GIAMBATTISTA MARINO. — Poet, born in Naples on 18 Oct. 1569, died there on 25 Mar. 1625. His life was adventurous, marked at first by swift rises and setbacks, but later, owing to a characteristic distortion of taste in an entire age, he became ever more closely associated with a reputation as a wondrous poet. He did not lack homage from princes, scholars, and crowds: he was dear to the Duke of Savoy, to Margaret of Valois (in France he resided from 1615 to 1623), to the Roman Curia, and to the Viceroy of Naples; he received praise and courtesies from academies; even the controversies in which he became entangled (some, like that with Murtola, tedious and farcical) ended by giving him even greater publicity. In his varied and unruly genius, in his colorful and at times musical verse, but too often artificial and vacuous, the entire century seemed to recognize itself; and “Marinism” was the name given to this “new and marvelous” poetic style woven of trinkets and ostentation.
Marino, in essence, took up and exaggerated the weaknesses and witticisms already visible in the poets of the late 16th century. Yet his spiritual world is impoverished, and in substance monotonous: his characters are either stiffened by contrived allegory, as in *Adone*, or are moved only by sensual passion.
Besides his polemical writings, one must recall his abundant collection of lyrics (*Lira*, Venice 1608), among which the famous *Canzone dei baci* with its 27 madrigals, inspired by Catullus, is notable for its subtle play of stylistic and metrical virtuosity. *La Sampogna* (Paris 1620) gathers pastoral idylls, eclogues, and mythological narratives: material of varied inspiration drawn from Ovid, Virgil, Theocritus, Claudian, and other poets closest to Marino, but as usual weighed down by metaphors and elaborate, unnecessary digressions, lacking any psychological exploration of the different characters. The *Dicerie sacre* (Turin 1614), a merely formal homage to sacred oratory, served throughout the 17th century as a model for so much baroque prose from pulpit and novel; *La Galleria* (Venice 1620), a vast florilegium of paintings and sculptures commemorating poets, condottieri, heretics, brigands, and so on, with descriptions of famous pictures and statues, earned the author, among other things, the grateful friendship of artists such as Michelangelo da Caravaggio, Reni, and Poussin. But Marino’s most ambitious work remains *Adone* (Paris 1623), a long allegorical poem that he wished to rival those of the greatest poets, from Ovid to Tasso, and which, taking up a theme already treated by Parabosco or Dolce, became around a slender fable an over-elaborate, soulless construction.
Marino is also the author of an *Epistolario* (collected in the Bari ed., 1911–12). Of his works, the following are on the Index: *Adone* (decr. 11 June 1624; 17 July 1625; 5 Nov. 1626), *Canzone dei baci* (decr. 12 Apr. 1628), *Lira* (decr. 27 Sept. 1678), and other minor works.