It was called Luna at the time of the Roman invasion, then Porto Lunense, Portus Veneris, Ericis Portus, Gurfum Spezia and finally, Gulf of La Spezia. But since when is this beautiful bay known as the Gulf of Poets? Since the summer of 1910, when the Florentine playwright Sem Benelli paid homage at the funeral of his friend, scientist and poet Paolo Mantegazza, who had died in San Terenzo. He said:
«… Blessed are you, poet of science, who rest in peace in the gulf of poets!».
But who allowed the gulf to boast the title of land adored by poets? We must start from afar, very far away, to understand. Through journalist and history expert Gino Ragnetti, let’s discover nine poets (out of many others) who loved the Gulf of Poets!
Quintus Ennius
The first poet we know about is Quintus Ennius, recognized as the father of Latin poetry. On his way home from a military campaign, he visited the bay as a Roman soldier in 205 BC. The place seemed so beautiful to him that years later, compiling his Annales, he wrote:
“The port of Luna is extraordinary; you should see it, friends”.
Dante Alighieri
The “father” of the Italian language and often referred to as il Sommo Poeta (“the Supreme Poet”) in Italy, Dante visited Portovenere and Lerici in the early 1300s. He mentions Lerici in the Divine Comedy, in the third canto of Purgatorio, comparing the mountain that Virgil must climb to the cliffs of the Gulf of Poets.
Francesco Petrarca
Petrarch was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy and one of the earliest humanists. In 1338, he wrote about Portovenere:
“To those who come from the sea, the Port of Venus appears on the waterfront and here, in the hills that cloak the olive trees, it is known that even Minerva forgot Athens – her homeland – for so much sweetness…”
Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley
Before settling to live in San Terenzo (Lerici) with Mary Shelley, the great English Romantic poet had visited La Spezia twice, searching for a house. It is said that Percy Bysshe Shelley loved sailing the Gulf of Poets with his six-meter-long, two-masted schooner. When he visited Portovenere, he renamed the rock of Tino “the island of the mermaids“. During his stay in the gulf, Shelly wrote Lines written in the bay of Lerici and the unfinished Triumph of life poem.
Lord Byron
The extravagant George Gordon Byron, one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, is one of the icons of the Gulf of La Spezia. It is said that he loved Portovenere, where he would find inspiration in the Grotta Arpaia (now also known as Byron’s Grotto), and that he swam across 7.5 km between Portovenere and Lerici to meet his friends, the Shelleys. Today, the Byron Cup swimming challenge is held annually to commemorate Lord Byron’s legendary swim across the Bay of Poets in 1822.
August von Platen-Hallermünde
German poet and dramatist Platen lived his days in the Gulf of La Spezia as a tourist in perfect harmony with the surrounding environment. He particularly loved Palmaria Island, which he described to his friend Carl Friedrich von Rumohr in an epistle. He also wrote an epigram about Tino Island:
“Myrtle bushes, holm oaks, a ruined cloister, a lighthouse, a small cove and the happy waves of the sea”.
Giosuè Carducci and Annie Vivanti
Regarded as the official national poet of modern Italy, Giosuè Carducci became the first Italian to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature (1906). He had visited La Spezia in 1887 and 1888 and returned for some time in 1890 to stay with Annie Vivanti, with whom he had a relationship. Annie Vivanti, born in London to an Italian father and German mother, was a writer herself. She chose to live in La Spezia to find the most favorable conditions for writing poetry.
Eugenio Montale
Italian poet, prose writer and editor Eugenio Montale, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1975, was bewitched by Portovenere. You can read the poem Montale dedicated to Portovenere in 1925 here.
Pier Paolo Pasolini
In 1959, Italian poet, filmmaker and intellectual Pier Paolo Pasolini published a reportage about a long summer trip he had made along the Italian coast. On that occasion, he had visited La Spezia, San Terenzo and Lerici, a day that he defined as “one of the most beautiful Sundays of my life“. His story, published in the magazine “Successo” (Edizioni Guanda), described the beauty and unique atmosphere of the Gulf of Poets.
Sources:
ginoragnetti.blog
gazzettadellaspezia.com
www.turismoletterario.com
lericicoast.it
Main cover image by Samuele Bertoli
