Fra Ciro di Pers – poet and knight of Malta
The 17th century was quite unfair when it came to distributing literary excellence. It proved generous with some European countries, and rather mean with others. In neighbouring Italy, with inevitable exceptions, literature in the seicento overall lagged, rarely reaching the summits of previous or later centuries. Italian visual art and music peaked, but not so with literature.
[attach id=1015478 size="medium" align="right" type="image"]Grand Master Antoine de Paule, who ruled over Malta when knight Ciro di Pers served on the island.[/attach]
While extreme flourishings of creativity worked excellently for music, painting, architecture and sculpture, baroque excesses tended to sound shallow and artificial when transposed to writing.
The leading and perhaps most gifted Italian exponent of this exaggerated manierismo, Gianbattista Marino, summarised the aesthetic philosophy of Italian Baroque literature in his famous verses: “E’ del poeta il fin la meraviglia / chi non sa far stupir, vada alla striglia” (my loose translation: It is the poet’s duty to amaze / Those who can’t surprise, put out to graze).
The knight of Malta Ciro di Pers distinguished himself among the more remarkable...