Martelli, Pier Jacopo

MARTELLI, PIER JACOPO. - Man of letters, b. in Bologna on 28 Apr. 1665, d. there on 10 May 1727. He professed eloquence in his city. In 1713 he accompanied to France Monsignor Aldovrandi, apostolic minister, and stayed in Paris nine months, publishing there a Dialogo sopra la tragedia antica e moderna (1714). After his Teatro was printed in Rome (1715), he was called to Bologna to occupy the post, which he held until his death, of major secretary of the Senate.

M., unjustly known to posterity almost solely for the "Martellian" verse (double septenary), is one of the most prolific and ingenious writers of the early eighteenth century. Opposed by Gravina and Maffei, he took his revenge with the Femia sentenziato (1724), in blank verse that pleased Parini. He wrote melodramas, comedies, tragedies; he also cultivated lyric poetry and satire: noteworthy are his Canzoniere (1710) and Il Secretario Cliternale (1717), seven satires in terza rima, in which he pretends to teach a noble idiot, the baron of Cervara, the manner of becoming a man of letters: a pre-Parinian example of sustained ironic instruction. He also attempted epic: in his last years he worked on the Carlo Magno, which, had it been completed, would have held the palm among the epic poems of the eighteenth century. Among his witty and lively prose works, Il vero parigino italiano, three Lucianic dialogues, written in defense of national honor, should not be forgotten.

Giulio Natali