Page 41 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Italy

a por tr ait of it al y  39

Classical Roman Writers
Texts in Latin by Classical Roman philosophers, poets,
dramatists and politicians are part of the bedrock of
Western culture. Today the names Virgil (The Aeneid), Ovid
(Metamorphoses) and Pliny (Historia Naturalis) are literary
legends. Fascinating histories such as Livy’s Early History of
Rome, Caesar’s Gallic Wars, Tacitus’s Annals and Suetonius’s
Trentino-
Alto Adige The Twelve Caesars, give us an invaluable window on the
The Veneto distant Roman past, as do the
and Friuli caustic Satires of Juvenal. Many
Venetian author Carlo Latin works owe their survival
Goldoni (1707–93) to the teams of medieval
reacted against the satirical monks who diligently copied
tradition of commèdia and illustrated them. In the
dell’arte, preferring to write Renaissance the stories of Ovid’s
more forgiving plays on Metamorphoses were plundered
contemporary Venice society. by many writers and the works of
Cicero had a profound influence
on prose style; Seneca was seen
as a master of tragedy and
Plautus’s Pot of Gold served Detail from medieval copy of
as a model for comedies. Pliny’s Historia Naturalis
Petrarch (1304–74), one
Le Marche of the earliest and greatest
lyric poets, produced works
which showed the first
Umbria indications of Humanism.

St Francis of Assisi (1182–
1226) was the first author to
Lazio
write in Italian instead of
formal Latin. As well as
Abruzzo, Molise letters and sermons, he
and Puglia wrote poems and songs,
including the popular
Canticle of the Sun.
Campania

Basilicata
and
Calabria
Roman writer Alberto Moravia
(1907–90) is usually labelled a
“Neo-Realist”. His novels and
short stories focus on the corrupt
values of contemporary society.
Among his best-known works
are Gli Indifferenti and Agostino.

Sicily
The Sicilian Nobel Prize-winner
Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936)
was preoccupied with
themes of illusion and reality.
0 kilometres 200 Six Characters in Search of an
0 miles 100 Author is his most famous work.

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