Grace and disgrace
Whoever tries to find a common point between some of the first Ligurian works would certainly point to the unconditional love for Genoa. Thus, the city inspired Calfaro di Rustico da Caschifellone (ca. 1080-1164) to write Annals praising the ardor of the Genoese during the first crusade and anticipating the power that the Republic of Liguria would acquire. Two centuries later, James of Voragine (ca. 1228-1298) - also known for his lives of saints gathered in The Golden Legend - will dedicate his Chronicles to him, and it is certainly soon after that a man of whom little is known began to write, hence his nickname of the "anonymous Genoese". From him remains a great production gathered in the Codex Molfino (from the name of the one who discovered it in 1821), which constitutes moreover the oldest work written, at least in part, in Ligurian. After Agostino Giustiniani (1470-1536) had mapped his native region for the first time in his Descrittione della Lyguria
published in 1537, Paolo Foglietta (1520-1596) also took up the theme dear to his predecessors... to better draw up a merciless counter-portrait! According to the poet, the city had indeed given in to mercantilism and had been denatured in this unbridled quest for profit, even the vernacular language - which he used - had lost its charm by integrating too many words of Tuscan origin... The debate remained there for a century. During this century, however, the Ventimigliesi Angelico Aprosio (1607-1681) created the first public library in Liguria, and the Genoese Anton Giulio Brignole Sale (1605-1662) brilliantly devoted himself to baroque and comedy(Li Comici schiavi). Then came Stefano De Franchi, known as Steva (1714-1785), who fiercely defended the charm of Ligurian in Ro stampao a ri prouve e boin zeneixi che lezeran, while acknowledging, eventually, a certain lack of vocabulary that did not constitute a real handicap in his opinion. But already the hour of the Risorgimento was announced, that Italian resurrection synonymous with unification, in which Giovanni Ruffini, born in Genoa in 1807 and died in Taggia in 1881, will take part. His support for the republican Mazzini cost him a long exile, which was also felt in his writings, since two of his most famous works - Lorenzo Benoni, with a strong autobiographical accent, and Il Dottor Antonio, which was adapted for the cinema - were written in English before being translated into Italian. Goffredo Mameli, who died at the age of 21 in 1849, was in turn associated with the great patriotic movement. Although his life was short, he had time to sign the words of the national anthem: The Song of the Italians (1847).End and beginning of the century
The second half of the nineteenth century was to be a happy time for Ligurian literature: the Genoese Federico Donaver (1861-1915) set about describing his city with precision and love in his numerous works, including school textbooks, while the Savonesi Giuseppe Cava (1870-1940) brought the vernacular language to life with such grace that he gained international fame, especially for In to remoin. Ceccardo Roccatagliata Ceccardi (1871-1919) became lyrical when he evoked the splendor of the landscapes of his province in his poetry (Apua Mater, Viandante, Libro dei frammenti), arousing the admiration of two illustrious writers whom he influenced: Camillo Sbarbaro (1888-1967) and Eugenio Montale (1896-1981). The first one is discovered in French with Copeaux and Pianissimo: rémanences. If he remains quite confidential on our side of the border, there is no doubt that his reputation has survived. The second, Eugenio Montale, is well known, especially since he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1975. Self-taught and a bulimic reader, his work is like him and his land: not very talkative (a few volumes that can be counted on the fingers of two hands), but essential. It has been translated by Verdier under the title Papillon de Dinard, which also contains La Maison aux deux palmiers, a good way to understand all the subjects dear to the author, from his childhood memories to his concerns about the rise of fascism... This fine publishing house also offers to read, with Le Gel du matin, Giorgio Caproni who was not a native of the region but was intimately linked to it, as will be Italo Calvino, born in 1923 in Cuba. It seems unthinkable not to mention this great writer because he made Liguria the backdrop for his first novel, The Path of the Spiders' Nests (1947), which evoked the Second World War and the Italian resistance to which he had belonged, and then for one of his great successes, The Perched Baron. His younger brother, Cesare Vivaldi, born in Imperia, joined the avant-garde movement Gruppo 63, where he met the Genoese Edoardo Sanguineti (1930-2010). Both were prolific but only the second is translated into our language: Cahier de brouillon and L'Amour des trois oranges, for example, can be discovered at Nous. If the authors ingeniously distort the language, they also allow themselves to explore other paths, even other arts, like Giovan Battista Carpi who will make a career in comics. Hired by Disney, he drew many stories using Donald as a hero, having fun creating parodies - such as the one of Les Misérables
- that made him known... and recognized! In literature, the man with a thousand lives that was Francesco Biamonti (1928-2001) left behind him a moving and disturbing work, begun in 1983 with The Angel of Avrigue (Verdier, 1990), which was like no other and portrayed a harsh and wild Liguria. Through the eyes of the protagonist, a drug addict on the verge of death, the once comforting landscape becomes threatening. Wandering will again be at the heart of a second novel to be purchased from Seuil: Les Paroles la nuit. To conclude, we must not fail to mention Paolo Villagio, a very popular actor and writer thanks to the comic character of Ugo Fantozzi, which he created and then played, and Bruno Morchio, also a Genoese, author of a series of black novels that had a great echo. Finally, Maurizio Maggiani, born in 1951 in Castelnuovo Magra, was awarded the prestigious Strega Prize. Three of his titles have been translated by Actes Sud: Treize variations sur l'amour in 2004, Le Voyageur nocturne in 2006 and Le Courage du rouge-gorge in 2009.
