Fiorenza

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Fiorenza is the title of a play by Thomas Mann . It was premiered on May 11, 1907 in the Frankfurt Schauspielhaus . It is Mann's only play. Although he began another drama in 1954 (working title Luther's Wedding ), he was no longer able to finish it.

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Lorenzo de 'Medici il Magnifico , by Rubens
Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498)

The piece, the title and subject of which is based on a sermon by Savonarola, is set in Florence in 1492 . Its inhabitants fell for the eloquent penitential preacher Girolamo Savonarola (called Jerome in the play). He had once courted Fiore Fiorenza but was turned away. Now Savonarola preaches asceticism . Fiorenza , which is also the allegory of the city of Florence, became the lover of Lorenzo il Magnifico , the secular ruler of the city.

Fiorenza can not escape the charisma of Savonarola, even if she rejected him as a lover. She confronts the dying Lorenzo de 'Medici with him. The art-loving, secular ruler recognizes the religious leader as his equal and calls him brother . Fiorenza, however, prophesies the fanatic Savonarola that his pride in this victory will be purified .

interpretation

In Thomas Mann's oeuvre, renunciation stands against lived sexuality. As in Tonio Kröger , there the most decisive, abstention and renunciation are valued higher than sensual happiness. Even in the late plan to dramatize Luther's wedding , the conflict between monastic asceticism and suppressed sensuality was to be shaped.

Thomas Mann had a Savonarola figure appear in Munich around 1900 in the cheerful, grotesque novella Gladius Dei from 1902. Here it is the open-minded, foreign-friendly art city of the young Thomas Mann that wins.

effect

The play had little success in the theater; Alfred Kerr mercilessly tore it down. Other critics such as Theodor Lessing and Richard Schaukal recognized the weakness of the play in the allegorical figure of Fiore-Fiorenza and relegated the prose author to his limits. Thomas Mann's failure as a playwright led him to the conclusion that theater can only be justified as popular amusement (see experiment on theater ).

A radio play version by Hessischer Rundfunk from 1973 with Dieter Borsche as Lorenzo de'Medici also benefited from the author's undisputed fame and was released as an audio CD in 2003.

Text output

Publisher's cover of the first print in 1906
  • Fiorenza. Berlin: S. Fischer 1906, 170 pages. First edition (Potempa E 20.2, Bürgin I 4, Wilpert / Gühring² 6)

literature

  • Hans-Dieter Mennel: Psychopathology and consideration of time in Thomas Mann's drama 'Fiorenza'. In: Technical prose - Crossing borders. Volume 10, 2014, pp. 179-221.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A. Kerr, Th. M. Fiorenza (in A. Kerr, Die Sucher und die Seligen, Berlin 1917, pp. 96-100).
  2. ↑ Jacques Laager (Ed.): Girolamo Savonarola: O Florence, O Rome, O Italy. Sermons, writings, letters. Zurich 2002.

Web links