Fancy knowing some of the most famous Italian poets?
Whether or not you fancy poetry, you have most likely heard of prominent Italian poets such as Dante, Ovid, Virgil, Horace, and Petrarch.
With Italian poetry tracing its origins in as early as the 13th century, it’s hardly surprising that Italy is the birthplace of some of the world’s best pieces of literature.
Dante Alighieri’s “Divina Commedia” (“Divine Comedy”) ranks among the greatest of all medieval European literature. Ovid’s “Ars Amatoria” (“Art of Love”) and “Metamorphoses” and Petrarch’s canzoniere are all world-famous poems.
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Famous Italian Poets
Italy has produced so many notable poets that choosing the best ones to include in this list proved to be such a challenging feat.
Read on to find out 15 most famous Italian poets whose contributions in poetry are beyond compare.
1. Dante Alighieri
World literature wouldn’t be the same without Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy.”
Often referred to simply as Dante, Dante Alighieri is widely considered as one of the world’s most renowned poets. He was born in Florence, Italy, in 1265 and is best best known for the monumental epic poem “La commedia,” which was renamed “La divina commedia” (“The Divine Comedy”) in modern times.
“The Divine Comedy” is a landmark in Italian literature and one of the greatest of all medieval European literature.
2. Ovid
Born Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō in 43 BC, this Roman poet is known by his Anglicized name Ovid. He was one of the most prolific poets of his time and is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature, along with Virgil and Horace.
In the midst of his fame, Ovid was banished for ten years until his death by the Roman emperor Augustus to the remote province of Tomis – now known as Constanța – on the Black Sea. Ovid claimed the reason for his exile was carmen et error, probably his “Ars Amatoria” poem and some personal mistake.
Apart from “Ars Amatoria,” Ovid’s other most notable work is “Metamorphoses.”
3. Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, more commonly known as Virgil, was a Roman poet who lived from 70 to 19 BC.
Virgil’s most widely recognized work is the epic Aenid. The Aenid chronicles the struggles of Aeneas, a refugee of the Trojan War, as he fulfills his destiny to become the ascendant of Romulus — the founder of Rome — and his twin brother Remus.
Most people do know this. What we didn’t, until now, is that he had a pet fly and when it died, Virgil threw a lavish funeral, even hiring professional mourners and drafting verses to celebrate its memory and all the stuff.
4. Horace
Horace was born Quintus Horatius Flaccus in 65 BC in Southern Italy. He grew up in Venosa in the region of Basilicata.
Horace was the top Roman lyric poet and satirist of his time. He wrote odes with themes of love, friendship, philosophy, and the art of poetry, and viewed nature as the primary source for poetry.
His most influential work is “Ars Poetica,” a verse-essay on the art of poetry, and best remembered for the phrase “carpe diem” — “seize the day.”
5. Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca, “Petrarch” to the English-speaking world, was a famous poet of early Renaissance Italy.
Petrarch is often regarded as the founder of Humanism because of his significant contribution to the popularity of the classical world and literature study. He rediscovered numerous manuscripts — Cicero’s included — and had them translated to be more readily read and studied.
Other European poets admired and imitated his sonnets which became a model for lyrical poetry. He is best known for the narrative poem “I trionfi (“The Triumphs”) and “Rerum vulgarium fragmenta” (“Fragments of Vernacular Matters”), his collection of 366 lyric poems in various genres known as canzoniere (songbook).
Petrarch’s poetry was frequently adapted to music after his death.
6. Giosuè Carducci
Regarded as the official national poet of modern Italy, Giosuè Carducci was the first Italian to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901.
Carducci was born in 1835 in Valdicastello di Pietrasanta, Tuscany. The great poet was a also lecturer and a critic of literature and society.
In 1863, he penned the anti-Vatican “Inno a Satana” (“Hymn to Satan”). However, he would be reconciled to the Catholic Church three decades later.
Giosuè Carducci’s most notable works are Odi barbare (Barbarian Odes) published in 1877 and Rime nuove (New Rhymes) in 1887.
7. Salvatore Quasimodo
The Sicilian Salvatore Quasimodo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his lyrical poetry and, along with Giuseppe Ungaretti and Eugenio Montale, was one of the top Italian poets of the 20th century.
An outspoke anti-Fascist, Quasimodo was known for his poems commenting on modern social issues.
Quasimodo died in June 1968 in Amalfi, at the age of 66. He was buried in one of Italy’s most beautiful cemeteries, the Cimitero Monumentale in Milan.
8. Giuseppe Ungaretti
Born in Egypt into an Italian family from the Tuscan city of Lucca, Giuseppe Ungaretti became one of Italy’s foremost poets of the 20th century.
His debut as a poet took place while fighting in the trenches during World War I, in one of his most renowned pieces called “L’allegria” (“The Merriment”).
Some of Ungaretti’s poems were made into songs and set into music. He wrote the alleged shortest Italian poem, “Mattina” (“Morning”).
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9. Eugenio Montale
Born in 1896 in Genoa, in northwest Italy’s Liguria region, the young Eugenio Montale trained to be an opera singer. After fighting in World War I and the death of his voice teacher in 1923, he veered off toward poetry.
Montale went on to become a leading Italian poet of the 20th century together with Giuseppe Ungaretti and Salvatore Quasimodo. The three are often named as the founders of the poetic school called hermeticism.
In 1975, Montale was given the Nobel Prize in Literature for being “one of the most important poets of the contemporary West.”
10. Gabriele D’Annunzio
While famous for his poetry, Gabriele D’Annunzio was also known for his womanizing ways and profligate lifestyle.
Born in 1863 in Pescara, in the Abruzzo region of Italy, D’Annunzio started young in poetry, publishing his first poems at the age of 16 – in a small volume of verses called Primo Vere. He went on to become a very prominent figure in Italian literature before delving into politics and becoming a member of Italian Chamber of Deputies.
In 1924, King Victor Emmanuel III ennobled D’Annunzio, giving him the hereditary title of Prince of Montenevoso.
11. Torquato Tasso
Torquato Tasso is best-known for his 1580 epic called “La Gerusalemme liberata” (“Jerusalem Liberated”) which tells about the imaginary combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade in 1099.
Born to nobility in 1544 in Sorrento, in the Campania region of Italy, Torquaro Tasso took his interest in poetry from his father who was a professional courtier but also wrote poems.
Tasso suffered from a mental illness that is now believed to be bipolarity for many parts of his life, spawing legends that describe the poet wandering the streets of Rome like that madman that he was, convinced that he was being hounded.
He was confined in an asylum and although he was able to write again, he never fully recovered. He died a few days before he was to be crowned as the king of poets by Pope Clement VIII.
Until the beginning of the 20th century, Tasso remained one of the most widely read poets in Europe.
12. Giacomo da Lentini
Giacomo da Lentini, also known as Jacopo da Lentini and Il Notaro, was an important Italian poet of the 13th century. He is believed to be the inventor of the sonnet.
Da Lentino is the “poet of the 13th century,” the protagonist in Jorge Luis Borges’ sonnet “Un Poeta del Siglo XIII” (“A Poet of the 13th Century”).
13. Matteo Maria Boiardo
Count Matteo Maria Boiardo was an Italian Renaissance poet, most noted for his epic poem called “Orlando innamorato” (“Orlando/Roland in Love”).
“Orlando innamorato” is the first chivalric poem with love as the dominant theme. It was published in three books between 1483 and 1495.
“Orlando innamorato,” like many other works of Boiardo, was composed to amuse a duke and his court.
14. Giacomo Leopardi
Considered the greatest Italian poet of the 19th century, Giacomo Leopardi is one of the most important figures in world literature. He is noted as one of the principals of literary romanticism.
Born to a noble family in 1798 in Recanati, in the central Italian region of Marche, Count Leopardi lived in this secluded town which led him to write “L’infinito,” one of the most famous poems of Italian literary history. It was the product of his desire to travel beyond his home town.
Leopardi is deemed one of the most radical and challenging thinkers of his time and a central figure on the European and international literary and cultural landscape.
15. Umberto Saba
Noted for his simple, lyrical autobiographical poems, Umberto Saba’s formative poetry was influenced by Petrarch, Giosuè Carducci, Giacomo Leopardi, and Gabriele D’Annunzio.
Born Umberto Poli in 1883, in Trieste, then part of Austria-Hungary, Saba officially changed his name in 1928.
Some of Saba’s most renowned poems include “Trieste,” “Ulisse” (“Ulysses”), and “La Capra” (“The Goat”).
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