Silvia Rizzo
Michele Marullo Tarcaniota,
Elegie per la patria perduta e altre poesie
introduzione, traduzione e note di P. Rapezzi, Borgomanero,
Giuliano Ladolfi Editore, 2014, pp. 76
12 April 1500: the arrival of spring with melting snow
She has swelled rivers by clearing under a stream of swirling water
the usual fords, including that of Cecina stream on the road
Maremma Volterra that leads to the sea. Here comes the ford
a knight, dressed in black, blacks hair and olive complexion, body
dry and vigorous man using exercise, lined face
the great outdoors. Having reached the river stops and contemplates
turbid and rushing waters, then he gives a spur to the horse and pushes
decisively into the ford. That horse and rider are already
middle of the river, but then maybe the horse slipped on the mud of the bottom and
in a moment both are overwhelmed by the swirling waters. After
a bit 'the horse gets up, swim, barely reaches the other shore, but
on the rider is the muddy waters are definitively closed the
Chickpeas flour pie.
He died so forty-six, after an eventful and adventurous life,
one of the greatest Latin poets of the Renaissance, Michele
Marullo Tarcaniota, a greek exile who always sighed and sang
distant homeland, he had never known, since the fall of Constantinople
in the hands of the Turks in 1453 he had forced his parents
to escape when he was still in the womb. In that drive
incipient spring morning was hurrying towards the harbor
Piombino, where he was departing the ship that should have after
so long finally get him at home and therefore had not listened
the exhortations of his friend Raffaele Maffei, of which he was a guest
Volterra, to linger a little longer, because it was Sunday
Palm and why the melting snow had made it dangerous
crossing the Cecina.