Italian Poetry

Today we read Gli ignavi , by Dante Alighieri. The third book of Dante’s Comedy is filled with quotable expressions that are still frequently used in Italian. Such is the ammonition that closes the inscription on the Door of Hell: lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate (leave all hope behind, you who enter). Dante knew that this hominous promise doesn’t apply to him: he’s just a visitor, passing t...

Today we read In quella parte del giovanetto anno , by Dante Alighieri. This extract from the Chant XXIV of Dante’s Comedy is likely not one you find in anthologies: no big names of the time discussing their damnation, no visions of Paradise, no memorable one-liners. But it’s a beautiful, moving simile, that Dante employs to explain how he feels when he sees Virgil, his guide through Hell, angered...

Today we read Tu mi vorresti come uno dei tuoi gatti , by Patrizia Cavalli. Patrizia Cavalli writes in a register that sounds, on first reading, like overheard conversation: colloquial, quick, often bitingly funny. But underneath the chatty surface there is almost always a strict metrical scaffolding — here, mostly endecasillabi — and a network of internal rhymes that keep everything tightly stitc...

Today we read Sole d’inverno , by Ada Negri. We’ve met Ada Negri before , when she was sixty and writing about February’s tentative promise of spring. This poem, from Il dono , finds her six years later, still attuned to the lies that seasons tell us — but now it’s New Year’s Day, and the deception is even more brazen. Where Presagio warned that reality might disappoint the dream, here Negri...

Today we read Il presepio , by Gabriele D’Annunzio. Gabriele D’Annunzio is not usually the author you’d associate with simple little nursery rhymes about kids reciting religious stuff and getting candy from their grandma for Christmas. One would instead link him with aestheticism, decadentism, First World War, daring airplane manouvers, Mussolini and, yes, weird sexual legends. And yet here we are...

Today we read La pioggia nel pineto , by Gabriele D'Annunzio. We are back with another staple poem that everyone my age is familiar with, and has probably had to at least partially know by heart at some point during their studies. As a little testament of how ingrained it is in the collective Italian school unconscious, you can see it recited by the comedian Renato Pozzetto in one of his movies, a...

Today we read Canto notturno di un pastore errante dell’Asia , by Giacomo Leopardi. A friend of mine once told me that (good) Literature and Philosophy are much more difficult to tell apart than one usually thinks, because the only difference lies in the sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller emphasis on the form given to the content. This never sounded particularly right to me, but what do I k...

Today we read Un’ape esser vorrei , by Torquato Tasso. I should perhaps feel a bit bad inflicting on you minor poems from major poets, but this madrigale from Torquato Tasso is just too delightful in its effortless lightness and perfection. I will console myself by pointing out that these few verses can be seen as an antecedent for the Baroque sonnet by Materdona that we previously presented...

Today we read Alla sera , by Ugo Foscolo. I will admit to a snobbish tendency to avoid presenting here the most widely known Italian poems, let alone those learned by heart by most students. And I do believe it is a good thing to widen the horizon to lesser-studied gems. Still, it won’t do to present a too-biased lay of the land. So, here is a beautiful classic that I hardly can stand anymore, hav...

Today we read Avvertimento a un giovane scrittore , by Giuseppe Giusti. Many of Giusti’s most famous poems are political and satirical in nature, and thus require some knowledge of Italy’s and Europe’s complicated and depressing history in order to be fully enjoyed. Which is why I chose instead this short epigram, in the form of an ottava . Giusti has a warning for young writers, which in contempo...

Today we read Rinovazione del buon Capo d’Anno a D. Ciccio per l’ingresso del 1683 , by Giovanni Francesco Lazzarelli. Not sure what the very best way to start a year might be, but one can’t go wrong starting with a smile. So let me wish everyone an excellent 2025 using the same verses that our friend Lazzarelli employed to wish a great 1683 to his nemesis, Don Ciccio: may all the planets bring yo...

Today we read Natale , by Giuseppe Ungaretti. Christmas happens every year, even when we are at war. This poem by Ungaretti is introduced by the indication “Napoli il 26 dicembre 1916”: he was on temporary leave from the front of WW1, and visiting his friend’s house in Naples. If we didn’t know that, we could read these verses as just a statement of laziness: the poet explains he isn’t in the mood...

Today we read Io vidi già seder nell’arme irato , by Leon Battista Alberti. Leon Battista Alberti was one of the great architects of the Italian Renaissance, but like many humanists of the period he wore several other hats: he was a mathematician and cryptographer, a linguist, an inventor. And most of his professional writings were in Latin, as traditional at the time. The hat we are interes...

Today we read Non, Vita, perché tu sei nella notte , by Camillo Sbarbaro. We recently read how Quasimodo, in his Ed è subito sera , referred to life as a “ray of light,” soon disappearing. Sbarbaro starts this poem with a similar, but much more fiery, simile: a quick burst of flame. It is surprising how much intensity is hidden in this apparently quiet composition, written in plain language and sl...

Today we read Caro luogo , by Umberto Saba. Two young lovers are looking for a place where they can “make one life out of two.” All the afternoon they wander around under the sun, surrounded by the noise and the comings and goings of adult, everyday life. But then the night comes, the moon rises, and they find a quiet spot, where the only noise if that of crickets. And here the poem stops and the...

Today we read L’orologio da rote , by Ciro di Pers. Complaining about technology is not something modern. So while today we blame social media for decline in mental health and ai for stealing jobs and possibly killing everybody (and I’m not saying I disagree…), back in the 1600s one would complain about… clocks. Channeling something of a pre-Marxist sensibility, Ciro da Pers sees in mechanic...

Today we read Ed è subito sera , by Salvatore Quasimodo. How do you put the whole of human existence in three verses? Well, this is one way. Are you an uncharitable reader who isn’t impressed by Quasimodo’s Nobel Prize and would quip “I could also write three lines without even a rhyme”? You then might also maintain that this poem is a fancy way to put the saying “life sucks and then you die.” But...

Today we read La Nencia di Barberino , by Lorenzo de Medici. The attribution of today’s poem to Lorenzo il Magnifico is not certain, but has a long tradition. Despite such a lofty author, the topic is very prosaic: a rustic shepherd sings the beauty and various charms of his beloved, Nencia, who gives the title to the composition. It is a pretty standard theme. The twist is the dramatic chan...

Today we read Non ha l’ottimo artista , by Michelangelo Buonarroti. Besides painting, sculpting and designing buildings, Michelangelo also wrote poetry. He might not be often remembered for his literary efforts, which he himself considered a “silly thing,” but his sonnets are quite accomplished. Love is as usual a recurring theme, but it is seldom explored in itself, in the fashion of Petrarca: mo...

Today we read Sembran fere d’avorio in bosco d’oro , by Anton Maria Narducci. You gotta love Baroque poetry. The author of this sonnet must have gotten tired of the never-ending repetition of the “angelic woman with golden hair” trope, and decided to give things a different turn. A more realistic turn. You see, in the 1600s hygiene was not what it is today, so it must not have been a r...

Today we read D’un alto monte onde si scorge il mare , by Isabella di Morra. Picture it: you are a young, smart girl who adores her father because, among other things, he gives you a literary education. Which is not at all to be taken as a given when you live in the early 1500s. You are surrounded by unruly and frankly nasty brothers, who envy your father’s attentions for you. Then you father runs...

Today we read Voi ch’ascoltate in rime sparse il suono , by Francesco Petrarca. I am a happy subscriber to the Poem of the Day newsletter from the Poetry Foundation , and a few weeks ago I received in my mailbox this version of the opening sonnet of Petrarch’s Canzoniere . Though I’m of course glad to see Italian authors showcased, and even setting aside my general misgivings about translati...

Today we read Presagio , by Ada Negri. Ana Negri was known for her interest in social reform, and her early poetry reflects that, later morphing into patriotism after the experience of the First World War. This poem was written at a later stage of her life, when she was sixty, and attests to her shift towards more intimate and lyrical themes, lingering on memory. Here she describes the end of wint...

Today we read Mio padre è stato per me l’“assassino” , by Umberto Saba. Saba’s mother was abandoned by the poet’s father while still pregnant. Understandably she didn’t harbour good memories of him, but went as far as referring to him as “the assassin” when talking to Umberto all through his childhood. In this sonnet Saba recounts meeting his father later on, when he was twenty....

Today we read Trasformazione di Dafne in lauro , by Giambattista Marino. In the full glory of baroque flourishes, Marino presents here the notorious rape of Daphne by Apollo. And the poem, though offset by the beauty of the language and technique, is brutal. The first quatrain focuses on Daphne, shown in distress, running away, looking for her father, likened to a hunted-down doe. Still, slowly bu...