition from the church authorities, his body remained unburied in a store 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 - CatulloCatullusGaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...
e LesbiaLesbiaLesbia was the literary pseudonym of the great love of Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus .She was a poet in her own right, included with Catullus in a list of famous poets whose lovers "often" helped them write their verses.... - 1877, Milan - Lucifero, praising Rationalism's triumph over TranscendenceTranscendence (philosophy)In philosophy, the adjective transcendental and the noun transcendence convey the basic ground concept from the word's literal meaning , of climbing or going beyond, albeit with varying connotations in its different historical and cultural stages...
- 1879, Milan - Translation of LucretiusLucretiusTitus Lucretius Carus was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is an epic philosophical poem laying out the beliefs of Epicureanism, De rerum natura, translated into English as On the Nature of Things or "On the Nature of the Universe".Virtually no details have come down concerning...
's De rerum natura - 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 VeniceVeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
- 1889, Naples - Translation of the works of CatullusCatullusGaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...
- 1892, Palermo - Translation of Percy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
'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 HoraceHoraceQuintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...
- 1902 - L'asceta and other poems
Other projects
Italian WikiSource has material related to Mario Rapisardi Italian WikiQuote has material related to Mario RapisardiExternal links
- Works of Mario Rapisardi at Project GutenbergProject GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
- 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
- Francesco Paolo Frontini and Mario Rapisardi
- Life and works of Mario Rapisardi