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Joan E. Borrelli / Ciro di Pers
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of Friuli (published 1676). For the definitive modern edition of the
poetry, see: Ciro di Pers, Poesie, edited by Michele Rak (Turin:
Einaudi, 1978). Pers’s work comprises 255 sonnets with a broad
thematic range (encomiastic, religious, occasional and love sonnets)
as well as thirty longer poems, some addressing heroic and
political subjects. One ode, “A Iola,” describes an encounter with an
enemy Turkish fleet; another, “Italia calamitosa,” contains moving
depictions of the plague’s devastation of Venice. Sonnet selections
reproduced here for translation are taken from Rak’s edition. Biographical
information relies, as well, on Rak’s comprehensive introductory
notes.
Joan E. Borrelli is a third-generation Italian-American from
Lawrence, Massachusetts. She earned her M.A. in Creative Writing
and a second M.A. in Italian Language and Literature from San Francisco
State University, where she is head of the library’s collection
acquisition management. Her translations of the poetry and literary
prose of Italian authors have appeared in a variety of anthologies
and journals. She lives with her husband, Bruce Mueller, in
San Francisco.
Note on the translation
Within the Italian Baroque literary movement, Ciro di Pers is
grouped with the ‘marinisti,’ or Marinists, followers of Giambattista
Marino, who opposed the classical Petrarchan tradition which had
dominated poetic production throughout the Renaissance. Seeking
a dramatic shift in technique, these poets emphasized the use of
exotic metaphor, antitheses, musicality of language and alliteration,
word-play and witticism to create what Marino defined as
‘meraviglia’ (surprise/wonder/awe) in the reader. As their contemporaries
in the fine arts (Caravaggio, Bernini), the Marinists desired
to draw the audience into the action of the art form. Towards that
end, they introduced new themes and aesthetic definitions likewise
aimed at engaging reader involvement. Seicento poetry thus embraces
a wide variety of subject matter – from details of the life of
ordinary folk to descriptions of the novel and fantastic. The
Marinists’ wild experimentation – such as the overzealous use of
repetition, exaggerated metaphor and absurd juxtaposition of opposites
– often ends in poetic pyrotechnics, where true emotion and
meaning sputter and fizzle. Ciro di Pers, on the other hand, suc-