Naples – The Neapolitan language meets Dante Alighieri in the penultimate event of the “Incontri sul dialetto”, a review organized by the Fondazione Campania dei Festival – directed by Ruggero Cappuccio and chaired by Alessandro Barbano – and promoted by the Scientific Committee for the Safeguarding of the Neapolitan Linguistic Heritage established by the Campania Region.
Contents
Hell in Neapolitan: Matilde Pierro Donnarumma's lesson
On Monday 12 May, at 16 pm, in the Sala Comencini of Musap (Palazzo Zapata, Piazza Trieste e Trento), the actor Enzo Salomone will interpret passages from Dante's Inferno in the translation – or rather, “rewriting” – by Matilde Pierro Donnarumma, an author who published the verses in instalments on newsstands starting in 1965, before collecting them in a volume.
His Purgatory in Neapolitan has also recently been published. A family tradition: his great-grandfather Luigi Pierro, publisher and bookseller, animated a cultural circle frequented, among others, by Benedetto Croce.
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Basile, Cortese and the Dialect Canon
At 17 pm, focus on “Dialect in great literature: the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries”, with speeches by Nicola De Blasi, Salvatore Iacolare, Nunzio Ruggiero and Carolina Stromboli. The birth of the Neapolitan literary tradition will be retraced, with Giulio Cesare Cortese and Giambattista Basile (author of Cunto de li cunti), to arrive at the dialect translations of the classics and the work of the publisher Giuseppe Maria Porcelli, curator of the Collection on poems in the Neapolitan language.
Information and programme
The meetings, with free admission, will continue until May 19. The complete program is available on the website fondazionecampaniadeifestival.it.
An opportunity to discover how Neapolitan, from a popular language, became an instrument of high literature – from Dante to the Baroque classics.
Article published on May 11, 2025 - 09:06 pm
Video Chronicles
The events on Neapolitan dialect seem interesting and engaging. The translation of Dante into Neapolitan is an initiative that can bring many closer to the culture. We hope that other similar events will be organized in the future.