intangible cultural heritage

LITERARY VERONA - from Dante to our own days

area : Verona
category : oral traditions
Verona boasts a cultural background that is not only linked to the long stay of Dante in the city, where his descendents still live, but also to the many distinguished scholars, writers, poets and philologists in a kind of \"anthology\" of historical figures and personalities in Italian and international literature.
Ippolito Pindemonte, Emilio Salgari, Scipione Maffei and Aleardo Aleardi lead the way, followed by Cesare Marchi and a number of famous librettists, such as Giuseppe Adami who wrote for Puccini.
Thanks to the patronage of the Della Scala lords, Dante stayed in Verona during his exile from 1312 to 1318. The house near the Church of Sant’Anastasia where Pietro, one of his three sons, lived can still be seen while the poet himself is commemorated in the “main salon” of the city, Piazza dei Signori, with a statue in Carrara white marble erected for the sixth centenary celebrations of the his birth (1865): the square is often also known as Piazza Dante. This square is overlooked by the palaces where he stayed as the guest of the Scaliger lords, who he also thanked in the Divine Comedy: lo primo tuo refugio e ’l primo ostello sarà la cortesia del gran Lombardo (Paradise XVII, vv. 70-71) (Thine earliest refuge and thine earliest inn/Shall be the mighty Lombard’s courtesy.).
The Church of Sant’Elena, formerly the church of Saints George and Zeno, still seems to echo to his voice proclaming the Quaestio de aqua et terra (read to the canons of Verona on 20 January 1320). Dante revised the first two cantos in Verona (Inferno and Purgatory) published the last three Epistles including the Epistle to Cangrande whereby he dedicated Paradise (which he had then begun to compose) to his host, decided on the name Comedy for the poem and outlined its structure. He also witnessed the famous Palio that, in accordance with the Veronese Statues, was held as of 1207 on the first Sunday of Lent:poi si rivolse, e parve di coloro che corrono a Verona il drappo verde per la campagna (Inferno XV, vv, 121-122) (Then he turned round, and seemed to be of those/Who at Verona run for the Green Mantle/Across the plain). The church of San Fermo is still home to the Alighieri tombs, while descendents still today have strong roots among the vineyards of Valpolicella.
Yet literature in Verona is not only Dante. There are many other important names, beginning with Giacomino da Verona and Rinaldo Cavalchino, contemporaries of Dante, through to Ippolito Pindemonte and even Emilio Salgari or Cesare Marchi. Dialect poetry found two of its most authentic voices in Berto Barbarani and Dino Coltro. Nor should we forget Scipione Maffei, the learned historian and playwright, poet Aleardo Aleardi and philologst Gaetano Trezza. Lastly, one may mention the significant output of two major librettists, Gaetano Rossi (who wrote 120 opera librettos) and Giuseppe Adami, Giacomo Puccini’s “right hand man” for Turandot, Rondine and Tabarro.
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