Il Romanzo di Catullo
This is the story of a young man, named Catullo, born in Verona, a small town in the North of Italy, more than two thousands years ago. At the age of twenty he moved to Rome, the great Rome, in search for fortune. It is a love story that still amazes us for its freshness and modernity. ‘This ‘Romanzo di Catullo’- now published for the first time – contains one half of the poems of the roman poet (both in latin and italian verses), in such a time order as to go along with Catullo’s life. Catullo is presented here throughout his poems. These poems are what we are most interested in . This choice of the author puts at the top of the story the poet and his emotions and his young exuberance, and makes this tale so pleasant for us. Still now, among the students, Catullo is the most popular of latin poets. The young people like his invitation to his beloved Lesbia ‘ non to think about old boring people’, but to kiss him: ‘give me thousands kisses, then one hundred kisses, then still thousands kisses.’’ (Da mi basia mille, deinde centum, dein mille altera…),’ From the Introduction of Luca Serianni.
Rinaldo De Benedetti (1903-1996), an important science writer, graduated in Engineering. At General Company of Electricity in Milan was dismissed because didn’t join the fascist party. First at Enciclopedia Italiana, with racial laws, worked secretly for Garzanti. In August ’45 explained in Corriere the A bomb (later joined La Stampa). At twenty wrote his first poems. His literary production, as Sonetti Vespertini and Le Storie di Alazor , went on for all his life.
