Sicilian remembered as one of Italy’s greatest novelists
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| Giovanni Verga wrote short stories and novels from an early age |
Verga wrote romantic and historical novels in the early part of his career but later shifted his focus to what became known as verismo, a style rooted in stark realism, focused on unvarnished depictions of rural and working‑class life.
His major works include the novels I Malavoglia (1881) and Mastro-don Gesualdo (1889), which have come to be seen as his masterpieces, and his short story collections Vita dei campi (1880) and Novelle rusticane (1883).
The opera composer Pietro Mascagni can be given some credit for introducing Verga’s work to wider audiences. His most famous composition, Cavalleria rusticana, which premiered in 1890, was based on a short story and play by Verga of the same name, written 10 years earlier.
Verga grew up as part of a bourgeois family with noble origins, whose forebears are thought to have arrived in Sicily from Aragon, in Spain. Though the family home was in Catania, where his birth was registered, some sources say he was born in a house in Vizzini, a hilltop town 60km (36 miles) south of Catania, others that he was born on a country estate in nearby Tiepidi, perhaps because the family relocated there during a cholera outbreak.
Verga began writing in his teens and continued while ostensibly studying law at the University of Catania. His early works, such as Amore e Patria (Love and Homeland), I carbonari della montagna (The Carbonari of the Mountain) and Sulle lagune (On the Lagoons) had historical, patriotic themes.
At the time of Italian Unification, in 1860-61, Verga served with the Catania National Guard, which was charged with keeping order following Giuseppe Garibaldi’s conquest of Sicily. Several times between 1860 and 1864, this service required him to visit Florence.
During one extended stay in the Tuscan capital he wrote Una peccatrice (translated into English as A Mortal Sin), which was much different from his previous work in that its subject matter was a passionate romance. After settling in Florence, where he wrote Storia di una capinera - translated as The Sparrow - a novel about the plight of a girl forced by circumstance to become a nun, he began to be influenced by the Scapigliatura movement.
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| A 1907 edition of Verga's acclaimed I Malavoglia |
The movement’s rejection of romantic idealisation, its fascination with the darker edges of modern life, and its stylistic experimentation played a key part in Verga’s transition to verismo.
His 1873 novel Eva, in which the rejection of romanticism is a central theme, provided an early manifestation of this shift in style, which gained pace after he moved to Milan and became part of the city’s literary circle, fully embracing Scapagliato themes in his next two novels Tigre reale (The Royal Tigress) and Eros.
The evolution of Verga’s writing into the starker verismo that became his hallmark followed the arrival in Milan - by then the home of most of Italy’s major newspapers and publishing houses - of his close friend, Luigi Capuana, another Sicilian writer. They were both deeply impressed by L'Assommoir - The Drinking Den - which is regarded as one of the finest works of Émile Zola, a major figure in the Naturalism movement in French literature.
This became the inspiration for the verismo movement, which they set out to create in order to fill a gap they perceived in Italian literature.
Encouraged by the reception for his short stories, exploring the verismo themes of poverty, fatalism, family duty, social immobility, honour codes, and the harsh economics of survival, often set in the fishing villages and rural communities of his native Sicily, Verga wrote I Malavoglia - published in English as The House by the Medlar Tree - and Mastro-don Gesualdo to great critical acclaim, even though the financial returns were modest.
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| Verga is commemorated in many ways in Catania, including this bust in the Giardino Bellini |
This was probably for a variety of reasons. The first two novels had been enormously demanding projects, draining his creativity. He also became highly critical of his own prose, rewriting extensively but sometimes abandoning entire drafts. He found writing for the theatre more rewarding financially, although he endured a long dispute with Mascagni over royalties from Cavalleria rusticana.
In any case, his income from family properties in Sicily provided him with a comfortable lifestyle. The management of these properties also took up time.
After spending decades in Milan, Verga increasingly retreated to Catania and his family estate. Never married, he became a public figure locally - a respected gentleman, landowner, and cultural authority, who was eventually named a Senator of the Kingdom of Italy - but his national literary engagement dwindled. New movements emerged, leaving verismo behind.
Moreover, by the second decade of the new century, he was elderly and ill. His last years were spent almost entirely in Catania, with no major writing projects. He died there in January, 1922.
If Verga’s ambitions remained unfulfilled, he left a deep influence on Italian literature. His work is still part of the curriculum in Italian schools. He sits alongside Luigi Pirandello and Leonardo Sciascia as part of the great triumvirate of Sicilian literature.
His legacy can also be seen in the neorealism movement that revived Italian cinema in the postwar years, in particular in the films of Luchino Visconti, who often drew on Verga’s themes. Visconti’s second major feature, his 1948 film La terra trema (The Earth Trembles) was an adaptation, if a loose one, of I Malavoglia.
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| The Verga family home in Catania now houses a museum |
The Verga family home at Via Sant'Anna 8 in Catania is now given over in part to the Casa Museo Giovanni Verga, a literary museum dedicated to preserving Giovanni Verga’s memory. The museum occupies the second floor of a late 18th century palazzo, which was declared a national monument in 1940. The preserved living spaces still retain the original furnishings. The writer's library, in his private study, consists of more than 2,600 volumes. Copies of Verga's manuscripts are exhibited inside the display cases, while the originals are kept in the library of the University of Catania. A lectern stands in front of the large window in the living room, at which Verga would write his poems and essays observing the daily life of people who passed by on Via Sant'Anna. Paintings, prints and engravings by artists who were friends of Verga adorn the walls. A collection of photographs, mainly of family and friends, taken by Verga himself was discovered at the house shortly after his death. Via Sant’Anna one of several streets linking Via Vittorio Emanuele II with the parallel Via Giuseppe Garibaldi, just a five-minute walk from Catania’s duomo, the Basilica Cattedrale di Sant’Agata.
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| Luchino Visconti's 1948 film La terra trema was filmed in Aci Trezza |
Aci Trezza, a picturesque fishing village on the Ionian coast, located about 15km (9 miles) north of Catania, was immortalised as the setting for his masterpiece novel I Malavoglia, which revolved around the struggles of the Toscano fishing family. A local museum, Casa del Nespolo, housed in a traditional 19th-century house, features memorabilia, photographs, and exhibits dedicated to Verga's work. Luchino Visconti filmed La terra trema, his 1948 neo-realist cinematic adaptation of Verga's novel, on location in Aci Trezza, with some local residents in the cast. Off the coast, jagged dark basalt sea stacks known as i faraglioni rise straight out of the water. Greek mythology holds that these massive volcanic rocks were hurled at Odysseus by the blinded giant Polyphemus as the hero escaped. Isola Lachea, another large offshore rock, functions as a protected nature reserve rich in local marine and plant species. Other attractions include the Baroque architecture of the church of San Giovanni Battista and the Norman Castle, standing tall above the village, which also offers a vantage point from which to watch the annual Vele dei Malavoglia regatta.
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More reading:
Alessandro Manzoni, the writer credited with Italy’s greatest novel
How Leonardo Sciascia mercilessly exposed Mafia links with Italian politics
Luigi Capuana, a leading figure in the verismo movement
Also on this day:
1753: The birth of Marie Josephine of Savoy
1898: The birth of baker and chocolatier Pietro Ferrero
1938: The birth of actor Giuliano Gemma
1964: The birth of businessman and coffee-maker Andrea Illy
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