Silvio Pellico

Silvio Pellico (Saluzzo, 1789 - Turin, 1854) is an Italian poet.

Biography

Silvio Pellico is born in Saluces (Italy), in a Piedmontese family of middle class. The poet had a morbid childhood. He left a serious disease to still fall into a more serious disease. His/her mother, of Savoyard origin liked it much and took care of him. Later, of the bottom of its prison, he will always remember that which passed so much from time to its bedside and the memory of his/her mother was to him of a great help.

In spite of its disease, it developed a very early intelligence and it did not have more than ten years that it was interested already in poetry and especially in the theater. Naturally carried with the melancholy, he liked plays of his age only the representations of works dramatic. It is at that time that its family settled in Turin. A republican government there had just been established, and his/her father, although monarchist, often took it along with his brother to the popular assemblies. These verbal sparring matches impressed it for the remainder of its life and made of him an enthusiastic patriot.

A few years later, his/her father sent it in a cousin of his mother in Lyon. He spent four years there, delivering himself to the distractions of the world but also being interested in manners and especially in the literature of our country.

He forgot his fatherland when his brother sent a new poem of Foscolo to him, a poet whom he had already read with passion being young: “By reading it, it felt to become again Italian and poet…” and taken soon the way of Milan where was then its family. Appointed French professor to the college of the military orphans, it had enough time then to devote itself to its true passion, the literature and poetry. Two poets shared glory in Lombardy, Monti and Foscolo. It bound more with Foscolo, but the way of proceeding of the disappointed poet. It published a first tragedy, Laodicée , then one second, Francesca da Rimini . In 1819, its tragedy was represented in Milan, then in Naples and soon, Silvio Pellico was regarded as one of the poets most distinguished of Italy.

In the great upheaval of 1814, Italy had hoped for one moment that Europe would agree to give him independence. But this hope was disappointed soon and the kingdom of Lombardy-Venezia was restored. With the head of the patriots who tried to resist to the Austrians found two very powerful men: the count Porro, that Silvio knew well and liked like a father and the count Frederic Confalonieri. Silvio Pellico, undoubtedly member of the “Carbonari”, taken its share of the fight and to federate the spirits, it conceived and proposed the plan of a newspaper. The Conciliator was founded in 1819, in the house of the count Porro.

It is at this time that burst the Neapolitan revolution, soon followed by the insurrection of Piedmont. The same idea of resistance seemed to be propagated in all Italy but the movement, badly prepared and badly led, end up stopping. The counterpart of the Austrians was terrible: all the eminent men that Lombardy counted were stopped. Silvio Pellico was arrested for conspiracy on February 22nd, 1823 and was imprisoned in Venice. Condemned to dead then pardoned by the emperor, it was sent in the terrible prison of the Spielberg as Slovakia. Its life of prisoner is well-known because he told it itself in a book which was an immense success later: My prisons - Memories of Silvio Pellico .

Publications

Rafaella , H. Casterman, Turned and Paris, Catholic International Bibliothèque, 1859
My prisons. Memories of Silvio Pellico . Firmin-Didot, Paris Text in line
Silvio Pellico , music of F. Masini, text and music extracted from a collection of songs of Canada.

Bibliographical references

Silvio Pellico, foreword of My prisons
Louis de Loménie, Gallery of the contemporaries by a man of nothing . Louis de Loménie says to be himself inspired of the note of Mr. Antoine de Latour, who accompanied the first translation by My Prisons .

Silvio Pellico wrote a poême telling its life of prisoner. On this text, F. Masini composed a melody. The words and the music of this song crossed the Atlantic and became popular to Canada.

Hélas! in my prison breaks with the fresh breath,
When you come to announce the soft return of the flowers to me,
When you come to bring the perfumes of the plain to me,
You awake in me new pains!
I know it spring, your breath is remplie
And your wing passed on flowered grasses…
But why aren't you my breeze of Italy?
Embaumé air, air embaumé of my country…
Ah! why aren't you the embaumé air of my country?
2.
Alas! in my prison, when of a sky without cloud,
Slip a purer ray, like a friendly glance,
Law to comfort me, I lose soon courage…
I feel tears to come, and my heart groaned!
By seeing this beautiful sky, not, never I oublie
That it is only one sky, one, for the proscribed poor…
Ah! why aren't you my beautiful sky of Italy?
Liked sky, sky liked of my country…
Ah! why aren't you the liked sky of my country?
3.
Alas! in my prison, sometimes when I dream,
A dream, this friend of my light sleep,
Says to me that I am free and that my evil is completed…
That I have my freedom on a foreign ground!
On a foreign ground! … Oh! I beg you,
My God! I do not want to be free at this price…
That one gives me irons in Italy rather…
I want to die, I want to die in my country! …

External bonds

Presentation of Silvio Pellico by the Father Huguet
''' My Prisons ''', by Silvio Pellico

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