Pietro Giordani

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Pietro Giordani
Lettere e carteggi

Pietro Giordani (born January 1, 1774 in Piacenza ; died September 2, 1848 in Parma ) was an Italian writer and classicist .

Life

Giordani entered the Benedictine monastery of San Sisto in Piacenza in 1797 to become a monk, but left it again without receiving orders. He was positive about Napoleon's rule in Italy. Evidence of this is the poem Panegirico alla sacra Maestà di Napoleone (English: Praise to the Holy Majesty of Napoleon) written in 1807 . He had to leave his post as proto secretary of the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna in 1815 in the course of the Restoration because his positions were considered too liberal . In 1817 he began a friendly correspondence with Giacomo Leopardi , whom he also accompanied on his first trip outside Recanati in 1818 . Giordani played a major role in introducing Leopardi to the cultural circles of northern Italy, which would otherwise have been difficult to access for Leopardi, who was locked up in his parents' house. From 1816 he was editor of the magazine Biblioteca Italiana , which was considered the leading medium of classicism in Italy. After political differences with the director of the magazine, Giuseppe Acerbi , he left it, however, and turned to the more liberal Antologia published in Florence . After the failure of the uprisings of 1821 , Giordani, like many other intellectuals, withdrew more and more. He spent the last years of his life in Parma , where he was imprisoned for three months in 1834 . He died in 1848 during the preliminary success of the anti-Austrian uprisings .

Literary and political positions

Pietro Giordani's writings adhere strictly to the principles of classicism ; they are balanced and controlled in shape. His rhetoric is never empty, but participates in cultural and educational issues, it is polemical against superstition and prejudice and anti-clerical . His collected works edition Opere , published in print in 1821 , was placed on the index by decree of the Faith Congrengation in 1825 , as was the posthumously published " Briefsteller " ( Epistolario ) in 1856 . Again and again one encounters the effort to understand the historical and economic processes of one's own time and to take part in them. In this respect, Giordani's concept of literature differs from that of other classicists such as Vincenzo Monti : for Giordani literature must always be the search for virtue and truth and contribute to education ; it must never be a useless pastime. He himself seemed to consider himself and his work to be inadequate in terms of his intellectual and rhetorical skills: “If one day you want to put a stone on these poor bones, I recommend that you write only these words on it: Pietro Giordani was unknown. "

Works

  • Descrizione del Foro Bonaparte, 1806
  • Sullo stile poetico del signor marchese di Montrone, 1807
  • Panegirico alla sacra maestà di Napoleone, 1807
  • Panegirico ad Antonio Canova, 1810
  • Sulla vita e sulle opere del cardinal Sforza Pallavicino, 1810
  • Sopra un dipinto del cav. Landi e uno del cav. Camuccini, 1811
  • Discorso per le tre legazioni riacquistate dal papa, 1815
  • L'Alicarnasso del Mai, 1816
  • Sopra tre poesie dipinte a fresco, 1832
  • Proemio al terzo volume delle opere di Giacomo Leopardi, 1845

literature

  • Giordani, Pietro. Lettere , SI, 1937.
  • Ders., Scritti Scelti , Sansoni, Florence, 1961.
  • G. Cecioni, Lingua e Cultura nel Pensiero di Pietro Giordani , Bulzoni, Roma, 1977.
  • Giuseppe Monsagrati:  GIORDANI, Pietro. In: Mario Caravale (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 55:  Ginammi – Giovanni da Crema. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2000.
  • Laura Melosi, In Toga e in Camicia . Lucca, 2002.
  • Fabio Camilletti, "Toward an Archeology of Italian Modernity: Rethinking the Classicist / Romantic Quarrel." In: The Formation of a National Audience in Italy, 1750-1890: Readers and Spectators of Italian Culture . Gabriella Romani and Jennifer Burns, ed. v. Madison and Teaneck, New Jersey, 2017.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See the letter from Adelaide Maestri to Giacomo Leopardi of March 13, 1834 ( "è stato arrestato l'ottimo Giordani pochi giorni sono in questa Città" - "a few days ago the good Giordani was arrested in this city") in Scritti vari inediti di Giacomo Leopardi dalle carte napoletane, Firenze, Successori Le Monnier, 1906 , p. 524 and another from July 24, 1834 ( "immaginate s'io poteva esser l'ultima a significarvi la sua liberazione" - "introduce you to me could be the last one to tell you of his liberation ") in Scritti vari inediti ecc, p. 525 .
  2. ↑ Jesús Martínez de Bujanda , Marcella Richter: Index des livres interdits: Index librorum prohibitorum 1600–1966 . Médiaspaul, Montréal 2002, ISBN 2-89420-522-8 , pp. 387 (French, Google digitized version ).
  3. ↑ Sebastiano Timpanaro, Classicismo e illuminismo italiano , Florence 1965, pp. 70–71: "Se vorranno mettere una pietra sulla terra che coprirà queste povere ossa, raccomanderò che vi si scrivano queste sole parole: Non fu conosciuto Pietro Giordani".
personal data
SURNAME Giordani, Pietro
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1774
PLACE OF BIRTH Piacenza , Italy
DATE OF DEATH September 2, 1848
Place of death Parma , Italy