Scapigliatura

Scapigliatura is the name of the artistic movement which developed in Italy after the period known as Risorgimento, (1815-1871, which led to the unification of Italy and the modern Italian state). The name Scapigliatura is the Italian equivalent of the French Boheme and Scapigliati (literally "dishevelled", "unkempt") the name given to this group of artists which included poets and writers, musicians, painters and sculptors.

The term Scapigliatura was derived from the novel "La Scapigliatura E Il 6 Febbraio" by Cletto Arrighi, pen name of Carlo Righetti (1830-1906), who was one of the forerunners of the movement. The main Italian inspiration of the Scapigliati was the writer and journalist Giuseppe Rovani (1818-1874), author of the novel "Cento Anni" and the influential aesthetic theories of his essays "Le Tre Arti", an anti-conformist and charismatic figure on the fringes of the literary world of Milan, the city where the movement first developed through literary 'cenacles' which met in taverns and cafes. It attracted attention and scandalized the more conservative and Catholic circles of Italy with many pamphlets, journals and magazines like Arrighi's Cronaca Grigia, Antonio Ghislanzoni's Rivista Minima, Cesare Tronconi's Lo Scapigliato and Felice Cavallotti and Achille Bizzoni's Gazzettino Rosa, which challenged the status quo artistically, socially and politically. A wing of the movement became politically active, and known as Scapigliatura Democratica was central to the development of both the Socialist and Anarchist movements, with leaders such as the poet Felice Cavallotti who entered the Italian parliament on the extreme left, and whose libertarian ideals attracted much popular support for his political group, known as the Radicali.

The brotherhood of the scapigliati attempted to rejuvenate Italian culture through foreign influences, notably from German Romanticism (Heine, Jean Paul and E.T.A. Hoffmann), French bohemians Theophile Gautier and Gerard De Nerval and, above all, the poetry of Charles Baudelaire and the works of American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The group also helped with the introduction of Wagner's music into Italy, with musician Franco Faccio (1840-1891) conducting the first Italian performances of "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg".

The major figures of the movement were the poet and painter Emilio Praga (1839-1875) and the poet and musician Arrigo Boito (1842-1918), the author of the opera "Mefistofele", which introduced Wagner's music in Italian opera, memorable also for the fact that Boito wrote both music and the libretto, an instance which had no precedent. Composer and orchestra director Franco Faccio was another important figure for the movement. The three of them volunteered with guerrilla leader Giuseppe Garibaldi's redshirts to fight the Austrian Empire for the annexation of Venice to the newly formed Kingdom Of Italy in 1866.Franco Faccio was also responsible for two of the three "scapigliatura" operas - "I profughi fiamminghi" (with a libretto by Emilio Praga) and "Amleto" (to a text by Boito). It was on the lukewarm premiere of the former in 1863 that Faccio was fêted with a banquet where Boito read his ode "All'arte italiana", which famously so offended Giuseppe Verdi that the composer refused to work with him when the publisher Ricordi first suggested a collaboration. The offending lines, "Forse già nacque chi sovra l'altare / Rizzerà l'arte, verecondo e puro, / Su quel'altar bruttato come un muro / Di lupanare" (Perhaps the man is already born who, modest and pure, will restore art to its altar stained like a brothel wall). Boito in later years wrote the librettos for Verdi's operas "Simon Boccanegra", "Othello" and "Falstaff", and is still considered the best librettist with whom Verdi collaborated. The movement did not have formal manifestos, but developed organically, through its members sharing common aesthetic and political ideals. In their early days they were known as "Avveniristi", from a line of a Boito's poem which spoke of "L'arte dell'avvenire" (The art of the future). The term Scapigliatura came in vogue later.

Praga and Boito launched the Scapigliatura in earnest when they edited the paper Figaro in 1864. A year later saw the publishing of the first works by poet and novelist Igino Ugo Tarchetti (1839-1869), who today is the best-known author of the Scapigliatura. They rebelled against late Romantic maudlin poets like Aleardo Aleardi and Giovanni Prati, Italian Catholic tradition and clericalism, and the Italian government's betrayal of the revolutionary roots of the Risorgimento period. Praga scandalized Italy with his second poetry collection "Penombre" (1864), reminiscent of Baudelaire's "Fleurs Du Mal", and Tarchetti with his novel "Una Nobile Follia" (1867) in which he opposed the militarist culture of Italy under the reigning Savoy royal family and in which he propounded his Anarchism derived from French philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. In the barracks of the Italian Army officers had bonfires with Tarchetti's books to give 'the example' to many young soldiers who identified with Tarchetti's protests (Tarchetti had originally volunteered for the army, but changed his mind and was later discharged because of insubordination - and also because of his failing health - after being sent to fight 'Brigandage' in the south, which he saw as a cruel colonialist war of Piedmont against the recently annexed south of Italy). Boito produced the poetry collection "Il Libro Dei Versi", the musical fable "Re Orso" and memorable short-stories like "L'Alfier Nero". In the late 1860s he detached himself from the movement, moved on to more conservative positions and was even made Senator of The Kingdom Of Italy in 1914, while Faccio suffered a nervous breakdown and ended in the same mental institution where his father was an inmate (bizarrely enough they both died on the same day in 1891). The manifestos of these young and rebellious writers were the works themselves: poems like Praga's Preludio (Prelude), which opened Penombre striking against Catholicism and the many mediocre followers of the main Italian novelist of the time, Alessandro Manzoni, author of the classic historical novel I Promessi Sposi (The Bethroted). Another such proclaim was Arrigo Boito's poem Dualismo (Dualism), which challenged common values and sense of decency by espousing a Decadent take on art, inspired mainly by Baudelaire and Poe.

Emilio Praga and Igino Ugo Tarchetti are the authors who best represent the Scapigliatura and its aesthetic programme. They were the first in Italy to open up to foreign influences, starting a process of renewal in Italian culture. Synaesthesia, the theory based upon the correspondences among music, poetry and painting, was one of their innovations. They were also the first to promote the literature of Realism, opening the door for the Italian novelists of Verismo such as Giovanni Verga and Luigi Capuana. The influence of the supernatural stories of Poe and Hoffmann on Praga and Tarchetti was the foundation of Italian writers such as Antonio Fogazzaro, Luigi Pirandello and Dino Buzzati.The works of Praga, Tarchetti and poet Giovanni Camerana (1845-1905) mark the transition from Romanticism to Decadentism, with their Romantic themes of love and death, Gothic imagery, sexuality and narcotics, and the supernatural. Praga was the first poet to imbue his works with the technics of Impressionism, and Camerana's poetry is characterized by a dark Existentialism. The conflict between the lonely artist totally committed to his ideals and the values of bourgeois society was another theme found in the Scapigliati's works.The Scapigliati are also famous for erasing any difference between art and life, and lived their lives of anti-conformism, anarchist idealism and a desire for transcendence to the full.Like Baudelaire and Poe, and French Symbolist poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine after them, they often recurred to the aid of alcohol and drugs. Their lives were also characterized by poverty and financial failure, and they were also the target of a conservative reaction against their movement and its ideals. Praga died an alcoholic aged thirty-five in 1875, Tarchetti died aged twenty-nine in 1869 of T.B. and typhoid fever while completing his novel "Fosca", practically destitute, in the house of his friend and follower Salvatore Farina. Camerana committed suicide in 1905. Precursors Rovani and Arrighi died both through alcohol abuse.

The movement developed throughout Italy between the 1860s and the 1880s, starting from Milan. Its main off-shoot was in Turin and Piedmont, with followers such as Roberto Sacchetti, Giovanni Faldella, and playwright Giuseppe Giacosa. Giulio Pinchetti (1845-1870) was one of the younger and most promising poets, but committed suicide aged twenty-five after publishing his poetry collection "Versi". A similar figure was the poet Giulio Uberti - a friend of Giuseppe Mazzini who wrote a type of civic poetry which spread the Republican ideals of Mazzini, a sort of Italian equivalent of Walt Whitman - who committed suicide in 1876 after falling in love with an English teenage girl. Another author who scandalized the country was Lorenzo Stecchetti with his poetry collection "Postuma" (1876), which in reality was the work of poet Olindo Guerrini who created the character of the young and doomed poet Stecchetti (based upon Tarchetti) for this specific purpose. The main Scapigliati painters are Tranquillo Cremona and Daniele Renzoni, and the best-known sculptor is Giuseppe Grandi. Their style would influence later painters such as Medardo Rosso. The movement was later immortalized by Giacomo Puccini, a protege' of Arrigo Boito, in his opera "La Boheme" in 1896, with a libretto written by Giuseppe Giacosa. Orchestra director Arturo Toscanini was another famous figure who shared the ideals of the Scapigliatura. Other exponents of the movement were the writers Carlo Dossi (1849-1910) and Camillo Boito (1836-1914), older brother of Arrigo and a well-known art critic, who wrote the short story "Senso", which later inspired Luchino Visconti's film by the same title in 1954 and Tinto Brass' film of 2002. Il Corriere Della Sera, to this day the major Italian newspaper, was founded by the Scapigliato Eugenio Torelli-Violler, a friend of Tarchetti.

The Scapigliati are now considered an important chapter in Italian cultural history, creating the archetype of the artistic avant-garde and are considered the forerunners of literary movements like Decadentism, Symbolism, and the Italian Poeti Crepuscolari of the 1920s and 30s. Praga's poetry collection "Trasparenze", published posthumously in 1878, and his novel "Memorie Del Presbiterio" (left unfinished, completed by Roberto Sacchetti in 1881) are perhaps some of the best examples for illustrating how the Scapigliati were somewhat ahead of their times and prophetic in terms of their vision. In Italian literature, fine arts and music, they are the equivalent of the German Idealists, the French Symbolists, the English Romantics and the American Transcendendalists. While official culture in Italy has often forgotten the Scapigliati, the movement has had several revivals: during the counter-cultural climate of the late 1960s many of their works were back in print and there were exhibitions dedicated to them, and again in the 1990s, when Tarchetti's "Racconti Fantastici" and "Fosca" were translated and published in the US by Lawrence Venuti as "Fantastic Tales" and "Passion", respectively. Film director Ettore Scola's adaptation of Tarchetti's Fosca, titled "Passione D'Amore", was released in 1982. Christine Donougher translated Camillo Boito's "Senso And Other Stories" in English in 1993. In 2005 Robert Caruso ( Anglo-Italian rock singer and poet, not to be confused with the American film-director of commercials) translated Praga, Camerana and some of Tarchetti's poetry into English for the first time (www.robertcaruso.it). American composer Stephen Sondheim's musical of Tarchetti's Fosca, "Passion", was a success on Broadway in 1994.

Other Scapigliatura writers and poets: Ferdinando Fontana, Giuseppe Cesare Molineri, Achille Giovanni Cagna, Ambrogio Bazzero, Cesare Tronconi, Remigio Zena, Edoardo Calandra, Luigi Gualdo, Domenico Milelli, Salvatore Farina, Mario Rapisardi, Gian Pietro Lucini, Paolo Valera, Bernardino Zendrini, Pompeo Bettini, Giuseppe Aurelio Costanzo, Alberto Cantoni, Felice Cavallotti, Antonio Ghislanzoni, Vittorio Imbriani.

Bibliography:

Giuseppe Rovani, 'Cento Anni' (2 vols), Garzanti, Milano, 1975.

Igino Ugo Tarchetti, 'Opere', Cappelli, Bologna, 1967.

Igino Ugo Tarchetti, 'Paolina', Mursia, Milano, 1994.

Igino Ugo Tarchetti, 'L'Amore Nell'Arte', Passigli, Firenze, 1992.

Igino Ugo Tarchetti, 'Racconti Fantastici + Racconti Vari', Bompiani, Milano, 1993.

Igino Ugo Tarchetti, 'Una Nobile Follia', Mondadori, Milano, 2004.

Igino Ugo Tarchetti, 'Fosca', Mondadori, Milano, 1981.

Iginio (sic) Ugo Tarchetti, 'Fantastic Tales', translated by Lawrence Venuti, Mercury House, San Francisco, 1992.

Iginio (sic) Ugo Tarchetti, 'Passion', translated by Lawrence Venuti, Mercury House, San Franscisco, 1994.

Emilio Praga e Roberto Sacchetti, 'Memorie Del Presbiterio,' Mursia, Milano, 1990.

Emilio Praga, 'Schizzi A Penna', Salerno Editrice, Roma, 1993.

Emilio Praga, 'Poesie', Laterza, Bari, 1969.

Emilio Praga, 'Opere', Rossi, Napoli, 1969.

Arrigo Boito, 'Tutti Gli Scritti', Mondadori, Milano, 1942.

Arrigo Boito, 'Opere', Garzanti, Milano, 1979.

Camillo Boito, 'Senso/Storielle Vane', Garzanti, Milano, 1990.

Camillo Boito, 'Senso And Other Stories', translated by Christine Donougher, Dedalus, Sawtry, 1993.

Giovanni Camerana, 'Poesie', Einaudi, Torino, 1968.

Carlo Dossi, 'L'Altrieri/Vita Di Alberto Pisani', Einaudi, Torino, 1988.

Carlo Dossi, 'Amori', Adelphi, Milano, 1999.

Carlo Dossi, 'Opere', Adelphi, Milano, 1995.

Sources:

Gaetano Mariani, 'Storia Della Scapigliatura', Sciascia, Caltanisetta-Roma, 1967.

Piero Nardi, 'Scapigliatura: Da Giuseppe Rovani a Carlo Dossi', Mondadori, Milano, 1968.

'Lirici Della Scapigliatura' (Poetry Anthology), a cura di Gilberto Finzi, Mondadori, Milano, 1997.

'Racconti Neri Della Scapigliatura', (Prose Anthology), a cura di Gilberto Finzi, Mondadori, Milano, 1999.

Alessandro Ferrini, 'Invito A Conoscere La Scapigliatura', Mursia, Milano, 1988.

Lina Bolzoni e Marcella Tedeschi, 'Dalla Scapigliatura Al Verismo', Laterza, Roma-Bari, 1978.

Angelo M. Mangini, 'Fantastico E Malinconia Nell'Opera Di Igino Ugo Tarchetti', Carocci, Roma, 2000.

Robert Caruso, 'Scapigliatura (History and texts of the Italian bohemian poets and writers (1860-1890) translated into English for the first time)', London, 2005.(edited selections can be found on www.robertcaruso.it)