Giovanni Battista Guarini (10 December 1538 – 7 October 1612) was an Italian poet, dramatist, and diplomat.

Life

Guarini was born in

Ferrara Ferrara (, ; egl, Fràra ) is a city and ''comune'' in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital of the Province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream ...

. On the termination of his studies at the universities of

Pisa Pisa ( , or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower, the cit ...

, Padua and

, he was appointed professor of literature at Ferrara. Soon after his appointment, he published some sonnets which obtained for him great popularity as a poet. In 1567, he entered the service of

Alfonso II d'Este Alfonso II d'Este (24 November 1533 – 27 October 1597) was Duke of Ferrara from 1559 to 1597. He was a member of the House of Este. Biography He was the elder son of Ercole II d'Este and Renée de France, the daughter of Louis XII of France an ...

, Duke of Ferrara. After about 20 years of service, differences with the Duke led him to resign. After residing successively in

Savoy Savoy (; frp, Savouè ; french: Savoie ) is a cultural-historical region in the Western Alps. Situated on the cultural boundary between Occitania and Piedmont, the area extends from Lake Geneva in the north to the Dauphiné in the south. Savo ...

, Mantua, Florence and Urbino, he returned to his native Ferrara. There he discharged one final public mission, that of congratulating Pope Paul V on his election (1605). He died in

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

, where he had been summoned to attend a lawsuit, aged 73. He was the father of Anna Guarini, one of the famous ''virtuose'' singers of the Ferrara court, the three women of the ''

concerto di donne The ''concerto delle donne'' (; also ''concerto di donne'' or ''concerto delle (or di) dame'') was a group of professional female singers in the late Italian Renaissance, primarily in the court of Ferrara, Italy. Renowned for their technical an ...

''. She was murdered by her husband in 1598, with the assistance of her brother Girolamo.

Work and influence

His most notable work, ''

Il pastor fido ''Il pastor fido'' (''The Faithfull Shepherd'' in Richard Fanshawe's 1647 English translation) is a pastoral tragicomedy set in Arcadia by Giovanni Battista Guarini, first published in 1590 in Venice. Plot summary To redress an ancient wrong ...

'', had its first dramatic representation in honor of the nuptials of the

Duke of Savoy The titles of count, then of duke of Savoy are titles of nobility attached to the historical territory of Savoy. Since its creation, in the 11th century, the county was held by the House of Savoy. The County of Savoy was elevated to a Duchy of Sav ...

and Catalina Michaela of Austria in 1585 (published in 1590 in Venice; 20th rev. ed., 1602, Venice; Eng. trans. ''The Faithful Shepherd'', 1647). This play, a pastoral tragicomedy about the loves and fates of shepherds and hunters, polished in style, was translated into many languages and became popular during the 17th century. It set the pattern for a code of refinement and gallantry that lasted until the late 18th century. No poet played a larger role in the flowering of the madrigal in the late Renaissance and early

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

eras than Guarini. His poems were set more often by madrigal composers than the work of any other poet, even Tasso, who came in a close second; the prolific madrigal composer Philippe de Monte even named one of his collections ''Il pastor fido'' after Guarini's most famous work. His popularity was due to his providing texts to composers which were rich with possibilities for word-painting and other easy translations of emotion into music. One of his poems, the erotic ''Tirsi morir volea'', recounting the amorous encounter of a shepherd and a nymph, was set to music as a madrigal by more composers than any other pastoral poem of the era, including, among others, Andrea Gabrieli, Gioseppe Caimo,

Carlo Gesualdo Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa ( – 8 September 1613) was Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza. As a composer he is known for writing madrigals and pieces of sacred music that use a chromatic language not heard again until the late 19th century ...

, Luca Marenzio, Benedetto Pallavicino, and Giaches de Wert.Einstein, Vol. II p. 539. Another of Guarini's poems which was set by numerous madrigalists was ''Cor mio, deh non languire'' ("Dear heart, I prithee do not waste away"). In addition to his decisive influence on madrigal composers, he was the single largest influence on opera librettists up until the time of Metastasio in the 18th century. He therefore plays an important role in the

history of music Although definitions of music vary wildly throughout the world, every known culture partakes in it, and it is thus considered a cultural universal. The origins of music remain highly contentious; commentators often relate it to the origin of ...

. While Guarini's work may be seen as lacking the deep feeling and sentiment of another poet at the Este court, Torquato Tasso, it was precisely this quality which commended it to musical setting at a time when excessive emotionalism had become unfashionable. An example of a setting of his work would be ''"O come è gran martire"'' from ''Libro Terzo dei Madrigali'' (1592) by Monteverdi. Other works are: * ''Compendio della poesia tragicomica'' (1601; published again in the 1602 edition of ''Pastor fido'') * ''Il segretario'', a dialog on the duties of a secretary, and on matters of logic, rhetoric, etc. (1594) * ''La idropica'', a prose comedy (written about 1584; published 1613) * ''Lettere'' (1593) * ''Trattato della politica libertà'' (Venice, 1818)

Works

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Notes

References

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External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Guarini, Giovanni Battista Italian Renaissance writers Italian diplomats Italian dramatists and playwrights Italian poets Italian male poets Writers from Ferrara 16th-century Italian writers 16th-century male writers 17th-century Italian writers 17th-century Italian male writers 1538 births 1612 deaths Italian-language poets Italian male dramatists and playwrights 16th-century Italian poets 16th-century dramatists and playwrights 17th-century Italian poets 17th-century Italian dramatists and playwrights