Giosuè Carducci: The Poet Who Married the Ancient Muses

Giosuè Carducci, born in Valdicastello di Pietrasanta on July 27, 1835, and died in Bologna on February 16, 1907, was an Italian poet and Nobel laureate. He studied at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, where he criticized the teaching as too academic. After graduation, he taught rhetoric and Italian literature in San Miniato, Pistoia, and from 1860 at the University of Bologna, a chair he held until 1904. His first collection, Rime, was published in 1857 under financial pressure. Major success came with Odi barbare (1877), where he revived classical themes and meters, aiming to do for Italian poetry what Horace did for Latin. In 1906, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature, months before his death. The article references a film, Notte prima degli esami by Fausto Brizzi, where Carducci is mentioned in a graduation exam scene.