CHIABRERA, Gabriello. — Poet, b. at Savona in 1552, d. there in 1638. He was a student at the Collegio Romano; in Rome he also came into contact with the humanists Speroni, Manuzio, and Muret. Having entered the service of Cardinal Corner, he fought a duel over a matter of honor and was obliged to return to his native city, from which another such incident forced him to absent himself for a time. At the age of fifty he married the very young Lelia Pavese. He was entrusted with diplomatic missions by his city to the Genoese Signoria and was in relations with the House of Savoy, the Gonzaga, with Urban VIII (cf. the papal brief directed to C. in Lettere di G. C. a B. Castello, Genoa 1838, p. 14), and especially with the Medici. In Mantua and Florence he organized spectacles on the occasion of solemn events at those courts.
He essayed lyric poetry with celebratory songs, amorous and bacchic canzonettes, narrative poems, eclogues, sonnets, and satires; in epic poetry with *La Gotiade*, *La Firenze*, *L’Amadeide*, *Il Foresto*, and *Il Roggero*; in drama with tragedies of romantic subject matter and some pastoral fables. C. wished to renew poetic language according to Greek and Latin models, in accordance with the ideas set forth in his prose writings (*Autobiografia* and *Dialoghi dell’arte poetica*) and, sporadically, in his correspondence; ideas which he took from the Hellenistic school of Sperone and from 16th-century poetic theorists (Trissino, Daniello, Muzio, du Bellay, Minturno). For this reason he sought more agile metrical structures and chose subjects more in keeping with the sensibilities of his time, such as the enterprises of Christendom against the Ottomans and against Protestant heresy. He proved an innovator in lyric poetry (Leopardi called him “the only truly Pindaric”), even though he worked in part from Latin translations of Pindar, Sappho, Anacreon, and the Gallo-Hellenic models of the French Pléiade. Notable among his works are the *Vendennole di Parnaco*, the *Scherzi*, the thirty *Sermoni* in which he develops the satire of 17th-century customs, and especially the *Poemetti*, among which are some of biblical subject: *Il leone di David*, *La liberazione di s. Pietro*, *La conversione di Maria Maddalena*. The new Chiabreresque technique, widely imitated in Arcadia, owes much also to Parini, Monti, Foscolo, and Carducci.
*Chiabrera, Gabriello* — Portrait. Engraving by G. Boggi.
414-70 (a supplementary note under the same title in *Atti della Soc. stor. savonese*, 2 [1889-90], pp. 423-57); S. Ferrari, G. C. e la “Corona di Apollo”, in *Giornale ligustico di arch. storia e lett.*, 13 (1888), pp. 266-76; F. Neri, *Il C. e la Pléiade francese*, Turin 1920; F. L. Mannucci, *La lirica di G. C., storia e caratteri*, Naples 1923; G. Mauguin, *Ronsard en Italie*, Paris 1906, chaps. 3-4; G. Negri, *G. C.*, Savona 1928; Tito da Ottone, *G. C. Vita e arte*, ibid. 1940; A. Bianchi, *C. e Cebà poeti pindarici*, in *Atti Accad. ligure scienze e lett.*, 1 (1941), pp. 239-61.
Enzo Noè Girardi