DRACONZIO, BLOSSIO EMILIO. - Born in Africa, perhaps at Carthage; he composed most of his works between 484 and 496.
Of his life we know the details that he himself gives: he studied under the guidance of the rhetorician Felicianus, acquiring a broad culture that allowed him a successful career. But because of a poem in praise of the emperor Zeno, and above all through the intrigues of the envious, he fell under the suspicion of the king of the Vandals, Gunthamund, who imprisoned him.
In the desolation of prison the poet felt more vividly the voice of God; from his suffering indeed sprang his two works of Christian inspiration, of notable poetic beauty: the Satisfactio, in which he asks the king's pardon, and the De laudibus Dei, in which the poet turns to the Eternal.
Such works are less obscured by the rhetorical artifices that weigh down his poems of pagan inspiration, of broad scope and notable for the variety and richness of their themes. There remain indeed: the Romulea in ten poems, of which three are mythological epyllia (II, VIII, X), three rhetorical declamations (IV, V, IX), two epithalamia (VI, VII), two prefaces (I, III), the Orestis tragoedia in 974 hexameters, the De mensibus in 24 hexameters, the De origine rosarum in 7 elegiac couplets. On the authenticity of the Aegritudo Perdicae there are doubts.
D. arouses interest for his complex personality, in which human and divine, pagan and Christian feelings and aspirations, biblical and classical echoes alternate as in Augustine.
Bibliography8 worksWorks: Draconiti carmina, ed. F. Vollmer, in MGH. Script. antiquis., XIV, Berlin 1905; and in the Teubneriana library (Poetas lat. min., 3).
BIBL.: Works: Draconiti carmina, ed. F. Vollmer, in MGH. Script. antiquis., XIV, Berlin 1905; and in the Teubneriana library (Poetas lat. min., 3). Leipzig 1914. Studies: Schanz, IV, II, pp. 58-68 (with ample bibl.); Bardenhewer, IV, pp. 658-61; Moricca, III, pp. 169-91; G. Giarratano, Comment. Draconitonae, Naples 1906; E. Provana, B. E. D., biographical and literary study, in Mem. della R. Accademia delle scienze di Torino, 2nd series, 62 (1912), pp. 23-100; G. Procacci, Interno alla composizione e alle fonti di un carme di D. (Hylas, Rom., II), in Studi it. di filol. class., 20 (1913), p. 438; A. M. Quatrioti, Gli epiliti di D., in Athenaeum, 22-24 (1944-47), p. 160 ff.
Rapisarda, Emanuele. “Draconzio, blossio emilio.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. IV, col. 1920. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1950. https://azioneromana.com/article/draconzio-blossio-emilio.
MLA
Rapisarda, Emanuele. “Draconzio, blossio emilio.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. IV, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1950, col. 1920. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/draconzio-blossio-emilio.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec4_draconzio_blossio_emilio,
author = {Rapisarda, Emanuele},
title = {Draconzio, blossio emilio},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {IV},
pages = {1920},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1950},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/draconzio-blossio-emilio}
}
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