Andrea Maffei
Encyclopedia
Life
Maffei was born in Molina di LedroMolina di Ledro
Molina di Ledro was a comune in Trentino in the Italian region Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. On January 1, 2010 it merged in the new municipality of Ledro...
, Trentino.
A follower of Vincenzo Monti
Vincenzo Monti
Vincenzo Monti was an Italian poet, playwright, translator, and scholar.-Biography:Monti was born in Alfonsine, Province of Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna the son of Fedele and Domenica Maria Mazzari, landowners...
, he formed part of the 19th century Italian classicist
Classicism
Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...
literary culture. Gaining laurea
Laurea
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 jurisprudence
Jurisprudence
Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions...
, he moved for some years to Verona
Verona
Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...
, then to Venice
Venice
Venice 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...
and finally to Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, where in 1831 he married contessa Clara Spinelli
Clara Maffei
Elena Clara Antonia Carrara Spinelli was an Italian woman of letters and backer of the Risorgimento, usually known by her married name of countess Clara Maffei or Chiarina Maffei....
. They separated by mutual consent on 15 June 1846.
Skilled in foreign languages, he translated several works of English and German literature into Italian, particularly the plays of Schiller, Shakespeare's Othello
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
and The Tempest
The Tempest
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
, many works of Goethe (including Faust
Goethe's Faust
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust is a tragic play in two parts: and . Although written as a closet drama, it is the play with the largest audience numbers on German-language stages...
) and John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
's Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
. In his translations he sought to adapt the author's original thought to that of the Italian literary public. Not only a translator, he was also a poet and Romanticist
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
. For Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
he wrote the famous libretto for I masnadieri
I masnadieri
I masnadieri is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Andrea Maffei, based on Die Räuber by Friedrich von Schiller....
, drawn from Schiller, and re-wrote some verses from Francesco Maria Piave
Francesco Maria Piave
Francesco Maria Piave was an Italian opera librettist who was born in Murano in the lagoon of Venice, during the brief Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. His career spanned over twenty years working with many of the significant composers of his day...
's libretto for Macbeth
Macbeth (opera)
Macbeth is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi, with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and additions by Andrea Maffei, based on Shakespeare's play of the same name...
. He was also a librettist for Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni was an Italian composer most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music...
, writing the texts for his Il Re a Napoli in Cremona (1885) and Guglielmo Ratcliff
Guglielmo Ratcliff
Guglielmo Ratcliff is a tragic opera in four acts by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Andrea Maffei, translated from the German play Wilhelm Ratcliff by Heinrich Heine...
(1895, from Heinrich Heine
Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine was one of the most significant German poets of the 19th century. He was also a journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of Lieder by composers such as Robert Schumann...
's 1822 play William Ratcliff).
As well as Verdi, Maffei also built up close relationships with others in the Italian cultural scene of the time, including Vincenzo Monti
Vincenzo Monti
Vincenzo Monti was an Italian poet, playwright, translator, and scholar.-Biography:Monti was born in Alfonsine, Province of Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna the son of Fedele and Domenica Maria Mazzari, landowners...
, Antonio Rosmini, Gino Capponi
Gino Capponi
Marquis Gino Capponi was an Italian statesman and historian.The Capponi family is one of the most illustrious Florentine houses, and is mentioned as early as 1250; it acquired great wealth as a mercantile and banking firm, and many of its members distinguished themselves in the service of the...
, Mario Rapisardi
Mario Rapisardi
Mario Rapisardi was an Italian poet, supporter of Risorgimento and member of the Scapigliatura.-Life:...
, Carlo Tenca
Carlo Tenca
Carlo Tenca was an Italian man of letters, journalist, deputy and supporter of Risorgimento. He was the prime-mover in the Salon of countess Clara Maffei, to whom he was romantically linked....
, the painter Francesco Hayez
Francesco Hayez
Francesco Hayez was an Italian painter, the leading artist of Romanticism in mid-19th-century Milan, renowned for his grand historical paintings, political allegories and exceptionally fine portraits.-Biography:...
, and the sculptors Vincenzo Vela
Vincenzo Vela
Vincenzo Vela was a Swiss sculptor, active mainly in northern Italy.-Biography:Having started work as a stonecutter when still very young, Vela received his initial training at Viggiù and then moved to Milan, where he worked on the Cathedral and enrolled at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in 1832...
and Giovanni Duprè
Giovanni Duprè
Giovanni Duprè was an Italian sculptor, of distant French stock long settled in Tuscany, who developed a reputation second only to his contemporary Lorenzo Bartolini.-Biography:...
. Key cultural figures from the rest of Europe also passed through the lounge of his house in Milan, including Liszt
Liszt
Liszt is a Hungarian surname. Notable persons with that surname include:* Franz Liszt , Hungarian composer and pianist* Adam Liszt , father of Franz Liszt* Anna Liszt , mother of Franz Liszt...
and Stendhal
Stendhal
Marie-Henri Beyle , better known by his pen name Stendhal, was a 19th-century French writer. Known for his acute analysis of his characters' psychology, he is considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism in his two novels Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme...
. In 1879 Andrea Maffei was made a senator of the Kingdom of Italy
Italian Senate
The Senate of the Republic is the upper house of the Italian Parliament. It was established in its current form on 8 May 1948, but previously existed during the Kingdom of Italy as Senato del Regno , itself a continuation of the Senato Subalpino of Sardinia-Piedmont established on 8 May 1848...
and participated in Italian political life. In the mid-19th century he frequently lived at Riva del Garda
Riva del Garda
Riva del Garda is a town and comune in the northern Italian province of Trentino. It is also known simply as Riva. The estimated population is 15,151.- History :...
, where he organised his rich art collection and where, in 1935, the town's Liceo classico
Liceo classico
Liceo classico is a secondary school type in Italy. The educational curriculum lasts five years, and students are generally about 14 to 19 years of age....
was named after him.
He died in Milan in 1885.
Thomas MooreThomas MooreThomas Moore was an Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, now best remembered for the lyrics of The Minstrel Boy and The Last Rose of Summer. He was responsible, with John Murray, for burning Lord Byron's memoirs after his death...
- Gli amori degli angeli (The loves of angels, 1836)
- Canti orientali (Oriental poems, 1836)
- Gli amori degli angioli (The loves of angels, 1839)
Byron
- Caino (1852)
- Cielo e terra (1853)
- Parisina (1853)
- Misteri e novelle (Mysteries and novels, 1868)
Schiller
- La sposa di Messina (1827)
- Maria Stuarda (Maria Stuart, 1829)
- La vergine d'Orleans (The Maid of Orléans, 1830)
- Guglielmo Tell (William Tell, 1835)
- Maria Stuarda (Maria Stuart, 1835)
- Guglielmo Tell (William Tell, 1844)
- Cabala ed amore (1852)
- La congiura del Fiesco (1853)
- Turandot (1863)
Other
- Le satire e le epistole (after 1853)
- Il paradiso perduto (Paradise LostParadise LostParadise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
, by MiltonJohn MiltonJohn Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
, 1857) - Struensee (1863)
- Guglielmo Ratcliff (by Heinrich HeineHeinrich HeineChristian Johann Heinrich Heine was one of the most significant German poets of the 19th century. He was also a journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of Lieder by composers such as Robert Schumann...
, 1875) - L'ode a Pirra (by HoraceHoraceQuintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...
, c. 1880) - Poeti tedeschi (German poets, 1901)
Original works
- La preghiera (1829)
- Studi poetici (1831)
- Dal Benaco (1854)
- Poesie varie (1859)
- Arte, affetti, fantasie (1864)
- E' morto il re! (1878)
- Liriche (1878)
- Affetti (1885)
- Ghirlanda per una sposa (1886)
Libretti
- I masnadieriI masnadieriI masnadieri is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Andrea Maffei, based on Die Räuber by Friedrich von Schiller....
(Her Majesty's TheatreHer Majesty's TheatreHer Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...
, London, 22 July 1847, music by Giuseppe VerdiGiuseppe VerdiGiuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
) - David Riccio : 2 act drama, with prologue (1849) music by Vinc. Capecelatro (1850)
- Additions to MacbethMacbeth (opera)Macbeth is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi, with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and additions by Andrea Maffei, based on Shakespeare's play of the same name...
: 4 part melodrama, music by Giuseppe Verdi (1850)
Sources
- Letters to Andrea Maffei , by Mario RapisardiMario RapisardiMario Rapisardi was an Italian poet, supporter of Risorgimento and member of the Scapigliatura.-Life:...
(1877) - Prometheus