Western Lombard literature
Encyclopedia
This article is about literature
written in Western Lombard (Insubric).
The Insubric poet Caecilius Statius
came from Milan
, capital city of Insubres
, and wrote in Latin
, being one of the best Latin comedians, with Plautus
and Terence
.
Throughout the 13th century, the activity of Cisalpine
poets in Langue d'oc continued; in Mantua
, Sordello da Goito compounds the Sirventese lombardesco in local language, of Lombard group, the only trobadoric text in a Northern-Italian local language; in Bologna
, Gallo-Italic language land too, in 1254 Rayna possentissima is compounded, lauda of the Servi della Vergine, the older lauda we know. In the same city, the notary registers are founded (known as Memoriali bolognesi) for the transcription of public acts, during two centuries: in the white spaces, in order to avoid illegal addings, some folk or cultured poems are written. In this period, there was a common literary and jesterish language for all Langobardia Maior.
Bonvesin da la Riva is with no doubt the most important Northern-Italian writer of 13th century. Born in Milan
between 1240 and 1250, secular friar belonging to the 3rd order of Umiliati, is acknowledged as doctor in gramatica, title that few people had. His most important work is the Book of the three texts (Libro delle tre scritture), epic poem in quatrains in Old Insubric language, in which he describe the underworld realms. The book is divided into three parts, different for style and atmosphere, in which Hell
, Christ's Passion
and Paradise
are represented. The anticipation of Dante
's Divina Commedia is evident, with an attentive use of language, with lexical and rhetoric ability. This work of art is a sort of screenplay of the afterlife, of considerable historic value and of hard poetical suggestion. The Essay on the months in form of apologue
and the Vulgare de elymosinis, raw description of terrible maladies, similar to the realism of Jacopone da Todi
, are also very important. A sort of Medieval etiquette is the treaty De quinquaginta curialitatibus ad mensam, lively and realistic representation inserted in the manualistic tradition of the time. The Contrasti are other poems, series of disputies, enriched by skillful alternance of decriptive tones -grotesque and soft, meditated and exemplar- like the Disputatio rosae cum viola, in which the humble bourgeois virtues of the violet prevail on the aristocratic ones of the rose. In religious works the most precious are The passion of Job, The life of Saint Alexey and overall, between Laudes de Virgine Maria, the legend of Frate Ave Maria, of touching religious intensity because inspirated by a strong Christian devotion.
Of 1274 are the Sermons in verses, in a Lombard language, of Pietro da Pescapè, the sole work with precise date in the Cisalpine
didactic-religious literature, which gave noticeable texts with Lombards Girardo Patecchio from Cremona
, with the Book of Uguccione da Lodi, with the masterpiece of Bonvesin de la Riva
and with that of Giacomino da Verona.
The written use of Insubric resumes in Milan
under the House of Visconti
, such as in the case of Lancino Curti and Andrea Marone. The written testimoniances of Quattrocento
(15th century) are still indecisive in orthography; Dei, in this century, composes the first Milanese glossary. In the 16th century, Gian Paolo Lomazzo founds the Academy of Val di Blenio, which furnishes information also about other dialects of the period. In 1606 G.A. Biffi with his Prissian de Milan de la parnonzia milanesa tried a first codification of orthography, regarding vowel length and sound /ö/ for which he found the solution ou; Giovanni Capis elaborates the first embryo of dictionary, the Varon Milanese; Fabio Varese, anticlassicist poet, realizes some thirty of humour
istic-veristic
sonnets in Milanese (with a answer for every sonnet in which he blames himself). Carlo Maria Maggi
, great dramaturge, at the end of the 17th century definitively codifies the writing of Milanese dialect introducing French oeu, so founding the classical Milanese orthography
that will be retouched in the centuries till the present version of Circolo Filologico Milanese. At the end of the 18th century you assist at some changing in the linguistic structures, such as the abolition of no (meaning "not") preposed to the verb, on behalf of postposed nò or minga, or the abolishing of past perfect, which you can yet find in Balestrieri and in Maggi.
Bosinada
is a poetic form of popular composition, written in Insubric on loose sheets, told by storytellers (bositt, sing. bosin) and with often satyric contents. The first essays of the genre are at the end of the 16th century. One of the first bositt is Gaspare Fumagalli, whose we know nine bosinad of the 1723. Also greater poets such as Carlo Porta
liked describing themselves as bositt, even if their poems were much more meditative than popular ones. Bosinada
didn't have a rigid form: the metre could be of various sizes (lame verses were a frequent characteristic), from eight to eleven syllables long, often in rhyming couplets, in long stanzas.
Carlo Maria Maggi
(born in 1630), Milan
ese, rector of Latin
and Greek
at the Scholae Palatinae, secretary of the Milanese Senate, superintendent at the University of Pavia
, is considered as the father of modern Insubric literature. Between the works in Italian language
there is a book of affection poems, considered by someone of the time as a good renovation, by someone else as transgressive (Accademia della Crusca
denied his Lombard-origin terms); probably Maggi undertook the local language stream in antagonism to the arrogance of Tuscan conformists. His production in Milanese
consists in verses and comedies. The verses are especially occasion poems that describe moments of bourgeois life. But Maggi is reminded overall as comediograph: he wrote Il manco male, Il Barone di Birbanza, I consigli di Meneghino, Il falso filosofo, Il Concorso de' Meneghini, with autonomous interludes dell'Ipocondria, per una tragedia, delle Dame sugli spassi del Carnevale, Beltramina vestita alla moda, dell'Ambizione. The keys of his theatral work are the reconciliation of the theatre with the Church (not fingering like Molière
but proposing positive values), the criticism against Protestant ethics (for which success would be sign of the divine approval), the nonconformism and the patriotic idealism. It was Carlo Maria Maggi that introduced to theatre the popular mask of Meneghin, who got the personification of the Milanese people, humble, frank and honest, full of wisdom and common sense, loud in the adversities, sensitive and generous worker and cont el coeur in man, with the hearth in the hand. He died in 1699 and he's buried in San Lazzaro.
In the 18th century the greater protagonists of Insubric poetry, actually limited to Milan
, are Domenico Balestrieri, then very appreciated by Carlo Porta, Carl'Antonio Tanzi, Girolamo Birago, Giuseppe Parini
, Pietro Verri, Francesco Girolamo Corio.
Carlo Porta
(1775–1821) is the main poet in Milanese
. The bulk of his production can be divided into three sections: against the religious hypocrisy of the time (e.g. in Fraa Zenever, Fraa Diodatt, On Miracol, La mia povera nonna la gh'aveva); descriptive of lively popular Milanese personages (probably the masterpieces of Porta: Desgrazzi de Giovannin Bongee, Olter desgrazzi de Giovannin Bongee, El lament del Marchionn di gamb'avert and most of all La Ninetta del Verzee, the monologue of a prostitute); the political genre, in which he shows he ardently hopes in the independence of Lombardy
, yet tolerating the French rule (Paracar che scappee de Lombardia, E daj con sto chez-nous ma sanguanon, Marcanagg i politegh secca ball, Quand vedessev on pubblegh funzionari). There are also sonnet
s in defence of Milanese
language (I paroll d'on lenguagg car sur Gorell) and of Milan
(El sarà vera fors quell ch'el dis lu), besides purely humouristic poems. The prevalent poetic form is sonnet
, but there are also epigram
s, canzoni
, bosinad
etc. Porta declares Milanese
as lengua del minga e del comè and appoints as school of the true language of the people the Verzee, the greens market of the city. In 1816 he founds in his house, with his dearest friends (Grossi
, Berchet
, Visconti etc.), the so-called Camaretta, which immediately links itself with Alessandro Manzoni
and later with the romantic
group of Il Conciliatore
, while in the latter years the antinobiliar spirit raises. He dies for gout at 46 years old and in the peak of the fame.
Other Insubric poets of the 19th century are Alessandro Manzoni
(one of the greatest writers in Italian language
), Tommaso Grossi
(author besides of In morte di Carlo Porta ["In death of Carlo Porta"] and of Sogn or La Prineide), Vespasiano Bignami, Giovanni Rajberti, Giuseppe Rovani, Emilio De Marchi, Speri Della Chiesa Jemoli... In this century many journals in various dialect of Insubric language were born, and also great dictionaries: the Cherubini (monumental work), the Cappelletti (trilingual: Milanese, Italian, French), the Banfi, the Arrighi and the Angiolini.
Carlo Bertolazzi (1870–1916) was a comediograph from Rivolta d'Adda
, verist
, who wrote in Milanese
and analized with a bitter popular vein the condition of underprivileged ones of Milan
in the end of the 19th century. He was lawyer, notary and theatral critic. After some dramas in Italian language
, he undertook Insubric playwriting, in which he hit the highlight of his art. Chorality and epicity dominate the representation, in which several individual vicissitudes are born: in this sense Giorgio Strehler
has been his carefullest interpreter. His production didn't attract the attention of his contemporaries, though a moral and social sense full of modernity were in it. Between his works we remind El nost Milan, La gibigianna, L'egoista, Lulù.
Delio Tessa
(born in 1886) is the greatest Milan
ese poet in the 20th century. Graduated in Law, he preferred to devote himself to literature, theatre and cinema. Antifascist, he remained aloof from official culture, devoting himself to local sphere. Except the collection of poems L'è el dì di mort, alegher!, all his works have been published posthumous. The topics of his poetics are the drama of the World War I
and of the daily life of neglects, revised in personal way and caring very much the sonority of the lines. It's often present the theme of death, with a pessimism of both personal and cultural origin (Scapigliatura
, Decadentism
, Russian novel, Expressionism
). The restlessness is glared into the tension of the language, used as popular and highly fragmented tongue. He died in 1939 for abscess
, and he was buried, according to his will, in a common field of Musocch cemetery, but in the 50s the Commune transferred him to the Famedio
.
Other Insubric poets of the 20th century are Giovanni Barrella (Scapigliatura complete artist, translate brush-strokes into writing), Edoardo Ferravilla, Emilio Guicciardi, Luigi Medici, Franco Loi...
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
written in Western Lombard (Insubric).
The Insubric poet Caecilius Statius
Caecilius Statius
Statius Caecilius, also known as Caecilius Statius was a Roman comic poet.A contemporary and intimate friend of Ennius, he was born in the territory of the Insubrian Gauls, probably in Mediolanum, and was probably taken as a prisoner to Rome , during the great Gallic war...
came from 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 ,...
, capital city of Insubres
Insubres
The Insubres were a Gaulish population settled in Insubria, in what is now Lombardy . They were the founders of Milan . Though ethnically Celtic at the time of Roman conquest , they were most likely the result of the fusion of pre-existing Ligurian, Celtic and "Italic" population strata with Gaulish...
, and wrote in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, being one of the best Latin comedians, with Plautus
Plautus
Titus Maccius Plautus , commonly known as "Plautus", was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus...
and Terence
Terence
Publius Terentius Afer , better known in English as Terence, was a playwright of the Roman Republic, of North African descent. His comedies were performed for the first time around 170–160 BC. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought Terence to Rome as a slave, educated him and later on,...
.
Throughout the 13th century, the activity of Cisalpine
Northern Italy
Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...
poets in Langue d'oc continued; in Mantua
Mantua
Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...
, Sordello da Goito compounds the Sirventese lombardesco in local language, of Lombard group, the only trobadoric text in a Northern-Italian local language; in Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
, Gallo-Italic language land too, in 1254 Rayna possentissima is compounded, lauda of the Servi della Vergine, the older lauda we know. In the same city, the notary registers are founded (known as Memoriali bolognesi) for the transcription of public acts, during two centuries: in the white spaces, in order to avoid illegal addings, some folk or cultured poems are written. In this period, there was a common literary and jesterish language for all Langobardia Maior.
Bonvesin da la Riva is with no doubt the most important Northern-Italian writer of 13th century. Born in 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 ,...
between 1240 and 1250, secular friar belonging to the 3rd order of Umiliati, is acknowledged as doctor in gramatica, title that few people had. His most important work is the Book of the three texts (Libro delle tre scritture), epic poem in quatrains in Old Insubric language, in which he describe the underworld realms. The book is divided into three parts, different for style and atmosphere, in which Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
, Christ's Passion
Passion (Christianity)
The Passion is the Christian theological term used for the events and suffering – physical, spiritual, and mental – of Jesus in the hours before and including his trial and execution by crucifixion...
and Paradise
Paradise
Paradise is a place in which existence is positive, harmonious and timeless. It is conceptually a counter-image of the miseries of human civilization, and in paradise there is only peace, prosperity, and happiness. Paradise is a place of contentment, but it is not necessarily a land of luxury and...
are represented. The anticipation of Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
's Divina Commedia is evident, with an attentive use of language, with lexical and rhetoric ability. This work of art is a sort of screenplay of the afterlife, of considerable historic value and of hard poetical suggestion. The Essay on the months in form of apologue
Apologue
An apologue or apolog is a brief fable or allegorical story with pointed or exaggerated details, meant to serve as a pleasant vehicle for a moral doctrine or to convey a useful lesson without stating it explicitly. Unlike a fable, the moral is more important than the narrative details...
and the Vulgare de elymosinis, raw description of terrible maladies, similar to the realism of Jacopone da Todi
Jacopone da Todi
Jacopone da Todi was a Franciscan friar from Umbria, Italy in the 13th century. He wrote several laudi in Italian. He was an early pioneer in Italian theatre, being one of the earliest scholars who dramatised gospel subjects.-Life:Jacopone studied law in Bologna and became a successful lawyer...
, are also very important. A sort of Medieval etiquette is the treaty De quinquaginta curialitatibus ad mensam, lively and realistic representation inserted in the manualistic tradition of the time. The Contrasti are other poems, series of disputies, enriched by skillful alternance of decriptive tones -grotesque and soft, meditated and exemplar- like the Disputatio rosae cum viola, in which the humble bourgeois virtues of the violet prevail on the aristocratic ones of the rose. In religious works the most precious are The passion of Job, The life of Saint Alexey and overall, between Laudes de Virgine Maria, the legend of Frate Ave Maria, of touching religious intensity because inspirated by a strong Christian devotion.
Of 1274 are the Sermons in verses, in a Lombard language, of Pietro da Pescapè, the sole work with precise date in the Cisalpine
Northern Italy
Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...
didactic-religious literature, which gave noticeable texts with Lombards Girardo Patecchio from Cremona
Cremona
Cremona is a city and comune in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po River in the middle of the Pianura Padana . It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local City and Province governments...
, with the Book of Uguccione da Lodi, with the masterpiece of Bonvesin de la Riva
Bonvesin de la Riva
Bonvesin da la Riva was a well-to-do Milanese lay member of the Ordine degli Umiliati , a teacher of grammar and a notable Lombard poet and writer of the 13th century.His De magnalibus urbis Mediolani , written in the late spring of...
and with that of Giacomino da Verona.
The written use of Insubric resumes in 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 ,...
under the House of Visconti
House of Visconti
Visconti is the family name of two important Italian noble dynasties of the Middle Ages. There are two distinct Visconti families: The first one in the Republic of Pisa in the mid twelfth century who achieved prominence first in Pisa, then in Sardinia where they became rulers of Gallura...
, such as in the case of Lancino Curti and Andrea Marone. The written testimoniances of Quattrocento
Quattrocento
The cultural and artistic events of 15th century Italy are collectively referred to as the Quattrocento...
(15th century) are still indecisive in orthography; Dei, in this century, composes the first Milanese glossary. In the 16th century, Gian Paolo Lomazzo founds the Academy of Val di Blenio, which furnishes information also about other dialects of the period. In 1606 G.A. Biffi with his Prissian de Milan de la parnonzia milanesa tried a first codification of orthography, regarding vowel length and sound /ö/ for which he found the solution ou; Giovanni Capis elaborates the first embryo of dictionary, the Varon Milanese; Fabio Varese, anticlassicist poet, realizes some thirty of humour
Humour
Humour or humor is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement...
istic-veristic
Verism
Verism is the artistic preference of contemporary everyday subject matter instead of the heroic or legendary in art and literature; a form of realism. The word comes from Latin verus .-In Roman art:...
sonnets in Milanese (with a answer for every sonnet in which he blames himself). Carlo Maria Maggi
Carlo Maria Maggi
Carlo Maria Maggi was an Italian scholar, writer and poet. Despite being an Accademia della Crusca affiliate, he gained his fame as an author of "dialectal" works in Milanese language, for which he is considered the father of Milanese literature...
, great dramaturge, at the end of the 17th century definitively codifies the writing of Milanese dialect introducing French oeu, so founding the classical Milanese orthography
Classical Milanese orthography
The classical Milanese orthography is the orthography used for the Western Lombard language, in particular for the Milanese dialect, by the major poets and writers of this literature, such as Carlo Porta, Carlo Maria Maggi, Delio Tessa etc....
that will be retouched in the centuries till the present version of Circolo Filologico Milanese. At the end of the 18th century you assist at some changing in the linguistic structures, such as the abolition of no (meaning "not") preposed to the verb, on behalf of postposed nò or minga, or the abolishing of past perfect, which you can yet find in Balestrieri and in Maggi.
Bosinada
Bosinada
The bosinada or bosinata was a traditional, popular poetic genre in Milanese dialect that began in the 18th century or earlier and reached its apex in the late 19th century...
is a poetic form of popular composition, written in Insubric on loose sheets, told by storytellers (bositt, sing. bosin) and with often satyric contents. The first essays of the genre are at the end of the 16th century. One of the first bositt is Gaspare Fumagalli, whose we know nine bosinad of the 1723. Also greater poets such as Carlo Porta
Carlo Porta
Carlo Porta was an Italian poet, the most famous writer in Milanese .-Biography:...
liked describing themselves as bositt, even if their poems were much more meditative than popular ones. Bosinada
Bosinada
The bosinada or bosinata was a traditional, popular poetic genre in Milanese dialect that began in the 18th century or earlier and reached its apex in the late 19th century...
didn't have a rigid form: the metre could be of various sizes (lame verses were a frequent characteristic), from eight to eleven syllables long, often in rhyming couplets, in long stanzas.
Carlo Maria Maggi
Carlo Maria Maggi
Carlo Maria Maggi was an Italian scholar, writer and poet. Despite being an Accademia della Crusca affiliate, he gained his fame as an author of "dialectal" works in Milanese language, for which he is considered the father of Milanese literature...
(born in 1630), 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 ,...
ese, rector of Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
and Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
at the Scholae Palatinae, secretary of the Milanese Senate, superintendent at the University of Pavia
University of Pavia
The University of Pavia is a university located in Pavia, Lombardy, Italy. It was founded in 1361 and is organized in 9 Faculties.-History:...
, is considered as the father of modern Insubric literature. Between the works in Italian language
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
there is a book of affection poems, considered by someone of the time as a good renovation, by someone else as transgressive (Accademia della Crusca
Accademia della Crusca
The Accademia della Crusca is an Italian society for scholars and Italian linguists and philologists established in Florence. After the Accademia Cosentina, it is the oldest Italian academy still in existence...
denied his Lombard-origin terms); probably Maggi undertook the local language stream in antagonism to the arrogance of Tuscan conformists. His production in Milanese
Milanese
Milanese is the central variety of the Western Lombard language spoken in the city and province of Milan....
consists in verses and comedies. The verses are especially occasion poems that describe moments of bourgeois life. But Maggi is reminded overall as comediograph: he wrote Il manco male, Il Barone di Birbanza, I consigli di Meneghino, Il falso filosofo, Il Concorso de' Meneghini, with autonomous interludes dell'Ipocondria, per una tragedia, delle Dame sugli spassi del Carnevale, Beltramina vestita alla moda, dell'Ambizione. The keys of his theatral work are the reconciliation of the theatre with the Church (not fingering like Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
but proposing positive values), the criticism against Protestant ethics (for which success would be sign of the divine approval), the nonconformism and the patriotic idealism. It was Carlo Maria Maggi that introduced to theatre the popular mask of Meneghin, who got the personification of the Milanese people, humble, frank and honest, full of wisdom and common sense, loud in the adversities, sensitive and generous worker and cont el coeur in man, with the hearth in the hand. He died in 1699 and he's buried in San Lazzaro.
In the 18th century the greater protagonists of Insubric poetry, actually limited 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 ,...
, are Domenico Balestrieri, then very appreciated by Carlo Porta, Carl'Antonio Tanzi, Girolamo Birago, Giuseppe Parini
Giuseppe Parini
Giuseppe Parini was an Italian Enlightenment satirist and poet of the neoclassic period.-Biography:Parini was born in Bosisio in Brianza, Lombardy...
, Pietro Verri, Francesco Girolamo Corio.
Carlo Porta
Carlo Porta
Carlo Porta was an Italian poet, the most famous writer in Milanese .-Biography:...
(1775–1821) is the main poet in Milanese
Milanese
Milanese is the central variety of the Western Lombard language spoken in the city and province of Milan....
. The bulk of his production can be divided into three sections: against the religious hypocrisy of the time (e.g. in Fraa Zenever, Fraa Diodatt, On Miracol, La mia povera nonna la gh'aveva); descriptive of lively popular Milanese personages (probably the masterpieces of Porta: Desgrazzi de Giovannin Bongee, Olter desgrazzi de Giovannin Bongee, El lament del Marchionn di gamb'avert and most of all La Ninetta del Verzee, the monologue of a prostitute); the political genre, in which he shows he ardently hopes in the independence of Lombardy
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
, yet tolerating the French rule (Paracar che scappee de Lombardia, E daj con sto chez-nous ma sanguanon, Marcanagg i politegh secca ball, Quand vedessev on pubblegh funzionari). There are also sonnet
Sonnet
A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...
s in defence of Milanese
Milanese
Milanese is the central variety of the Western Lombard language spoken in the city and province of Milan....
language (I paroll d'on lenguagg car sur Gorell) and of 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 ,...
(El sarà vera fors quell ch'el dis lu), besides purely humouristic poems. The prevalent poetic form is sonnet
Sonnet
A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...
, but there are also epigram
Epigram
An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....
s, canzoni
Canzone
Literally "song" in Italian, a canzone is an Italian or Provençal song or ballad. It is also used to describe a type of lyric which resembles a madrigal...
, bosinad
Bosinada
The bosinada or bosinata was a traditional, popular poetic genre in Milanese dialect that began in the 18th century or earlier and reached its apex in the late 19th century...
etc. Porta declares Milanese
Milanese
Milanese is the central variety of the Western Lombard language spoken in the city and province of Milan....
as lengua del minga e del comè and appoints as school of the true language of the people the Verzee, the greens market of the city. In 1816 he founds in his house, with his dearest friends (Grossi
Tommaso Grossi
Tommaso Grossi , Lombard poet and novelist, was born in Bellano, beside the Lake of Como.He took his degree in law at Pavia in 1810, and proceeded thence to Milan to exercise his profession; but the Austrian government, suspecting his loyalty, interfered with his prospects, and in consequence...
, Berchet
Giovanni Berchet
Giovanni Berchet was an Italian poet and patriot. He wrote an influential manifesto on Italian Romanticism, Lettera semiseria di Grisostomo, which appeared in 1816, and contributed to Il Conciliatore, a reformist periodical....
, Visconti etc.), the so-called Camaretta, which immediately links itself with Alessandro Manzoni
Alessandro Manzoni
Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Manzoni was an Italian poet and novelist.He is famous for the novel The Betrothed , generally ranked among the masterpieces of world literature...
and later with the romantic
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...
group of Il Conciliatore
Il Conciliatore
Il Conciliatore was a progressive bi-weekly scientific and literary journal, influential in the early Risorgimento. It was published in Milan from September 1818 until October 1819 when it was closed by the Austrian censors. Its writers included Lodovico di Breme, Giuseppe Nicolini and Silvio...
, while in the latter years the antinobiliar spirit raises. He dies for gout at 46 years old and in the peak of the fame.
Other Insubric poets of the 19th century are Alessandro Manzoni
Alessandro Manzoni
Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Manzoni was an Italian poet and novelist.He is famous for the novel The Betrothed , generally ranked among the masterpieces of world literature...
(one of the greatest writers in Italian language
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
), Tommaso Grossi
Tommaso Grossi
Tommaso Grossi , Lombard poet and novelist, was born in Bellano, beside the Lake of Como.He took his degree in law at Pavia in 1810, and proceeded thence to Milan to exercise his profession; but the Austrian government, suspecting his loyalty, interfered with his prospects, and in consequence...
(author besides of In morte di Carlo Porta ["In death of Carlo Porta"] and of Sogn or La Prineide), Vespasiano Bignami, Giovanni Rajberti, Giuseppe Rovani, Emilio De Marchi, Speri Della Chiesa Jemoli... In this century many journals in various dialect of Insubric language were born, and also great dictionaries: the Cherubini (monumental work), the Cappelletti (trilingual: Milanese, Italian, French), the Banfi, the Arrighi and the Angiolini.
Carlo Bertolazzi (1870–1916) was a comediograph from Rivolta d'Adda
Rivolta d'Adda
Rivolta d'Adda is a comune in the Province of Cremona in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 26 km east of Milan and about 58 km northwest of Cremona....
, verist
Verismo
Verismo was an Italian literary movement which peaked between approximately 1875 and the early 1900s....
, who wrote in Milanese
Milanese
Milanese is the central variety of the Western Lombard language spoken in the city and province of Milan....
and analized with a bitter popular vein the condition of underprivileged ones of 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 ,...
in the end of the 19th century. He was lawyer, notary and theatral critic. After some dramas in Italian language
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, he undertook Insubric playwriting, in which he hit the highlight of his art. Chorality and epicity dominate the representation, in which several individual vicissitudes are born: in this sense Giorgio Strehler
Giorgio Strehler
Giorgio Strehler was an Italian opera and theatre director.-Biography:Strehler was born in Barcola, Trieste to an Austrian father and a Franco-Slovene mother; he grew up speaking Italian but spoke French well and his German was passable. He became suddenly fatherless at the age of three, his...
has been his carefullest interpreter. His production didn't attract the attention of his contemporaries, though a moral and social sense full of modernity were in it. Between his works we remind El nost Milan, La gibigianna, L'egoista, Lulù.
Delio Tessa
Delio Tessa
Delio Tessa was an Italian poet from Milan. He is the most renowned writer in Milanese dialect after Carlo Porta. The originality of his poetry stands mostly in his obsessional expressionism and his allucinated and satirical way to depict Death...
(born in 1886) is the greatest 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 ,...
ese poet in the 20th century. Graduated in Law, he preferred to devote himself to literature, theatre and cinema. Antifascist, he remained aloof from official culture, devoting himself to local sphere. Except the collection of poems L'è el dì di mort, alegher!, all his works have been published posthumous. The topics of his poetics are the drama of the World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and of the daily life of neglects, revised in personal way and caring very much the sonority of the lines. It's often present the theme of death, with a pessimism of both personal and cultural origin (Scapigliatura
Scapigliatura
Scapigliatura is the name of the artistic movement which developed in Italy after the period known as Risorgimento,...
, Decadentism
Decadentism
Decadentism was an Italian artistic style based mainly on the Decadent movement in the arts in France and England around the end of the 19th century. The main authors associated with decadentism were Antonio Fogazzaro, Italo Svevo, Giovanni Pascoli and Gabriele D'Annunzio...
, Russian novel, Expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
). The restlessness is glared into the tension of the language, used as popular and highly fragmented tongue. He died in 1939 for abscess
Abscess
An abscess is a collection of pus that has accumulated in a cavity formed by the tissue in which the pus resides due to an infectious process or other foreign materials...
, and he was buried, according to his will, in a common field of Musocch cemetery, but in the 50s the Commune transferred him to the Famedio
Cimitero Monumentale di Milano
The Cimitero Monumentale in Milan, Italy is a very large cemetery, noted for its abundance of highly artistic and often imposing tombs.It was designed by the architect Carlo Maciachini...
.
Other Insubric poets of the 20th century are Giovanni Barrella (Scapigliatura complete artist, translate brush-strokes into writing), Edoardo Ferravilla, Emilio Guicciardi, Luigi Medici, Franco Loi...
See also
- Insubric writers