ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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Adonis is a poem by Giovan Battista Marino, published for the first time in Paris in 1623 at Oliviero di Varennes. The work describes the amorous events of Adonis and Venus and constitutes one of the longest poems of Italian literature (5.124 octaves, for a total of 40,992 verses, little more than the Furious Orlando of Ludovico Ariosto but three times the Divine Comedy and Jerusalem liberated). Dedicated to Louis XIII, king of France, it is composed of twenty songs and is preceded by a letter addressed to Queen Maria de' Medici, Florentine, because it intercedes with the young king; the letter is preceded in turn by a preface by the French critic Jean Chapelain in which the poem, altogether out of every Renaissance canon, is justified as 'poème de la paix' (the hero of peace). Each song is preceded by the Prose Topics, composed by Fortuniano Sanvitale, and Allegorie attributed to Don Lorenzo Scoto and who should explain the moral meaning of the text (whose teaching, as mentioned in the proemio, is: exmoderate liker ends in gild). Each single song is provided with a title and a six octaves proemio. The proemio of the first song is twelve octaves.

The gestation of the poem

The writing of the poem extended throughout the life of Marino, from the Napoleonic years to the Parisian press. The information is obtained from the epistlery or prefaces that open other marine works.

In 1584 Adonis is an idyllic poem, which includes descriptions of his loves and death.

In 1605 it seems to have to be published in 3 songs (in love, love and death).

In 1614 it is 'a little more than a thousand rooms' and is divided into 4 songs (amores, transtulli, dipartita, morte).

In 1615 from Turin, Marino wrote to Fortuniano Sanvitale that the poem is divided into 12 songs and is as long as the liberated Jerusalem and intends to print it as soon as it arrives in Paris.

In 1616, just arrived in Paris, Marino wrote in a letter that the poem '' is divided into 24 songs and is almost greater than the Furious Orlando''', though, as mentioned above, it was published in 20 songs and not in 24, which well indicates how magmatic the structure of the poem should be at this height. What was the true dimension of Adonis at this date is witnessed by a manuscript, now preserved in Paris, called Adone1616, which contains the first three songs of the poem, which is dedicated to Queen Maria de' Medici and her favorite Concino Concini.

However, the sudden change in the political situation at court, the taking of the power of Louis XIII with the consequent displacement of the queen and the violent death of the Concini, forced the Marino to put back hand to the poem that, in five years (1617-1621), was revised daccapo and increased until it became the immense machine in 20 songs that we read today: this new version was dedicated to Louis XIII with the intercession of Maria de