Niccolò Leonardo Grillo-Cattaneo

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Niccolò Leonardo Grillo-Cattaneo (born August 26, 1755 in Genoa , † July 22, 1834 ibid) was an Italian spiritual poet .

Life

Niccolò Leonardo Grillo-Cattaneo came from a Genoese noble family and was the second of five children of Marchese Leonardo Grillo-Cattaneo and Maria Caterina Grimaldi. Through his mother he was related to the famous Grimaldi family. He received his scholarly education, after he was beyond the boyhood, from 1768–72 at the renowned knight academy ( Nobile collegio ) in Parma . There he followed the courses of the clergyman Ubaldo Cassina on moral philosophy and Latin as well as those of the poet Angelo Mazza , who made him familiar with the English language and literature.

After his return to Genoa, Grillo entered into closer relationships with the poet and philosopher A. Lominelli, the historian Giuseppe Doria, the poet PG Pallavicini and the bibliophile and natural history collector Giacomo Filippo Durazzo . The house of the latter was the meeting point of many reform-oriented noble and bourgeois intellectuals of the city, where literary products of various kinds, but especially poetic, were presented. Grillo was commissioned with the official opening of the Accademia scientifico-letteraria , which was located there from 1782–86 . He championed the old republican form of Genoa, led in the company's name Palmiro Cidonio and wrote here a glorification of the Genoese admiral Andrea Doria , while the closely connected to it Ippolito Durazzo, the younger brother of Giacomo Filippo Durazzo, a biography of Christopher Columbus wrote . Both vitae were printed in the work Elogi storici di Cristoforo Colombo e d'Andrea Doria (Parma 1781). Grillo also published several poems . The fruit of his literary activity prompted many other academies, which were then so flourishing in Italy, to appoint him to their membership. From 1788 to 1790 he was a member of the Società patria d'arti e manifatture .

In addition to Grillo's literary studies, he was faced with more serious and dry, if honorable, tasks. Due to his ancestry belonging to the Genoese aristocracy, he was naturally called to take part in the administration of the republic. He soon became one of the procurators of the Bank of St. George and was distinguished by his conscientiousness in his office. In 1795 he married Angela Montebruno, who died shortly after the birth of a daughter, Caterina Maria, the following year. In his second marriage he married the noblewoman L. Gavotti from Savona . When the Genoese nobility lost their privileges as a result of the French occupation in 1796, Grillo returned to his studies and versed, among other things, parts of the Bible . He especially cultivated his mother tongue and Latin, and also studied French and English. He owned a valuable collection of books. In judging paintings he was an excellent expert; he also spared no expense in acquiring a collection of beautiful paintings.

The next fruit of Grillo's studies after the fall of the Republic was his translation of the Psalms of David in Italian verse ( Saltero davidico novellamente trasportato in versi toscani , 2 volumes, Genoa 1803). He provided his translations with numerous annotations, the content of which he borrowed from the commentary of the Benedictine Augustin Calmet as well as the works of Bossuet and Cardinal Bellarmine . Through this literary work he attracted the attention of Lebrun , the French governor of Liguria at the time , who was a great friend of Italian literature and who had translated Tasso . In 1805 he appointed Grillo rector of the newly founded Imperial Academy of Genoa. Grillo did not keep this position for long, however, because he could not make friends with the principles that France wanted to be followed in the academy and in teaching. He showed his dissatisfaction with the French rule through various connections that he maintained. As a result, he had to leave Genoa in 1811 on the orders of the police and move to Paris for better surveillance . After five months, through the mediation of respected Genoese, Napoleon gave him permission to return to Genoa. However, harassment from the French Prefect of Police, Bourdon, caused him to move to Savona with his daughter and son-in-law.

In 1814, French rule in Genoa was finally overthrown. With the help of the English naval commander Lord Bentinck , a provisional government was set up for Liguria, and Grillo became a member of the commission for the public school system. When King Victor Emanuel I of Sardinia took possession of Genoa in early 1815 , he appointed Grillo chairman of the Ministry of Education. Grillo administered this office until 1821 and then withdrew to his estates. King Karl Felix honored him by appointing him Honorary President of the Department of Education and by awarding him the Grand Cross of the Order of Saints Mauritius and Lazarus in 1827 . In 1823 Grillo dedicated his second edition of the David Psalms to the king. He worked again on the versification of biblical books in the second half of the 1820s. After a long illness, he died on July 22nd, 1834 at the age of 79 in Genoa and was buried in the Chiesa della Concezione according to his wishes .

Works (selection)

  • Il tempio della Fama, poema del Pope, traduzione dall'inglese in versi sciolti , Finale 1799
  • Saltero davidico novellamente trasportato in versi toscani , 2 volumes, Genoa 1803; 2nd edition under the title Parafrasi poetica dei salmi davidici , 3 volumes, Genoa 1823 (increased by 30 sonnets ).
  • Parafrasi poetica dei cantici profetici , Genoa 1825
  • Proverbi di Salomone, parafrasi in versi sciolti, con note , Genoa 1827
  • Treni di Geremia profeta, parafrasi poetica (in metri lirici, con note) , Genoa 1828
  • Lettera del Signore Haller sopra la sua conversione al Cattolicismo, con altra del Signore Stolberg, traduzione del francese , Genoa 1821

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Calogero Farinella:  Niccolò Leonardo Grillo-Cattaneo. In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI).
personal data
SURNAME Grillo-Cattaneo, Niccolò Leonardo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian spiritual poet
DATE OF BIRTH August 26, 1755
PLACE OF BIRTH Genoa
DATE OF DEATH July 22, 1834
Place of death Genoa