Gerolamo Araolla

Gerolamo Araolla
Born 1542
Sassari
Died 1615
Rome
Nationality Sardinian
Occupation poet, priest

Gerolamo Araolla (in Sardinian, Hieronimu Araolla) (Sassari, 1542 - Rome, 1615) was a Sardinian poet and priest.

Early life

Gerolamo Araolla was born into a distinguished family. He was a pupil of the Sassari physician and philologist Gavino Sambigucci. After studying literature and philosophy, Araolla graduated with a law degree from the University of Pisa in 1567. Shortly after graduation, he took his vows and became a priest in Bosa in 1569.

Poetry

Araolla was an important poet, authoring verses in Italian, Sardinian and Spanish, the three dominate languages in Sardinia in the period. He said that poetry is especially delicate, sweet, and moving. He felt, however, that it was necessary to overcome the humanistic conception of poetry as polite and imitatio dei. Araolla was a Petrarchist, profoundly cultured, with a great knowledge of Torquato Tasso; his Neoplatonism rested on the solid foundation of Augustinian thought.

Araolla enthusiastically participated in the cultural ferment that animated his Sassari youth, and entered into friendships with the leading Sassarian intellectuals of the 16th century.

In 1582, he published his poem Sa vida, su martiriu, et morte dessos gloriosos Martires Gavinu, Brothu et Gianuari, based on folk tales about Saint Gabinus. This work, consisting of 244 stanzas and approximately two thousand verses, had wide circulation on Sardinia. It was probably distributed by the village clergy as an aid to pastoral work. The poem is the largest attempt at the construction of a literary Sardinian language. Even the metrical structure of the work, ottava rima, is an attempt to connect his work in the Sardinian language with Italian literature.

Some time after 1590, Araolla commemorated Pier Michele Giagaraccio with the sonnet onor di Sassari e delizia dell'Arno (Honor of Sassari and delight of the Arno).

A few years later, the introduction of his work: Rimas diversas spirituales (1597), focused on notions of poetics and rhetoric in an effort to give Sardinian the same dignity as literary productions in languages such as Latin, Spanish and Italian. Rimas diversas spirituales was dedicated to D. Biagio d'Alagon.[1]

Works

References

  1. Francesco Cherubini, Carlo Clausen (1902)
  2. Hermann W. Haller, The Other Italy: The Literary Canon in Dialect London 1999, p. 328.

Bibliography

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