Nino Martoglio
Encyclopedia
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, a publisher, a journalist and a producer of theatrical works. He wrote mostly in Sicilian
Sicilian language
Sicilian is a Romance language. Its dialects make up the Extreme-Southern Italian language group, which are spoken on the island of Sicily and its satellite islands; in southern and central Calabria ; in the southern parts of Apulia, the Salento ; and Campania, on the Italian mainland, where it is...
and likewise, his theatrical works were mostly in Sicilian. He founded a theatre company in Catania in the early part of the 19th century. In the latter stages of his life he had some success as film a director.
From 1889 to 1904 he published a weekly magazine called D'Artagnan. It represents one of the very few periodicals ever to have been published in Sicilian to enjoy prolonged success. Its content included art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
, literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
and politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
, or more accurately, political satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
.
In terms of the Sicilian language, Martoglio is an important figure in the establishment of Sicilian as an acceptable literary language.
His magazine also played a role in discovering such leading Italian illustrators as Giovanni Grasso
Giovanni Grasso
Giovanni Grasso was an Italian film actor. He appeared in 82 films between 1910 and 1955.He was born and died in Catania, Sicily, Italy.-Selected filmography:* We the Living * I Live as I Please...
and Angelo Musco
Angelo Musco (Visual Artist)
Angelo Musco lives and works in New York City and has since 1997. This contemporary artist is best known for photographic surreal landscapes built by thousands of nude bodies, where the natural architectures and visionary landscapes are filled with the haunting mysticism of his own origins.-Early...
. His theatre company debuted the works of renowned dramatists such as Pier Maria Rosso di San Secondo and the Nobel prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
winner, Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written...
. He founded the Compagnia drammatica siciliana in 1903.
From 1913 to 1915 he started directing movies. He enjoyed some success with Teresa Raquin and Sperduti nel buio. In 1919 he founded the Compagnia Drammatica del Teatro Mediterraneo. Martoglio’s films are among a small core of films that constitute the realismo movement, which later inspired neorealism. In the 1930s, film critic and teacher Umberto Barbaro
Umberto Barbaro
Umberto Barbaro was an Italian film critic and essayist. He was born in Acireale on January 3, 1902 and died on March 19, 1959 in Rome.- Biography :...
exalted Sperduti nel buio in his essays, and showed it in his classes at Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. These classes were attended by Roberto Rossellini and Luchino Visconti, who would become instrumental in defining the neorealism film movement after the Second World War.
His best known theatrical works, which enjoyed success throughout Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, include Nica (from 1903}, L’aria del Continente (from 1915), and San Giuvanni Decollato from 1908.
His most important literary work is Centona, a collection of poetry published in 1899.
Example
Martoglio is best remembered for crafting poems out of the everyday conversations of common people, as can be seen in this extract from the poem Briscula 'n Cumpagni, which translates loosely as: a game of cards amongst friends (from around 1900):
| Sicilian | Italian | English |
|---|---|---|
| Don Peppi Nnappa, d'accussì jucati? | Signor Peppe Nappa, ma giocate così? | Who taught you to play this game? |
| comu vi l'haju a diri, a vastunati, | come ve lo devo dire, forse a bastonate, | as I have repeatedly told you till I'm blue in the face, |
| ca mancu haju sali di salera! | che non ho nemmeno il sale per la saliera! | I ain't got nothing that's even worth a pinch a salt! |