{{Short description|Italian poet and playwright}} {{more citations needed|date=December 2009}} {{Infobox writer | name = Vincenzo Monti | image = VincenzoMonti.jpg | image_size = | caption = Portrait by [[Andrea Appiani]], 1809 | pseudonym = Autonide Saturnino | birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1754|2|19}} | birth_place = [[Alfonsine]], [[Papal States]] | death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1828|10|13|1754|2|19}} | death_place = [[Milan]], [[Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia]] | resting_place = [[Ferrara Charterhouse]] | occupation = Poet, writer, literary critic | language = Italian | nationality = | citizenship = | period = 1776–1828 | genres = Lyrical poetry, epic poetry, literary critic | movement = [[Neoclassicism]] | spouse = {{marriage|Teresa Pichler|3 July 1791}} | signature = }} '''Vincenzo Monti''' (19 February 1754 – 13 October 1828) was an Italian [[poet]], [[playwright]], [[translator]], and scholar, the greatest interpreter of Italian [[Neoclassicism]] in all of its various phases.<ref>{{cite journal |last= Pizzamiglio|first= Gilberto|title= Neoclassicism|editor1= Gaetana Marrone|editor2= Paolo Puppa|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=csVcAgAAQBAJ&q=Neoclassicism&pg=PA1278|publisher= Routledge|journal= Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies|year= 2006|pages= 1279|isbn= 9781135455293}}</ref> His verse translation of the ''[[Iliad]]'' is considered one of the greatest of them all, with its iconic opening ("''Cantami, o Diva, del Pelide Achille l'ira funesta''", lib. I, verses 1–2) becoming an extremely recognizable phrase among [[Italians]] (for example, being the text shown when opening a [[Computer font|font]] file in [[Microsoft Windows]]).
==Biography== Monti was born in [[Alfonsine]], [[Province of Ravenna]], [[Emilia-Romagna]] the son of Fedele and Domenica Maria Mazzari, landowners. He was educated at the seminar in [[Faenza]] and at the [[University of Ferrara]], where he studied medicine and jurisprudence.
Monti derived from his classical education a taste for the elegance of [[Virgil]] and of the Arcadian poet [[Carlo Innocenzo Frugoni]]. In 1775 he was admitted to membership in the [[Academy of Arcadians]], for which he took the pastoral name 'Autonide Saturnino'. In the following year he composed the ''Visione d'Ezechiello'' ("Ezekiel's vision"), a [[Dante Alighieri|Dantesque]] Vision, in ''[[terza rima]]'', written under the influence of Alfonso Varano, which he dedicated to Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the [[Papal legate|Papal Legate]] in [[Ferrara]]. The Cardinal was struck by Monti's promise as a poet and invited him to Rome, where he settled in 1778.
In Rome, where he lived for some twenty years, until 1797, Monti composed odes and a variety of lengthier works. He served as secretary to Duke [[Luigi Braschi Onesti]], enjoyed favour at the court of the enlightened and judicious [[Pope Pius VI]], the uncle of his patron, and soon gained a leading position in Roman literary circles.
Soon after his arrival in Rome, two remarkable archaeological finds, the busts of [[Pericles]] and of [[Aspasia]], unearthed at [[Tivoli, Lazio|Tivoli]] and [[Civitavecchia]] respectively, provided the theme of ''La Prosopopea di Pericle'' (1779), Monti's first Roman ode.<ref>{{cite book |last=Flamini |first=Francesco |title=A History of Italian Literature (1265-1907) |publisher=The National Alumni |year=1906 |location=New York |page=300 |translator=Evangeline M. O'Connor}}</ref> This was followed by ''La bellezza dell'universo'' (1781) and the ''Ode al signor di Montgolfier'' (1784). In the former, which is in ''terza rima'', the beauties of Nature from the time of the Creation are depicted, in a sequence of magnificent images; the latter was written to mark the first ascent of the brothers [[Montgolfier brothers|Charles and Robert Montgolfier]] in their hydrogen balloon, which took off in the Tuileries on 1 December 1783. The ''Ode al signor di Montgolfier'' is typically 'Montian' in its spirit of eulogy and in its exaltation of scientific enterprise within the context of Greek myth.
The ''Ode al signor di Montgolfier'', which was composed in the form of a ''canzonetta'' with lines of seven syllables arranged in four-line stanzas, was recited in Arcadia in 1784, the year of its composition. In the same year Monti began one of his most distinguished poems, ''La Feroniade'', a mythological composition of Virgilian inspiration in which he extolled the plans of Pius VI for the drainage and reclamation of the [[Pontine Marshes]]. The poem is in three cantos in ''[[Verso sciolto|versi sciolti]]''. But although Monti worked on it occasionally throughout his life, it was left incomplete at the time of his death.
An unhappy love-affair at this time provided inspiration for ''Al Principe Don Sigismondo Chigi'' and ''Pensieri d'amore'' (1783) – the latter, with its perhaps too faithful rendering of passages from [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]]'s ''[[The Sorrows of Young Werther|Werther]]'', being unique among all his poetry for its emotional content. [[File:Vincenzo Monti Aristodemo 1786.jpg|300px|thumb|Frontispiece and title page of Vincenzo Monti's ''Aristodemo'' (Parma, 1786)]] In 1785 Monti published his tragedy ''Aristodemo'', which was received with great favour.<ref>See: {{harnvb|Izzi|2012}}. Monti's ''Aristodemo'' is often adduced as a dramatic source for [[Lord Byron|Byron]]'s ''[[Manfred (drama)|Manfred]]''. See: {{cite book|last=Cochran|first=Peter|title=Byron's European Impact|location=Newcastle upon Tyne|publisher=[[Cambridge Scholars Publishing]]|year=2015|page=337}}</ref> Encouraged by this success, Monti undertook a new tragedy in the [[Vittorio Alfieri|Alfieri]] manner, this time with a subject drawn from fifteenth-century Italian history, ''Galeotto Manfredi''. In 1791 he married the actress {{ill|Teresa Pichler|it}} who bore him a daughter, Costanza, and a son, Francesco (the latter dies at only two years old). Through her the singer [[Fanny Eckerlin]] is his niece.<ref name="Albergoni20062">{{cite book |author=Gianluca Albergoni |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MwAU_zayLeMC&pg=PA373 |title=I mestieri delle lettere tra istituzioni e mercato: vivere e scrivere a Milano nella prima metà dell'Ottocento |publisher=[[FrancoAngeli]] |year=2006 |isbn=978-88-464-7392-9 |pages=373–}}</ref>
In the aftermath of the [[French Revolution]] Monti's verses became more political. At first he was a militant classicist and [[counter-revolutionary]]; but he later became an advocate of Romantic attitudes and an enthusiastic supporter of Napoleon. In 1793 he published the ''Bassvilliana'', (1793; tr. A. Lodge, ''The Death of Bassville'', 1845), the most important anti-revolutionary poem that had yet appeared in Italy. The subject of the ''Bassvilliana'', four cantos in ''terza rima'', was provided by a political assassination: on 13 January 1793 [[Nicolas Jean Hugou de Basseville]], who had been sent to [[Naples]] as secretary to the French Legation to sustain the Republican cause, was stabbed to death by a mob stirred up against him by the reactionaries. At this time Monti deplored the excesses of the Revolution and the violence of the [[Jacobins]], and in the poem he turned the interest away from the protagonist to the unfortunate [[Louis XVI]], who is presented as an innocent victim of the Revolutionaries. The ''Bassvilliana'' was a great success and passed through eighteen editions in six months.
In 1797 Monti left Rome and, after visiting [[Bologna]] and [[Venice]], finally settled in [[Milan]], forsaking his former opposition to the [[French Revolution]] (expressed in the ''Bassvilliana'')<ref>{{citation|quote=The “Bassvilliana” was publicly burnt in Milan, a fate it richly deserved at the hands of the Republicans, and in 1798 a law was passed, aimed directly at Monti, excluding from office everyone who had written against the Republic after 1792, the first year of liberty.|title=Modern Italian Literature|author=Lacy Collison-Morley|publisher=[[Little, Brown and Company]]|year=1912|page=152}}</ref> and becoming a supporter of the newborn [[Cisalpine Republic]]. From 1797 until 1799 was secretary of foreign affairs of the Cisalpine Republic, then secretary of the Directoire.
In 1799, he was forced to leave the city when the French were defeated, but it took him only two years to come back, following the [[Battle of Marengo (1800)]]. While in Paris, Monti devoted more and more of his time to translations from French and Latin, which today are considered to be his best works: he published ''La Pucelle d'Orleans'' by [[Voltaire]], soon to be followed by the ''Satire'' by [[Persius]] and the ''Iliade'' ([[Iliad]]) by [[Homer]].
When the French returned to Italy, Monti also returned, this time official [[Poet laureate|Poet Laureate]] of the new [[Kingdom of Italy (Napoleonic)|Kingdom of Italy]]. Soon after his return, Monti published his tragedy of ''Caio Gracco'', ''La Mascheroniana'', a poem on the death of his friend [[Lorenzo Mascheroni]], and his beautiful and popular hymn ''[[:s:it:Per la liberazione d'Italia|Per la liberazione d'Italia]]''. In 1802 Monti was appointed to the chair of eloquence and poetry in the [[University of Pavia]] and on the coronation of Napoleon, in 1805, was appointed "Historiographer of the Italic Reign". He filled this office rather as court poet than historian, and lavished a profusion of eulogistic verses on the emperor and his family. He was made knight of the [[Legion of Honour]] and of the [[Order of the Iron Crown|Iron Crown]], and was chosen a member of the Institute of the Kingdom of Italy.<ref>{{cite book|last=Thomas|first=Joseph |title=The Universal Dictionary of Biography and Mythology: Iac - Pro|volume=III|year=1887|publisher=Cosimo, Inc.|isbn=978-1-61640-073-6|page=1617}} {{PD-notice}}</ref> [[File:Abbondio Sangiorgio (1798-1879) Busto di Vincenzo Monti (1833) di trequarti.jpg|thumb|[[Abbondio Sangiorgio]], Busto di Vincenzo Monti (1833) di trequarti]] In these years Monti wrote ''Il beneficio'' (1805), celebrating the coronation of the emperor, ''Il bardo della selva nera'' (1806) - a classical-Romantic [[pastiche]] influenced especially by [[Ossian]] and the bardic verse of [[Thomas Gray]] ''La spada di Federigo'' (1806), and various other works, in a variety of forms, in which Napoleon was either directly or indirectly honoured. His translation of the ''Iliad'' in ''versi sciolti'', which appeared in 1810, is often regarded as the most beautiful of the Italian versions of this much-translated work and Monti's poetic masterpiece.<ref>{{cite book |last=Maxwell White |first=Donald |title=The Age of Enlightenment. 1715– 1789 |date=1979 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn= |editor=Ronald Grimsley |location=Middlesex |page=242 |chapter=Italy: Poetry in the Period of Reforms}}</ref>
After the fall of [[Napoleon I of France|Napoleon]] in 1815, Monti tried to win back the Austrian regime with his last poems ''Il mistico omaggio'' and ''Il ritorno di Astrea'', before committing to the development of Italian linguistics during his last years. His later years were embittered by ill-health and by financial worries. He adopted a conservative standpoint and in his last poem, the ''Sermone sulla mitologia'' (1825), he roundly condemned Romantic aesthetics and defended the rights of the new literature to use mythological material, as he himself was doing in ''Le nozze di Cadmo e d'Ermione'' (1825).
Monti's poetry is notable for its rational polish and its formal elegance. A staunch classicist, he defended the value of the imaginative and evocative use of mythology (cf. ''La Musogonia'', 1793-7), as opposed to the emotional emphasis of the [[Romanticism|Romantics]] (cf. the polemical ''Sermone sulla mitologia'', 1825).
==Criticism== Many authors have given different opinions about the poet's value. Two factors are generally agreed upon, but they are given different weight yielding a more or less favourable judgement: the lack of [[Ideal (ethics)|ideals]] and authenticity, and the superior technical skills.
In the fast-changing political scenario of his time, Monti appears not to live up to his ideals: he is blamed from the political point of view for being first an opposer to the [[French Revolution]], then an open supporter of [[Napoleon I of France|Napoleon]], then eventually a supporter of the [[Austrian Empire]]. Furthermore, he is accused of expressing insincere feelings in his works and of only caring about the formal aspects of his productions.
In a time of strong political ideals such as the [[Italian unification|"Risorgimento"]] and strong interior passions such as [[Romanticism]], famous representatives of [[Italian literature]] such as [[Ugo Foscolo]] and [[Giacomo Leopardi]] pointed to these as unforgivable flaws, whereas in their opinion a poet should never give up his beliefs in exchange for practical advantages, and should prefer a worthy content over a much refined literary technique.
==Works== [[File:Tragedie di Vincenzo Monti.tif|thumb|''Tragedie'', 1816]] * 1776 – "La visione di Ezechiello" * 1779 – "Prosopopea di Pericle" (ode) and "Saggio di poesie" * 1781 – "La bellezza dell'universo" (short poem) * 1782 – "Sciolti a Sigismondo Chigi" and "Pensieri d'amore" * 1783 – "Versi" * 1784 – "Al signor di Montgolfier" (ode) * 1787 – "Aristodemo" (tragedy) * 1788 – "Galeotto Manfredi" * 1793 – "Bassvilliana"/"In morte di Ugo di Bassville" (left unfinished) * 1797 – "La Musogonia" and "Prometeo" * 1800 – "Poesie", "Dopo la battaglia di Marengo", and translation of [[Voltaire]]'s "La Pucelle d'Orléans" -> "La pulcella d'Orleans" * 1802 – "Mascheroniana"/"In morte di Lorenzo Mascheroni" (poem) and "Caio Gracco" (tragedy) * 1803 – translation: "Satire" ([[Persius]]) * 1805 – "Alla maestà di Napoleone" * 1806 – "Il bardo della Selva Nera", translated into French by [[Jacques-Marie Deschamps]] (''le Barde de la Forêt-Noire'', 1807) * 1810 – translation: "[[Iliad]]e" ([[Homer]]) * 1815 – "Il mistico omaggio" * 1816 – "Il ritorno di Astrea" * 1825 – "Sulla mitologia" * 1817–1826 – "Proposta di alcune correzioni ed aggiunte al Vocabolario della Crusca"
==References== {{Reflist}}
== Sources == {{commons}} * {{cite book|first=Guido|last=Bustico|title=Bibliografia di Vincenzo Monti|publisher=Olschki|location=Florence|year=1924}} * {{cite book|first=Cesare|last=Angelini|title=Carriera poetica di Vincenzo Monti|publisher=Fabbri|location=Milan|year=1960}} * {{cite book|first=Nicolò|last=Mineo|author-link=Nicolò Mineo|title=Vincenzo Monti. La ricerca del sublime e il tempo della rivoluzione|publisher=Giardini|location=Pisa|year=1992}} * {{cite book|first=Angelo|last=Romano|title=Vincenzo Monti a Roma|publisher=Vecchiarelli|location=Rome|year=2001|isbn=88-8247-076-8}} * {{cite book|chapter=Monti e Pio VI: storia del ''Pellegrino apostolico''|last=Spaggiari|first=William|editor=G. Barbarisi|title=Vincenzo Monti fra Roma e Milano [Atti del Convegno di studi, Alfonsine, 27 marzo 1999]|location=Cesena|publisher=Il Ponte Vecchio|year=2004|pages=41–70}} * {{DBI|last= Izzi|first= Giuseppe|url= http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/vincenzo-monti_(Dizionario-Biografico)|title= MONTI, Vincenzo|volume= 76 |year=2012}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Monti, Vincenzo}} [[Category:Italian male poets]] [[Category:1754 births]] [[Category:1828 deaths]]
[[Category:Poets from the Austrian Empire]] [[Category:Translators from the Austrian Empire]] [[Category:Dramatists and playwrights from the Austrian Empire]] [[Category:18th-century Italian poets]] [[Category:18th-century Italian male writers]] [[Category:19th-century Italian poets]] [[Category:19th-century Italian male writers]] [[Category:18th-century Italian dramatists and playwrights]] [[Category:Italian male dramatists and playwrights]] [[Category:19th-century Italian dramatists and playwrights]] [[Category:Members of the Academy of Arcadians]] [[Category:University of Ferrara alumni]] [[Category:Translators of Homer]] [[Category:Italian translators]] [[Category:Latin–Italian translators]] [[Category:French–Italian translators]]