Venetian literature

Last updated

Venetian literature is the corpus of literature in Venetian, the vernacular language of the region roughly corresponding to Venice, from the 12th century. Venetian literature, after an initial period of splendour in the sixteenth century with the success of artists such as Ruzante, reached its zenith in the eighteenth century, thanks to its greatest exponent, dramatist Carlo Goldoni. Subsequently, the literary production in Venetian underwent a period of decline following the collapse of the Republic of Venice, but survived nonetheless into the twentieth century to reach peaks with wonderful lyrical poets such as Biagio Marin of Grado.

Contents

Origin

The first evidence of the birth of vernacular Venetian (and Italian) is the Veronese Riddle, dating between the end of the eighth and the early ninth century, written in a language halfway between Latin and the vernacular.

The first fragment entirely in Venetian, dating to circa 1198, is the Ritmo bellunese which deals with events at Belluno in the years 1183 to 1196.

Thirteenth century

In the thirteenth century, there is an explosion of compositions in the Venetian language designed to meet the literary tastes of the emerging urban classes. Especially remarkable is the production of the Veronese School, with Giacomino da Verona, author of the poem in two parts, De Gerusalem Celesti ("On the Heavenly Jerusalem") and De Babilonia Civitate Infernali ("On Babylon, the Infernal City"). Published anonymously from this era are Lamento della Sposa Padovana or Bona çilosia

Fourteenth century

Throughout the 14th century, the centre of literary production Venetian continued to be Padua. At the end of the 14th century, the Carraresi commissioned Bibbia istoriata padovana and Liber agregà of Serapion also called "Erbario Carrarese" (held at the British Library, London), a translation from the Latin Carrara Herbarium , a treatise of medicine originally in Arabic. An important writer from this period is Francesco di Vannozzo (~1330-1389). [1]

Between 1313 and 1315, Paolino Veneto wrote Trattato de regimine rectoris, a mirror for princes dedicated to the Venetian duke of Candia.

Cronaca de la guera tra Veniciani e Zenovesi by Daniele da Chinazzo is a chronicle of the War of Chioggia between 1379 and 1381.

Original works of the fourteenth century include those that go together under the name of Franco-Venetian literature characterized by a unique mix of vulgar Venetian with medieval French. Among the best known works are the anonymously authored Entrée d'Espagne and its continuation, La prise de Pampelune by Niccolò da Verona.

Later

Notable is a manuscript titled "Dialogue ... on the New star" attributed to Galileo (1564–1642).

The language enjoyed substantial prestige in the days of the Venetian Republic, when it attained the status of a lingua franca in the Mediterranean. Notable Venetian-language authors are the playwrights Ruzante (1502–1542) and Carlo Goldoni (1707–1793). Both Ruzante and Goldoni, following the old Italian theater tradition ( Commedia dell'Arte ), used Venetian in their comedies as the speech of the common folk. They are ranked among the foremost Italian theatrical authors of all time, and Goldoni's plays are still performed today. There also were some Morlachist Venetian authors. Other notable works in Venetian are the translations of the Iliad by Casanova (1725–1798) and Francesco Boaretti, and the poems of Biagio Marin (1891–1985).

Nowadays Venetian is still vigorous even in Brazil, where it is called Talian. This Venetian language version, spoken by hundreds of thousands of emigrants from Veneto living in Brazil, is written by dozens of writers, especially in Rio Grando and Santa Cattarina.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carlo Goldoni</span> Italian playwright (1707–1783)

Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty. His plays offered his contemporaries images of themselves, often dramatizing the lives, values, and conflicts of the emerging middle classes. Though he wrote in French and Italian, his plays make rich use of the Venetian language, regional vernacular, and colloquialisms. Goldoni also wrote under the pen name and title Polisseno Fegeio, Pastor Arcade, which he claimed in his memoirs the "Arcadians of Rome" bestowed on him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Veneto</span> Region of Italy

Veneto or Venetia is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about five million, ranking fourth in Italy. The region's capital is Venice while the biggest city is Verona.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venetian language</span> Romance language of Veneto, northeast Italy

Venetian, wider Venetian or Venetan is a Romance language spoken natively in the northeast of Italy, mostly in the Veneto region, where most of the five million inhabitants can understand it. It is sometimes spoken and often well understood outside Veneto: in Trentino, Friuli, the Julian March, Istria, and some towns of Slovenia and Dalmatia (Croatia) by a surviving autochthonous Venetian population, and Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Mexico by Venetians in the diaspora.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gallerie dell'Accademia</span> Art museum in Venice, Italy

The Gallerie dell'Accademia is a museum gallery of pre-19th-century art in Venice, northern Italy. It is housed in the Scuola della Carità on the south bank of the Grand Canal, within the sestiere of Dorsoduro. It was originally the gallery of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, the art academy of Venice, from which it became independent in 1879, and for which the Ponte dell'Accademia and the Accademia boat landing station for the vaporetto water bus are named. The two institutions remained in the same building until 2004, when the art school moved to the Ospedale degli Incurabili.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Italian literature</span> Italian national and regional literature

Italian literature is written in the Italian language, particularly within Italy. It may also refer to literature written by Italians or in other languages spoken in Italy, often languages that are closely related to modern Italian, including regional varieties and vernacular dialects. Italian literature begins in the 12th century, when in different regions of the peninsula the Italian vernacular started to be used in a literary manner. The Ritmo laurenziano is the first extant document of Italian literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages of Italy</span> On the various languages spoken in Italy

The languages of Italy include Italian, which serves as the country's national language, in its standard and regional forms, as well as numerous local and regional languages, most of which, like Italian, belong to the broader Romance group. The majority of languages often labeled as regional are distributed in a continuum across the regions' administrative boundaries, with speakers from one locale within a single region being typically aware of the features distinguishing their own variety from one of the other places nearby.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Veronese Riddle</span> Late Latin riddle from Northern Italy.

The Veronese Riddle is a riddle written in late Vulgar Latin, or early Romance, on the Verona Orational, probably in the 8th or early 9th century, by a Christian monk from Verona, in northern Italy. It is an example of a writing-riddle, a popular genre in the Middle Ages and still in circulation in recent times. Discovered by Luigi Schiaparelli in 1924, it may be the earliest extant example of Romance writing in Italy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giovanni Domenico Nardo</span>

Giovanni Domenico Nardo was an Italian naturalist from Venice, although he spent most of his life in Chioggia, home port of the biggest fishing flotilla of the Adriatic. He learned taxidermy and specimen preparation from his uncle, an abbot. He went in a high school in Udine and studied medicine in Padua, where he reorganized the zoological collections. In 1832 he reorganized the invertebrate collection at the Imperial Natural History Museum in Vienna and in 1840 he became Fellow of the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, an academy whose aim is "to increase, promulgate, and safeguard the sciences, literature and the arts". Nardo wrote hundreds of scientific publications ranging from medicine and social sciences, philology, technology, physics, but mostly on Venetian and Adriatic zoology. In marine biology, Nardo wrote on algae, marine invertebrates, fishes and sea turtles. A vast collection of his manuscripts and his personal library is preserved in the Natural History Museum of Venice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liga Veneta</span> Political party in Veneto

Liga Veneta, whose complete name is Liga Veneta per Salvini Premier, is a regionalist political party active in Veneto.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biagio Marin</span>

Biagio Marin (1891–1985) was a Venetian poet, best known for his poems in the Venetian language, which had no literary tradition until then. In his writings he never obeyed rhetoric or poetics. He only employed a few hundred words for his poems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franco Rocchetta</span> Italian politician, entrepreneur, philologist and history populariser

Franco Rocchetta is an Italian politician, entrepreneur, philologist and history populariser, who is usually described as the "father" of present-day Venetian nationalism and independentism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venetian nationalism</span> Regional political movement in Italy

Venetian nationalism is a nationalist, but primarily regionalist, political movement active mostly in Veneto, Italy, as well as in other parts of the former Republic of Venice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apostolo Zeno</span> Venetian poet

Apostolo Zeno was a Venetian poet, librettist, journalist, and man of letters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gaetano Cozzi</span>

Gaetano Cozzi was an Italian historian, professor at Padua University, and researcher with the Giorgio Cini Foundation and Fondazione Benetton Studi e Ricerche. He was a specialist in Venetian history, with special attention to the institutions, the relationship between law and society and the cultural environment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antonio Cappello</span> Venetian noble

Antonio Cappello (1494-1565) was a Venetian noble, a member of the San Polo branch of the Cappello family [it:Cappello (famiglia)]. A Procurator of St Mark's, he acted as ambassador to the court of Charles V at Gand, but is mainly remembered for his role as one of the main promoters of public art and architectural projects in sixteenth-century Venice. He resided in the palazzo on San Polo now known as Ca Cappello Layard and oversaw its redevelopment.

Gregory Dowling is an author, translator, literary critic and Professor of Anglo-American Literature at the Università Ca’ Foscari in Venice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angela Veronese</span> Italian poet (1788–1847)

Angela Veronese was an Italian poet.

<i>Minerva between Geometry and Arithmetic</i> Painting by Paolo Veronese

Minerva between Geometry and Arithmetic is a 1550 fresco fragment, usually attributed to Paolo Veronese but by some art historians to Anselmo Canera or Giambattista Zelotti. It was painted for the Palazzo de Soranzi in Castelfranco Veneto but now in the Palazzo Balbi in Venice.

Gianfranco Folena was an Italian linguist, philologist, and academic.

References

  1. Glanville Price (1998). Encyclopedia of the Languages of Europe. p. 264. ISBN   0-631-22039-9.