Legend of the Colapesce

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The legend of Colapesce ( Italian Leggenda di Colapesce ) is a traditional , medieval legend that is said to have taken place on the sea off Sicily .

Legend

Colapesce or Cola Pesce, actually Nikolaus, or Cola for short, was the son of a fisherman from Messina . It is said that he often dived to the bottom of the sea and then told of the wonders and beauties he saw there. He is even said to have brought a treasure with him once. These stories also reached the Emperor of Sicily, Frederick II , who wanted to test the skills of the fisherman's son. The Emperor therefore went out to sea in a boat with some advisors and threw a cup into the water, which Colapesce immediately fetched up again. The king was not yet satisfied and threw his crown into deeper water and Colapesce brought it back up. The third time, Friedrich is said to have thrown a ring into even deeper water, but Colaspesce no longer appeared on the surface.

If the legend is to be believed, Colapesce saw on his last dive for Friedrich that Sicily was built on three pillars, one of which was rusted, and he decided to stay under water and support the pillar for the emperor so that the island would not went under and he still supports her today. When the island shakes, it is said that he is exhausted and that he should change his shoulder.

There are more than ten versions of this legend, but this is the most widely received.

reception

One of the 99 people in L'Aquila is said to be that of Colapesce

Friedrich Schiller wrote the ballad Der Taucher , which is based on this legend. On the basis of which information Schiller took up the subject is controversial today; he could have become aware of it through an exchange of letters with Johann Wolfgang Goethe , but an inspiration from the enlightening Johann August Ephraim Goeze is also possible. In 1956, Italo Calvino published an extensive collection of Italian fairy tales with 200 sagas and legends, in which the legend of Colapesce is also dealt with.

The Swiss writer Conrad Ferdinand Meyer wrote a sonnet Nicola Pesce , in which the reasons for Nicolas' choice of the sea as a place to live are indicated. Cola Pesce has a brief appearance as diver Nicolas in Jules Verne's novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , Part Two, Chapter 6.

The legend is still present in Sicily. Many singers and storytellers have dedicated their works to this character. These include Otello Profazio , folk singer from Calabria and author of the song Colapesce, the Sicilian Tobia Rinaldo, who recorded the song “La leggenda di Colapesce” with the folk music group I Cariddi , and the group Vucciria. The folk music ensemble Kàlamos from Galati Mamertino (Prov. Messina), together with the Museo della cultura popular dei Monti Peloritani (Gesso, Prov. Messina) and the former German Consulate General in Naples, has created a Sicilian-German version based on texts by Italo Calvino, Friedrich by Schiller and Franz von Kleist is based, composed and repeatedly, u. a. performed in Messina, Naples, Villa Vigoni and Schloss Prösels (South Tyrol).

Renato Guttuso designed the ceiling painting with an allegorical group of figures from this legend in the Teatro Vittorio Emanuele II theater in Messina. At the Fontana delle 99 cannelle fountain in L'Aquila , one of the heads is said to represent that of Colapesce.

literature

  • Leardo Mascanzoni: Salimbene. Riccobaldo e la leggenda di Cola Pesce . In: Quaderni medievali 54, 2002, pp. 150-163.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Marina Bertino: Niklas the fish report on a narrative theater project with Italian secondary school students . ISSN  1649-8526 Volume 2008 (PDF; 149 kB), p. 99
  2. ↑ Johann August Ephraim Goeze: Useful all things from nature and common life for all kinds of readers [...]. First ribbon. Leipzig, bey Weidmanns Erben und Reich, 1785. pp. 49-55 within the section What are people able to do for money?
  3. ^ Nicola Pesce in the Gutenberg project
  4. ↑ On the CD Collection 2005 as number 2; Audio sample of 30 seconds (select La leggenda di Colapesce).
  5. ↑ Vucciria on Youtube