Biography of Giosuè Carducci

The poet in history

27 July 1835
February 16, 1907
Giosuè Carducci was born on 27 July 1835 in Valdicastello, in the province of Lucca, Michele Carducci, physician and revolutionary, and Ildegonda Celli, Volterra. On 25 October 1838 family Carducci, because of the competition won by his father to become a doctor, he moved to remote village of Tuscany Bolgheri thanks to poet will become famous all over the world.
The Maremma is witnessed and recalled with affectionate nostalgia in the sonnet "Navigating the Maremma" (1885) and in many other places of his poetry. Family unity is also the famous Grandmother Lucia, a decisive figure in the education and training of small Joshua so much that the poet remember her with great affection in the poem "in front of San Guido".
A few years later, though (in 1842), this figure for us now literary dies nobly, throwing Joshua into despair. The risings meanwhile take foot, motions that have involved the passionate and "brat" father Michael. The situation is complicated to the point that are fired gunshots at the House of the family, following the escalation of the conflict between Michael Carducci and Bolgheri, the most conservative of the population; the event forces them to transfer to nearby chestnut Grove where they remain for almost a year (now known as Castagneto Carducci). On 28 April 1849 the Carducci come to Florence.
Joshua attended degli Scolopi and knows the future wife Elvira Menicucci, daughter of Francis Menicucci, military tailor. The 11 November 1853 the future poet enters at the Scuola Normale of Pisa. The entry requirements don't match perfectly, but is crucial for a declaration of father Jeremiah, his master, in which guarantees: "... has a beautiful talent and rich imagination, is read for many and excellent knowledge, stood out even among the best. Good for indole is led by young Christians and civilly polite. " Joshua claims the tests brilliantly playing the theme "Dante and his century" and wins the competition. In the same year he formed, along with three fellow students, the Group of the "friends pedants", engaged in the defense of classicism against the Manzoni.
After graduation, achieved with honors, he teaches rhetoric at the College of San Miniato al Tedesco. It is the 1857, when he composed the "Rime di San Miniato" whose success is almost nil, except a quote in a magazine of Gautam. On the evening of Wednesday November 4 it kills his brother Dante was tearing his chest with a razor-sharp scalpel of the father; a thousand guesses. It is said because his father's family to the sound of tired especially, who had become intolerant and tough even with the children. The following year, however, the poet's father dies. A year of mourning and the poet finally marries Elvira. Later, after the birth of daughters Beatrice and Laura, he moved to Bologna, a very cultured and stimulating environment, where she teaches Italian eloquence at the University.
Thus began a long period of teaching (which lasted until 1904), with a fervent and passionate philological and critical tasks. Dante's son is born but dies at an early age. Carducci is badly affected by her death: grim, staring into the void, brings his grief everywhere, at home, at the University, and about. In June 1871 thinking back to the lost son composed "Tears". In the years ' 60, discontent resulted in him by the weakness demonstrated, in his view, on several occasions by the Government after the unification (the Roman question, Garibaldi's arrest) resulted in a pro-Republican attitude and even gamble: suffered his poetic activity, characterized by this time from a rich social and political themes. In subsequent years, with the changing of the Italian historical reality, Carducci moves from revolutionary to a violently contentious attitude and ben Stiller's relationship with the State and the monarchy, which eventually leads to the best guarantor of the secular spirit of appearing the Risorgimento and a social progress not subversive (against the Socialist thought).
The new royalist sympathy culminates in 1890 with his appointment as Senator of the Kingdom. Back in Castagneto in 1879, gives life, along with his friends and neighbors at the famous "ribotte" during which it entertains while sampling local dishes, drinking red wine, chatting and reciting the many toasts for those occasions. In 1906 the poet was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature ("not only in recognition of his profound teachings and critical research, but over all a tribute to the creative energy, purity of style and lyric force that characterizes his poetic masterpiece").
Health conditions do not allow them to travel to Stockholm to receive the award which is delivered at his home in Bologna. On February 16, 1907 Giosuè Carducci died of cirrhosis of the liver at his home in Bologna, at the age of 72 years. His funeral was held on 19 February and Campbell is buried in the Certosa of Bologna after several controversies concerning the place of burial. You can see a chronological list of works by Giosuè Carducci, in the culture of this site.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.