PRATI, GIOVANNI. – Poet, born 27 Jan. 1814 at Campomaggiore near Dasindo (Trento), died in Rome on 9 May 1884.
His poetic activity may be divided into three periods. The first (c. 1841–52), with the exception of the novella Edménégarda, comprises a group of typically Romantic lyric collections (Canti lirici, Canti per il popolo e Balate, 1843; Memorie e lacrime, 1844; Passeggiate solitarie, 1847; Storia e fantasia, 1851; Canti politici, 1852). The second is marked by attempts at longer poems (Dio e l’umanità, of which only the episode Jeleno di Siracusa was written, 1852; Satana e le Grazie, 1855; Rodolfo, 1853; Ariberto, 1860; Armando, 1868; the last three engage in depicting souls sick with scepticism). In the third
PRATI, GIOVANNI – Portrait.
Prati concentrates his inspiration around his most original themes, which find expression in a musical description of nature felt in its totality through small creatures (Pisiche, 1876; Iside, 1878).
The frequent intervention of religion in Prati’s work is one of the means by which facts are raised to that ideal which he intends as the subject rather than the perpetual object of his poetry. Thus God may be equated with a nebulous ineluctable destiny, and as such become a persuasive force of passion and evil, while at other times religion identifies itself with common morality and the gentle, familial affections of the poet; elsewhere religion and love are mingled in a way that faintly foreshadows Fogazzaro; fall and Christian redemption are favoured as pathetic and effective elements; prayer becomes a musical and scenographic motif.
Politically, Prati moved from an enthusiastic adherence to the attitudes of a papacy envisaged as liberator and peacemaker (according to ideologies influenced by those of Gioberti and Balbo) to a distinction between the work of man and that of the Pope in the post-1848 activity of the Pope (A Ferdinando di Borbone, in Canti politici). This foreshadowed a similar distinction between State and Church, which Prati maintained after the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy. He professed himself a believer, both in his earlier and in his final phase of life (Discorso al Senato, 7 June 1876). Less persuasive, however, is the attempt to bring the pan-animistic naturalism of that same phase back within the sphere of religion, which is moreover of a distinctly artistic nature.