|
Italy – 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Eugenio Montale
1996 Silver 1000 Lire 31.4mm (14.61 grams) 0.835 Silver (0.3919 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 199 | Engraver: Maurizio Soccorsi
EUGENIO MONTALE SOCCORSI, Old portrait of the poet Montale. Name of the author above right shoulder.
REPUBBLICA ITALIANA L 1000 1996 R, A swan intent to setting up the plumage, with a feather in front of it, set horizontally.
Edge Lettering:
R.I. | R.I. | R.I. |
You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
 Eugenio Montale (12 October 1896 – 12 September 1981) was an Italian poet, prose writer, editor and translator, and recipient of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Montale moved to Florence in 1927 to work as editor for the publisher Bemporad. Florence was the cradle of Italian poetry of that age, with works like the Canti orfici by Dino Campana (1914) and the first lyrics by Ungaretti for the review Lacerba. Other poets like Umberto Saba and Vincenzo Cardarelli had been highly praised. In 1929 Montale was asked to be chairman of the Gabinetto Vieusseux Library, a post from which he was expelled in 1938 by the fascist government. By this time Montale’s poetry was a reaction against the literary style of the fascist regime. He collaborated with the magazine Solaria, and (starting in 1927) frequented the literary café Le Giubbe Rosse (“Red Jackets”) on the Piazza Vittoria (now Piazza della Repubblica). Visiting the café often several times a day, he became a central figure among a group of writers there, including Carlo Emilio Gadda, Arturo Loria and Elio Vittorini (all founders of the magazine). He wrote for almost all the important literary magazines of the time.
Though hindered by financial problems and the literary and social conformism imposed by the authorities, in Florence Montale published his finest anthology, Le occasioni (“Occasions”, 1939). From 1933 to 1938 he had a love relationship with Irma Brandeis, a Jewish-American scholar of Dante who occasionally visited Italy for short periods. After falling in love with Brandeis, Montale represented her as a mediatrix figure like Dante’s Beatrice. Le occasioni contains numerous allusions to Brandeis, here called Clizia (a senhal). Franco Fortini judged Montale’s Ossi di seppia and Le occasioni the high-water mark of 20th century Italian poetry.
T.S. Eliot, who shared Montale’s admiration for Dante, was an important influence on his poetry at this time; in fact, the new poems of Eliot were shown to Montale by Mario Praz, then teaching in Manchester. The concept of the objective correlative used by Montale in his poetry, was probably influenced by T. S. Eliot. In 1948, for Eliot’s sixtieth birthday, Montale contributed a celebratory essay entitled “Eliot and Ourselves” to a collection published to mark the occasion.
Disharmony with the world
From 1948 to his death, Montale lived in Milan. After the war, he was a member of the liberal Partito d’Azione. As a contributor to the Corriere della Sera he was music editor and also reported from abroad, including Israel, where he went as a reporter to follow Pope Paul VI’s visit there. His works as a journalist are collected in Fuori di casa (“Out of Home”, 1969).
La bufera e altro (“The Storm and Other Things”) was published in 1956 and marks the end of Montale’s most acclaimed poetry. Here his figure Clizia is joined by La Volpe (“the Fox”), based on the young poet Maria Luisa Spaziani with whom Montale had an affair during the 1950s. However, this volume also features Clizia, treated in a variety of poems as a kind of bird-goddess who defies Hitler. These are some of his greatest poems.
His later works are Xenia (1966), Satura (1971) and Diario del ’71 e del ’72 (1973). Montale’s later poetry is wry and ironic, musing on the critical reaction to his earlier work and on the constantly changing world around him. Satura contains a poignant elegy to his wife Drusilla Tanzi. He also wrote a series of poignant poems about Clizia shortly before his death. Montale’s fame at that point had extended throughout the world. He had received honorary degrees from the Universities of Milan (1961), Cambridge (1967), Rome (1974), and had been named Senator-for-Life in the Italian Senate. In 1973 he was awarded the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings in Struga, Macedonia. In 1975 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Montale died in Milan in 1981.
In 1996, a work appeared called Posthumous Diary (Diario postumo) that purported to have been ‘compiled’ by Montale before his death, with the help of the young poet Annalisa Cima; the critic Dante Isella thinks that this work is not authentic. Joseph Brodsky dedicated his essay “In the Shadow of Dante” to Eugenio Montale’s lyric poetry.
  Italy, officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica Italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 (116,347 sq mi) and has a largely temperate climate; due to its shape, it is often referred to in Italy as lo Stivale (the Boot). With 61 million inhabitants, it is the 4th most populous EU member state. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino and Vatican City.
 Since ancient times, Greek, Etruscan, Celtic, and other cultures have thrived on the Italian Peninsula. Rome ultimately emerged as the dominant power, conquering much of the ancient world and becoming the leading cultural, political, and religious centre of Western civilisation. During the Dark Ages, the region suffered sociopolitical collapse amid calamitous barbarian invasions, but by the 11th century, numerous Italian city-states rose to great prosperity through shipping, commerce and banking, and even laid the groundwork for capitalism. The Renaissance led to a flourishing of Italian culture, producing famous scholars, artists, and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. Italian explorers such as Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, and Giovanni da Verrazzano discovered new routes to the Far East and the New World, helping to usher in the European Age of Discovery. Nevertheless, Italy remained politically fragmented and fell prey to European powers such as France, Spain, and later Austria, subsequently entering a long period of decline that lasted until the mid-19th century.
After various unsuccessful attempts, the second and the third wars for Italian independence resulted in the eventual unification of most of present-day Italy by 1866. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, the new Kingdom of Italy rapidly industrialised and acquired a colonial empire, becoming a great power. However, southern and rural areas of the country remained largely excluded from industrialisation, fuelling a large and influential diaspora. Despite being one of the main victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil, leading the way to the rise of a Fascist dictatorship in 1922. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in military defeat, economic destruction and civil war. In the years that followed, Italy abolished the monarchy, reinstated democracy, and enjoyed a prolonged economic boom, thus becoming one of the world’s most developed nations.
Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and the eighth largest economy in the world. It has a very high level of human development and enjoys the highest life expectancy in the EU. Italy plays a prominent role in global military, cultural and diplomatic affairs and is also considered to be a major regional power in Europe. Italy is a founding and leading member of the European Union and the member of numerous international institutions, including the UN, NATO, the OECD, the OSCE, the WTO, the G7/G8, G20, the Union for the Mediterranean, the Council of Europe, Uniting for Consensus, and many more. As a reflection of its vast cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is one of the most visited countries.
|
