Giuseppe Borrello was a Sicilian

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

 poet, who wrote mainly in Sicilian

Sicilian language

Sicilian is a Romance language. Its dialects make up the Extreme-Southern Italian language group, which are spoken on the island of Sicily and its satellite islands; in southern and central Calabria ; in the southern parts of Apulia, the Salento ; and Campania, on the Italian mainland, where it is...

, and an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 patriot.

In 1837, at a time when Catania was experiencing a cholera empidemic, he was granted special emergency powers by the Bourbon

Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, commonly known as the Two Sicilies even before formally coming into being, was the largest and wealthiest of the Italian states before Italian unification...

 government, but was relieved of his duties once his liberal views and attitudes became known.

He participated in the popular revolts

Sicilian revolution of independence of 1848

The Sicilian revolution of independence of 1848 occurred in a year replete with revolutions and popular revolts. It commenced on 12 January 1848, and therefore was one of the first of the numerous revolutions to occur that year...

 of 1848, being one of the main provocateurs in Catania. During the Risorgimento of 1860 he became aligned with Garibaldi's forces and reached the rank of Major

Major

Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...

.

An anthology of his poems is simply entitled: Puisii Siciliani (Sicilian Poems).

Example

The following short poem pays homage to the renowned Chestnut Tree of One Hundred Horses

Chestnut Tree of One Hundred Horses

The Hundred Horse Chestnut is the largest and oldest known chestnut tree in the world. Located on Linguaglossa road in Sant'Alfio, on the eastern slope of Mount Etna in Sicily — only from the volcano's crater — it is generally believed to be 2,000 to 4,000 years old...

:

Sicilian	English
Un pedi di castagna	A chestnut tree
tantu grossu	was so large
ca ccu li rami so' forma un paracqua	that its branches formed a shelter
sutta di cui si riparò di l'acqua,	under which refuge was sought from the rain
di fùrmini, e saitti	from thunder bolts and flashes of lightning
la riggina Giuvanna	by Queen Joanne
ccu centu cavaleri,	with a hundred knights,
quannu ppi visitari Mungibeddu	when on her way to Mt Etna
vinni surprisa di lu timpurali.	was taken by surprise by a fierce storm.
D'allura si chiamò	From then on so was it named
st'àrvulu situatu 'ntra 'na valli	this tree nestled in a valley and its courses
lu gran castagnu d'i centu cavalli.	the great chestnut tree of one hundred horses.