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Rustico Trevigiano
Qui la nostra storia fu pietra angolare e sete quotidiana e orizzonte vicino tutto esplorato
Fu, il nostro, transito lieve -non veloce- un segno artigliato alla terra. Quali pensieri sbiadimmo alla memoria di noi che saremmo andati tranquilli e confusi alle nostre paure?
Quale muro appena, una cronaca immutabile di mattoni e di ciottoli che a sera la ruota del carro scaglia sulla siepe odorosa di tramonto
*GIAN DOMENICO MAZZOCATO* (born in Treviso on 31st August 1946) is regarded as one of the most refined and subtle writers of the culture and history of the Veneto region. Writers and critics such as Fulvio Tomizza and Luca Desiato have written that Mazzocato has had the merit of emphasizing the real saga of the defeated people of Veneto. He is the translator of the great Latin historiography (Tacito and Tito Livio) as well as of the works of the great post-classical poet Venanzio Fortunato (who was born in a village, Valdobbiadene, which is close to Treviso, where Mazzocato was born). He writes also for the theatre. BIOGRAPHY Gian Domenico Mazzocato (Treviso, 31st August 1946) graduated in History of the Latin Language with a thesis on Teofilo Folengo. A pupil of Ferrarino and of Bernardi Perini (of whom he was a junior lecturer for two years after his degree) he has been teaching Latin and Italian for 35 years in the high schools of his town, Treviso. He published some volumes of poetry in addition to essays of contemporary artists and facts of tradition, for which he obtained recognition and awards. He is actively involved in journalism. He has written texts for some photographic books dedicated to the region of Veneto. In recent years he has devoted himself predominantly to the translation of the classics: he has translated the “Historiae” by Tacito and the Trilogy of the minor works by the same author: “Agricola”, “Germania”, “Dialogo degli oratori”. In addition, he has translated and commented on the 35 books that constitute the huge historiographic work by Tito Livio, of which he has also been in charge of the critical apparatus and the indexes. In 1997 his first novel was published “Il delitto della contessa di Onigo”. It achieved extraordinary success with critics and the public and was awarded the Gambrinus Mazzotti prize 1988, which is the most important Italian literary prize dedicated to regional cultures. Writers such as Fulvio Tomizza and Luca Desiato (and nearly all critics) have stressed how all the work by Mazzocato has had the merit of emphasizing the real saga of the “defeated” people of Veneto. The novel narrates the trial against a “pisnente” who had killed his landlady. The word “pisnente”, since the beginning of the twentieth century, means one of the lowest levels of the peasant condition. It is the year 1903, in the “deep” Veneto of exploitation, of ignorance and also of pellagra, which has become the opposite of the real symbol of a popular epic. The trial, held in Venice, aroused great interest all over the world . It transformed the proceedings against the accused into an investigation of the terrible physical, moral and economical conditions in which the murder had its origin. The verdict was shocking and caused a stir. His second novel, “Il bosco veneziano” deals with the great theme of emigration and of the lost countries. In this novel Mazzocato has somehow made Il Montello, a hill in the Pre-Alps of Veneto, “mythical”. In the narration the hill becomes a metaphor of the lost countries and of the condition of exile. “Il bosco veneziano” (the wood of Veneto) is actually Il Montello, the hill that rises north of Treviso and which was banned to its inhabitants more than five centuries ago, on 27th December 1471, by the Doge Nicolo’ Tron. On that hill, which was close to Venice and the Piave River (a great and functional waterway), grew the oaks for the ships of Venice, la Serenissima. The inhabitants of the Montello were chased away from the hill and their houses were burnt. An event full of death, suffering, beating, trials, punishment and prison started during the snowy winter of 1471. In 2001 his third narrative work, “Gli ospiti notturni”, a collection of short stories, was published. The plight of emigration and of the two world wars represents the historical background of Mazzocato’s work. The geographical background is provided, as usual, by Il Montello, the Sile river, the Piave river, the Grappa mountain, the houses of Santa Bona and Roncade, the small villages of La Pedemontana, the farmhouses of the fields of Treviso. Around the character of an ideal narrator, (the melancholic and ironic Uncle Fabio, who fascinated his nephews and nieces in “the cellar among the fragrances of the raboso wine”) there are mainly female characters: la Antonia, la Teta, but also il Turco, il Nobile and many others. The character of Ghericuper creates a world of his own. He is an unusual character who, just after the Second World War, goes around the villages of La Marca di Treviso with his mobile movie theatre. The short story named after the collection is eccentric, metaphysical and surrealistic. The night guests slide along the waters of the Sile river during full moon and visit Lunardo, the painter who portrays them in his paintings without daring to ask them anything in order to avoid shattering the mystery that surrounds them - until silence is broken by a question. Then the passing by of history, events and the universe itself seem to change… The critic Gianni Giolo has written that Mazzocato is the best, richest, deepest and most prolific writer of his generation of writers of Veneto. The researcher Sara Stocco, who wrote her thesis on Mazzocato’s fiction, underlines how the writer gives voice, at last, in the “real Veneto”, to a province that had never entered the Italian literature up to now In 2003 the novel “Il caso Pavan” was published (finalist at the Chianti prize 2005). The main protagonist is the eighteenth century, lived in a mysterious and popular Veneto, inhabited by peasants, merchants, workers, wanderers, smugglers, thieves and prostitutes. There are the views of the Prealps of Veneto, of Venice, of the islands of the Greek sea. Tomaso Pavan, who could be considered as the eponymous antihero, finds out the meaning of time and, in the final analysis, the meaning of life itself. This happens also through a personal reassessing of the myths of classicism, mainly the myth of Odisseo. In 2006 “Veneto Oscuro/Banditi del Montello” was published. It is a collection of stories of the Veneto region which recalls troubled facts of love and blood, of emigration and robberies that took place in the area of Treviso between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. It is about three important judicial inquiries, real legal thrillers that represent one of the main characteristics of the works of the writer from Treviso. In 2007 he published “Il vento e la roccia”, the biography of Anna Maria Feder, the wife of the famous painter and engraver Francesco Piazza. Anna Maria Feder died in 1987 of cancer and left behind her an intense remnant of works and spirituality. She can be a model for the modern man who can find many answers to the basic questions of life in Anna’s complex inner path. Mazzocato has drawn the deep meaning of the itinerary of this extraordinary woman by going over her writings (nothing had ever been edited so far and it is a genuine “discovery”), her diaries and her letters. Another female character, distant in time but certainly very close, because of her untiring inner research, is Tanaquil, the queen who is the protagonist of “Tanaquil l’Etrusca”. It is a real “thriller” set between Etruria and Rome in the sixth century B.C. A trip in the Etruscan mystery which is new in the Italian fiction, a research in the depth of soul of this real first lady of the ancient times who was an outstanding protagonist of the history of her times. It is a book that helps us to know about new aspects of the Etruscan-Roman civilization. In this work Mazzocato has made use of his experience as a translator of the great Latin historiography and transformed into a fascinating novel. In 2007 a collection of fables and short stories, “Colline incantate” has also been published. In recent years Mazzocato has gathered stories handed down from the poor people of the Montello and the Prealps of Veneto “a filo’ ” ( evening meetings at peasants’ houses). These stories were sometimes unpublished and now for the first time put into written words. They were destined to get lost if the oral tradition had not been gathered by the writer. The book is illustrated by the drawings of Andrea Longhi. Mazzocato writes also for the theatre. After drawing a pièce from his first novel “Il delitto della contessa”, he has traced the occurrence of war madness in the deep Veneto region in “Mato de guera”. This is an intense monologue of great dramatic force, in which the soldier Vardanega Ugo ( to whom an extraordinary actor, Gigi Mardegan, gives voice), survivor of the World War I, shouts about his horrors of war. He is President of the Ateneo of Treviso, the highest cultural institution of his town. In 2010 the Ateneo will celebrate the bicentenary of its foundation, which took place thanks to Napoleon. He is honorary President of the Salgari Club in Treviso. Mazzocato, a traveller and explorer of old Europe, shares his journeys in magazines and various websites. WORKS POETRY (WORKS OF) FICTION THEATRE TRANSLATIONS PHOTOGRAPHIC BOOKS SPORTS BOOKS (Text by Luisa Antonello)
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Versione italiana