Giosuč Carducci was born the 27th July 1835 in Valdicastello, a fraction of Pietrasanta in the Province of Lucca, and when he was three his family moved to Maremma, between Bolgheri and Castagneto Carducci, where he stayed until the age of 14. After taking his degree at the Normale of Pisa, when he was only 25 he was called to hold, at Bologna's university, the Italian literature chair. And in Bologna he lived for a long time.
Carducci, a poet, literature historian and essay writer as well as prose writer, represents an important figure in Italian literature, and he was the first Italian to receive the Nobel prize for literature in 1906. A strong-tempered character, strongly against the political situation of the time: a firm republican, he fought papacy and monarchy, even if, with Crispi's government he returned to uphold monarchic ideas.
Carducci's works opposed the romantic sentimentalism of many literate figures of the time. Carducci sustained the return to classical forms of poetry, to naturalism. Among his "teachers" he recognised Greek classics, Foscolo, Parini and Leopardi and he refused Manzoni's romanticism, the romanticism which ruled at the end of the 19th century. And classic themes are the ones that echo in many of Carducci's poems: the themes of melancholy, of childhood and youth which, with longing, surface in the "Rime nuove".
And it is precisely Maremma his childhood memories are linked to, the carefree times, working in the fields Carducci recalls with "Il bove"; moments spent during Maremma summers "Sogni d'estate". This area's landscapes, especially in Bolgheri and Castagneto Carducci, "San Martino", a painting of life in Castagneto' village; "Traversando la Maremma toscana", a composition borne of a journey from Livorno to Rome during which he was moved, passing in front of Castagneto; "Davanti a San Guido", here the view of the cypresses on Bolgheri's big road evokes within him the memory of his grandmother.
Today the places in Maremma lived in and described by the poet in his youth host the literary park "Giosuč Carducci", which will find its main office in the Bolgheri house where Giosuč Carducci lived and will find its cardinal centre in the viale dei Cipressi which is almost 5 kilometres long.
Carducci's works
Prose:
Discorsi sullo svolgimento della letteratura nazionale
L'opera di dante
Studi su Ariosto, Boccaccio, Leopardi, Petrarca, Parini e Tasso
Poetry:
Iuvenilia (1850-1860)
Levia Gravia (1861-1871)
Intermezzo (1861-1887)
Rime nuove (1861-1887)
Giambi ed Epodi (1861-1887)
Odi barbare (1877-1889)
Rime e ritmi (1887-1899)
Canzone di Legnano (1879)
Castagneto Carducci Municipality (In Italian)
Giosuč Carducci Literary Park (In Italian)
Carducci as Nobel laureate
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