Mario Rapisardi (25 February 1844, in

Catania Catania (, , Sicilian and ) is the second largest municipality in Sicily, after Palermo. Despite its reputation as the second city of the island, Catania is the largest Sicilian conurbation, among the largest in Italy, as evidenced also by ...

– 4 January 1912, in

) was an Italian poet, supporter of

Risorgimento The unification of Italy ( it, Unità d'Italia ), also known as the ''Risorgimento'' (, ; ), was the 19th-century political and social movement that resulted in the consolidation of different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single ...

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 of ...

(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 ceremony ...

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 feast is on 5 February. Agatha was born in Catania, part of the Roman Province of Sicily, and was martyred . She is one of several virgin martyrs who are commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mas ...

, 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 ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

for the first time, returning there often later in his life. There he got to know Giovanni Prati,

Niccolò Tommaseo Niccolò Tommaseo (; 9 October 1802 – 1 May 1874) was a Dalmatian linguist, journalist and essayist, the editor of a ''Dizionario della Lingua Italiana'' in eight volumes (1861–74), of a dictionary of synonyms (1830) and other works. He is ...

, Atto Vannucci, Pietro Fanfani,

Andrea Maffei Andrea Maffei (1798 – 1885) was an Italian poet, translator and librettist. He 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 juris ...

, Giuseppe Regaldi,

Erminia ''Jerusalem Delivered'', also known as ''The Liberation of Jerusalem'' ( it, La Gerusalemme liberata ; ), is an epic poem by the Italian literature, Italian poet Torquato Tasso, first published in 1581, that tells a largely mythified version of ...

, Arnaldo Fusinato, Francesco Dall'Ongaro,

Terenzio Mamiani Terenzio, Count Mamiani della Rovere (19 September 179921 May 1885) was an Italian writer, academic, diplomat and politician, and was committed to the cause of the unification of Italy under the Sardinian monarchy. He was one of the leading figure ...

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 (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...

read it and wrote to Rapisardi, saying "...

t is a T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is deri ...

noble poem. You are a forerunner". In 1870 he received a teaching post at the

University of Catania The University of Catania ( it, Università degli Studi di Catania) is a university located in Catania, Sicily. Founded in 1434, it is the oldest university in Sicily, the 13th oldest in Italy, and the 29th oldest university in the world. With a ...

. Don Pedro II, emperor of Brazil, attended one of his lessons in 1876 and recommended him to the last book of

Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...

's ''

De Monarchia ''Monarchia'', often called ''De Monarchia'' (, ; "(On) Monarchy"), is a Latin treatise on secular and religious power by Dante Alighieri, who wrote it between 1312 and 1313. With this text, the poet intervened in one of the most controversial s ...

''. 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 Alessandro Giuseppe Carducci (; 27 July 1835 – 16 February 1907) was an Italian poet, writer, literary critic and teacher. He was very noticeably influential, and was regarded as the official national poet of modern Italy. In 1906, h ...

. 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 Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti (; 22 December 1876 – 2 December 1944) was an Italian poet, editor, art theorist, and founder of the Futurist movement. He was associated with the utopian and Symbolist artistic and literary community Abbaye d ...

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 ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

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 Lesbia was the literary pseudonym used by the Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus ( 82–52 BC) to refer to his lover. Lesbia is traditionally identified with Clodia, the wife of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer and sister of Publius Clodius Pulc ...

'' *1877, Milan - ''Lucifero'', praising

Rationalism In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".Lacey, A.R. (1996), ''A Dictionary of Philosophy' ...

's triumph over Transcendence. *1879, Milan - Translation of

Lucretius Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) 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, and which usually is translated into E ...

's ''

De rerum natura ''De rerum natura'' (; ''On the Nature of Things'') is a first-century BC didactic poem by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius ( – c. 55 BC) with the goal of explaining Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. The poem, written in some 7 ...

'' *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

pantheist Pantheism is the belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical with divinity and a supreme supernatural being or entity, pointing to the universe as being an immanent creator deity still expanding and creating, which has ex ...

ic mould. *1888 - ''Duetto'', a social-reform poem for which he was tried by the magistrate of

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 ...

. *1889, Naples - Translation of the works of

Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His s ...

. *1892, Palermo - Translation of

Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 17928 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achie ...

'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 Odes may refer to: *The plural of ode, a type of poem *Odes (Horace), ''Odes'' (Horace), a collection of poems by the Roman author Horace, circa 23 BCE *Odes of Solomon, a pseudepigraphic book of the Bible *Book of Odes (Bible), a Deuterocanonic ...

'' of

Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...

. *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
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Italian WikiQuote
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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