Human Generation, Memory and Poetic Creation: From the Purgatorio to the Paradiso

Contributor(s): Paola Ureni

Statius’ scientific digression on the generation of the fetus and the formation of the fictive body in the afterlife occupies a large part of canto XXV of Dante’s Purgatorio. This article will examine the metaphorical relevance of that technical exposition to Dante’s poetics....

Why Did the Monkey Kill the Giant? Another Look at Margutte’s Death

Contributor(s): Pina Palma

In the Morgante through Margutte’s death-by-laughter Pulci voices a caustic critique of Ficino’s philosophical theories while obliquely denouncing Lorenzo de Medici’s acceptance of them. The spectacle of the monkey wearing and taking off Margutte’s boots follows...

'The Country is Large, and Beautiful and Happy.' Lelio Pecci’s Travel Journal of his 1549 Mission to Flanders

Contributor(s): Elena Brizio

Lelio Pecci’s travel journal for his mission to Emperor Charles V in Flanders offers modern readers a layman’s description of a large section of Europe (from northern Italy to France, Flanders, Germany, and Austria), as well as a priviledged view into the mind of a learned man from a...

Galileo’s Rhetoric of Fable

Contributor(s): Crystal Hall

In annotations, drafts, and published materials, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) consistently uses fables to ridicule his philosophical opponents’ forma mentis. An analysis of the revisions made to these short pieces argues that the fable was a deliberate rhetorical tool with dual effect: the...

Leopardi e il segreto dell’ Infinito

Contributor(s): Giampiero Marzi

L’infinito di Leopardi è una poesia sublime, ma anche difficile, in quanto densa di mistero fin dal primo verso. La sua difficoltà interpretativa, dimostrata dalle diverse letture fornite dalla critica, potrebbe dipendere da una forma di scrittura à clef....

Violence and the Law in Gianrico Carofiglio’s Literary Courtroom

Contributor(s): Elena Past

Gianrico Carofiglio’s novels featuring attorney-protagonist Guido Guerrieri have gained popularity in Italy and abroad since the first in the series emerged in 2002. Although often discussed alongside other popular crime fiction, Carofiglio’s work also has a wider resonance,...

Adoption, Motherhood, Domestication: The Role of the Child in Antonio Capuano’s La guerra di Mario

Contributor(s): Patrizia Bettella

The long-lasting interest for the child as vehicle of social critique in Italian cinema from Neorealism to the present leads to some reflection on the film La Guerra di Mario (2005) by Neapolitan director  Antonio Capuano. Capuano tackles the modern theme of the failed adoption of Mario, a...

La critica postcoloniale della liminalità: la scrittura delle autrici afro-italiane

Contributor(s): Moira Luraschi

Le scrittrici italo-africane originarie del Corno d’Africa propongono nei loro testi una visione della condizione esistenziale e psicologica di chi vive a cavallo di due culture che, riprendendo un concetto mutuato dall’antropologia culturale, si può definire liminale. Le...

You Will Therefore Understand

Contributor(s): Claudio Magris, Anne Milano Appel

The Conch Shell

Contributor(s): Marisa Madieri, Anne Milano Appel

Mirror Images of Remembrance in Marisa Madieri’s La conchiglia and Claudio Magris’s Lei dunque capirà: A Translator’s Notes

Contributor(s): Anne Milano Appel

A kind of parallelism is noted between Marisa Madieri’s short story La conchiglia and the novella Lei dunque capirà by Claudio Magris. In La conchiglia there is a she (Madieri the author) who writes in the voice of a he (the narrator and surviving spouse) who recalls another she (his deceased...

The Transparencies of Marisa Madieri: Autobiography as Farewell

Contributor(s): Ernestina Pellegrini

This article analyses Marisa Madieri’s narrative with particular attention to its stylistic traits. It focuses on her autobiographical style, characterized by nostalgia and—at the same time—a puzzling and enchanting detachment. Madieri’s writing closely looks at the earthly and the physical world...

La produzione letteraria di Marisa Madieri

Contributor(s): Corinna Gerbaz Giuliano

Marisa Madieri inaugura con Verde acqua il filone della letteratura dell’esodo al femminile. La memoria costituisce il perno della narrazione e il tema dell’esilio rappresenta una costante nella scrittura madieriana. Il linguaggio, caratterizzato da un registro espressivo intenso e puro, e...

Tra le (non) virgole di Alla cieca. Osservazioni sulla traduzione di Alla cieca e sul rapporto tra Claudio Magris e i suoi traduttori

Contributor(s): Barbara Ivancic

Le opere di Claudio Magris sono state tradotte in molte lingue; il primato spetta a Danubio (1986), che segnò il successo internazionale dello scrittore e germanista triestino, con ventidue traduzioni, seguono Un altro mare (1991), tradotto in quattordici lingue, e Microcosmi (1997), a quota...

The Presence of Myth in Claudio Magris’s Postmillennial Narrative

Contributor(s): Sandra Parmegiani

This article addresses Magris’s appropriation of classical myth in his postmillennial narrative. Since his early works of literary criticism Magris explored the world of myth and the mythopoeic power of literature, but only in his postmillennial texts has he undertaken the writing of what John J....

Nota del Direttore

Contributor(s): Gianni Cicali

Tongues of Fire and Fraud in Bolgia Eight

Contributor(s): Gabriella Ildiko Baika

The article revisits Inferno 26-27 from the perspective of the medieval pastoral debate on peccata linguae and focuses on the controversial phrase consiglio frodolente (Inf. 27.116). I begin my analysis by examining the notion of pravum consilium ‘evil counsel’ in two tracts on verbal sins:...

Reading Marsilio Ficino in Quattrocento Italy. The Case of Aragonese Naples

Contributor(s): Matteo Soranzo

This essay focuses on the reception of Marsilio Ficino’s works and ideas in Naples at the time of the Aragonese domination, and it offers a preliminary discussion of this neglected area of Renaissance Neoplatonism. Based on a contextualization of Ficino’s letters to Giovanni d’Aragona, four...

Salmacis et Hermaphrodite à la Renaissance et à l’Âge Baroque: Traductions et réecritures italiennes d’un mythe ovidien

Contributor(s): Janis Vanacker

Dans cette contribution nous examinons les versions italiennes du mythe ovidien de Salmacis et Hermaphrodite proposées par les volgarizzatori du XIVe et du XVIe siècles et par le poète baroque Girolamo Preti dans La Salmace. Avant d’entamer la lecture de ces textes, qui, jusqu’à présent, n’ont...

Leonardo’s Profezia: Moral Writings of a Hybrid Kind

Contributor(s): Filomena Calabrese

In the period 1490-99, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) wrote nearly three hundred literary writings that were later compiled by scholars into four primary collections: the Bestiario, Favole, Facezie, and Profezia. This article takes Leonardo’s Profezia as its main subject in order to give due...