PARZANESE, PIETRO PAOLO. – Canon, orator, and poet, born in Ariano di Puglia on 11 November 1809, died in Naples on 29 August. After a troubled adolescence, he was ordained priest in 1831; in 1834 he obtained the chair of theology at the Seminary of Ariano; in 1837 he served as vicar capitular of the diocese and distinguished himself by his courageous assistance to the cholera-stricken; in 1838 he left teaching to devote himself to preaching, study, and poetry; in 1847–48 he wrote patriotic rhymes, for which the Bourbon police marked him among the “attendibili” (suspects).
Sensitive, nervous, melancholic, and a facile improviser, he was a poet by nature. His inner drama, tempered by a sincere love of God and neighbor, found expression in deliberately simple verse, not only to instruct the people but to console the poor. This “poet of the village” (De Sanctis) loved Virgil, translated Hugo, Lamartine, Shakespeare, Moore, Byron, Goethe, Klopstock, Bürger, Körner, and preferred Uhland. Cultured and a friend of learned men, he was an admired preacher and panegyrist (though verbose); yet his horizon extended beyond the village only when he identified with the sorrow and fidelity of the humble, sketching true-to-life characters (Il vecchio sergente, Il nato, La cieca) and lending a wholly personal naivety to his lyrics, which deserve consideration among the popular and religious poetry of the 19th century.
Works: Armonie italiane (Naples 1841); Canzoni popolari (ibid. 1841); Canti del Viggianese (ibid. 1846); Canti del povero (ibid. 1852); Poesie edite ed inedite (ibid. 1856–57); Opere complete (Lenten sermons, panegyrics, memoirs: Ariano di Puglia 1880–88); Giulietta e Romeo, tragedy edited by C. De Vivo (Ariano 1910); Ituriele, short poem edited by C. Villani (Naples 1910); Sordello, tragedy edited by C. De Vivo (Avellino 1911); Poesie e prose, anthology edited by C. De Vivo (Naples 1913); All'abbazia di S. Spirito e altri inediti in the volume by F. Lo Parco: Attraverso gli Abruzzi (ibid. 1913); Canti educativi inediti e dispersi edited by F. Lo Parco (ibid. 1921).