Emilio Villa

Italian poet (1914–2003)

Emilio Villa (Milan, 21 September 1914 – Rieti, 14 January 2003) was an Italian poet, visual artist, translator, art critic and Bible scholar.^[1] His poems reflected his knowledge of modern and ancient languages, including Italian, French, English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Sumerian, and Akkadian.

Villa is considered the forerunner of groups such as the neo-avant-garde, Gruppo 63 and Novissimi, as well as for his commitment to promote artists such as Alberto Burri, Mirko Basaldella, Gastone Novelli and, more recently, Claudio Parmiggiani, Mimmo Paladino and Gino De Dominicis.

Life

Emilio Villa was born in Milan. He aspired to become a priest and attended the Seminario Arcivescovile di Milano before dropping out to concentrate on his studies on ancient languages. He later became interested in Noigandres poetry and the writings of Roger Caillois, and started to champion primitive writing. He co-founded the magazine Habitat and contributed to O Nivel.,

In 1950, Villa moved to São Paulo, where he befriended Brazilian "concrete poets" Haroldo de Campos and Augusto de Campos. He later returned to Italy and settled in Rome where he got involved with the local art scene, working with artists such as Alberto Burri, Sante Monachesi, Mario Schifano, Gino De Dominicis, Mark Rothko, Marcel Duchamp, Sebastiano Matta, Mario Schifano, Giuseppe Capogrossi, Patrizia Vicinelli, Giulio Turcato and Francesco Lo Savio. From the late 1950s through the early 1960s he collaborated with the art gallery Appia Antica in Rome. During that time, he also edited a contemporary art magazine associated with the gallery and published by Liana Sisti and Mario Ricci called Appia Antica: Atlas of New Art.

Villa's scholarly etymological knowledge prompted him to try to make dead languages interact with living ones. He promoted his work in a semi-clandestine way, favouring independent publishers over more established names, as he felt experimentation and mainstream couldn't go together. Most of his writings were printed by small publishing houses or publications throughout Italy, and many are unavailable today. These include Il Frontespizio, Il Meridiano, Letteratura, Malebolge, Tam Tam, Baobab, Ana Etcetera, Documento-Sud, Linea-Sud, and Continuum.^[2]

Villa also translated into Italian the Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elis, Homer's Odyssey, and several books of the Hebrew Scriptures, including the first five books of Moses (Pentateuch), Job, Proverbs and Song of Songs.

Villa died in Rieti in 2003.

Legacy

From 6 August to 19 September 2021, the Appia Antica Archaeological Park in Rome held the exhibition Appia Antica: Atlas of New Art. The show traced the history of the Appia Antica art gallery and the magazine.

The largest collection of Villa's material, curated by Aldo Tagliaferri, is in the archive of the Museo della Carale Accattino in Ivrea.

Selected bibliography

The Selected Poetry of Emilio Villa, Contra Mundum Press, New York, 2014. (Trans. Dominic Siracusa)

References

Renello, Gian Paolo. 2007. Segnare un secolo. Emilio Villa: la parola, l’immagine. Rome, DeriveApprodi.
Campi, Enzo. 2013. Parabol(ich)e dell’ultimo giorno. Per Emilio Villa. Milan, Dotcom Press.

Notes

^ p. ii, Siracusa, Dominic Edward. 2014. Emilio Villa: Poet of Biblical Proportions: A Dissertation and Translation. UCLA doctoral dissertation.
^ See the biographical notes compiled on 11/27/2013 by Aldo Tagliaferri (published biographer of E.V.) in "discussion")

External links

http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/emilio-villa

Recipients of the Mondello Prize

Single Prize for Literature: Bartolo Cattafi (1975) • Achille Campanile (1976) • Günter Grass (1977)

Special Jury Prize: Denise McSmith (1975) • Stefano D'Arrigo (1977) • Jurij Trifonov (1978) • Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz (1979) • Pietro Consagra (1980) • Ignazio Buttitta, Angelo Maria e Ela Ripellino (1983) • Leonardo Sciascia (1985) • Wang Meng (1987) • Mikhail Gorbaciov (1988) • Peter Carey, José Donoso, Northrop Frye, Jorge Semprún, Wole Soyinka, Lu Tongliu (1990) • Fernanda Pivano (1992) • Associazione Scrittori Cinesi (1993) • Dong Baoucum, Fan Boaci, Wang Huanbao, Shi Peide, Chen Yuanbin (1995) • Xu Huainzhong, Xiao Xue, Yu Yougqnan, Qin Weinjung (1996) • Khushwant Singh (1997) • Javier Marías (1998) • Francesco Burdin (2001) • Luciano Erba (2002) • Isabella Quarantotti De Filippo (2003) • Marina Rullo (2006) • Andrea Ceccherini (2007) • Enrique Vila-Matas (2009) • Francesco Forgione (2010)

First narrative work: Carmelo Samonà (1978) • Fausta Garavini (1979)

First poetic work: Giovanni Giuga (1978) • Gilberto Sacerdoti (1979)

Prize for foreign literature: Milan Kundera (1978) • N. Scott Momaday (1979) • Juan Carlos Onetti (1980) • Tadeusz Konwicki (1981)

Prize for foreign poetry: Jannis Ritsos (1978) • Joseph Brodsky (1979) • Juan Gelman (1980) • Gyula Illyés (1981)

First work: Valerio Magrelli (1980) • Ferruccio Benzoni, Stefano Simoncelli, Walter Valeri, Laura Mancinelli (1981) • Jolanda Insana (1982) • Daniele Del Giudice (1983) • Aldo Busi (1984) • Elisabetta Rasy, Dario Villa (1985) • Marco Lodoli, Angelo Mainardi (1986) • Marco Ceriani, Giovanni Giudice (1987) • Edoardo Albinati, Silvana La Spina (1988) • Andrea Canobbio, Romana Petri (1990) • Anna Cascella (1991) • Marco Caporali, Nelida Milani (1992) • Silvana Grasso, Giulio Mozzi (1993) • Ernesto Franco (1994) • Roberto Deidier (1995) • Giuseppe Quatriglio, Tiziano Scarpa (1996) • Fabrizio Rondolino (1997) • Alba Donati (1998) • Paolo Febbraro (1999) • Evelina Santangelo (2000) • Giuseppe Lupo (2001) • Giovanni Bergamini, Simona Corso (2003) • Adriano Lo Monaco (2004) • Piercarlo Rizzi (2005) • Francesco Fontana (2006) • Paolo Fallai (2007) • Luca Giachi (2008) • Carlo Carabba (2009) • Gabriele Pedullà (2010)

Foreign author: Alain Robbe-Grillet (1982) • Thomas Bernhard (1983) • Adolfo Bioy Casares (1984) • Bernard Malamud (1985) • Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1986) • Doris Lessing (1987) • V. S. Naipaul (1988) • Octavio Paz (1989) • Christa Wolf (1990) • Kurt Vonnegut (1991) • Bohumil Hrabal (1992) • Seamus Heaney (1993) • J. M. Coetzee (1994) • Vladimir Vojnovič (1995) • David Grossman (1996) • Philippe Jaccottet (1998) • Don DeLillo (1999) • Aleksandar Tišma (2000) • Nuruddin Farah (2001) • Per Olov Enquist (2002) • Adunis (2003) • Les Murray (2004) • Magda Szabó (2005) • Uwe Timm (2006) • Bapsi Sidhwa (2007) • Viktor Yerofeyev (2009) • Edmund White (2010) • Javier Cercas (2011) • Elizabeth Strout (2012) • Péter Esterházy (2013) • Joe R. Lansdale (2014) • Emmanuel Carrère (2015) • Marilynne Robinson (2016) • Cees Nooteboom (2017)

Italian Author: Alberto Moravia (1982) • Vittorio Sereni alla memoria (1983) • Italo Calvino (1984) • Mario Luzi (1985) • Paolo Volponi (1986) • Luigi Malerba (1987) • Oreste del Buono (1988) • Giovanni Macchia (1989) • Gianni Celati, Emilio Villa (1990) • Andrea Zanzotto (1991) • Ottiero Ottieri (1992) • Attilio Bertolucci (1993) • Luigi Meneghello (1994) • Fernando Bandini, Michele Perriera (1995) • Nico Orengo (1996) • Giuseppe Bonaviri, Giovanni Raboni (1997) • Carlo Ginzburg (1998) • Alessandro Parronchi (1999) • Elio Bartolini (2000) • Roberto Alajmo (2001) • Andrea Camilleri (2002) • Andrea Carraro, Antonio Franchini, Giorgio Pressburger (2003) • Maurizio Bettini, Giorgio Montefoschi, Nelo Risi (2004) • pr. Raffaele Nigro, sec. Maurizio Cucchi, ter. Giuseppe Conte (2005) • pr. Paolo Di Stefano, sec. Giulio Angioni (2006) • pr. Mario Fortunato, sec. Toni Maraini, ter. Andrea Di Consoli (2007) • pr. Andrea Bajani, sec. Antonio Scurati, ter. Flavio Soriga (2008) • pr. Mario Desiati, sec. Osvaldo Guerrieri, ter. Gregorio Scalise (2009) • pr. Lorenzo Pavolini, sec. Roberto Cazzola, ter. (2010) • pr. Eugenio Baroncelli, sec. Milo De Angelis, ter. Igiaba Scego (2011) • pr. Edoardo Albinati, sec. Paolo Di Paolo, ter. Davide Orecchio (2012) • pr. Andrea Canobbio, sec. Valerio Magrelli, ter. Walter Siti (2013) • pr. Irene Chias, sec. Giorgio Falco, ter. Francesco Pecoraro (2014) • pr. Nicola Lagioia, sec. Letizia Muratori, ter. Marco Missiroli (2015) • pr. Marcello Fois, sec. Emanuele Tonon, ter. Romana Petri (2016) • pr. Stefano Massini, sec. Alessandro Zaccuri, ter. Alessandra Sarchi (2017)

"Five Continents" Award: Kōbō Abe, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Germaine Greer, Wilson Harris, José Saramago (1992) • Kenzaburō Ōe (1993) • Stephen Spender (1994) • Thomas Keneally, Alberto Arbasino (1996) • Margaret Atwood, André Brink, David Malouf, Romesh Gunesekera, Christoph Ransmayr (1997)

"Palermo bridge for Europe" Award: Dacia Maraini (1999), Premio Palermo ponte per il Mediterraneo Alberto Arbasino (2000)

"Ignazio Buttitta" Award: Nino De Vita (2003) • Attilio Lolini (2005) • Roberto Rossi Precerotti (2006) • Silvia Bre (2007)

Supermondello Tiziano Scarpa (2009) • Michela Murgia (2010) • Eugenio Baroncelli (2011) • Davide Orecchio (2012) • Valerio Magrelli (2013) • Giorgio Falco (2014) • Marco Missiroli (2015) • Romana Petri (2016) • Stefano Massini (2017)

Special award of the President: Ibrahim al-Koni (2009) • Emmanuele Maria Emanuele (2010) • Antonio Calabrò (2011)

Poetry prize: Antonio Riccardi (2010)

Translation Award: Evgenij Solonovic (2010)

Identity and dialectal literatures award: Gialuigi Beccaria e Marco Paolini (2010)

Essays Prize: Marzio Barbagli (2010)

Mondello for Multiculturality Award: Kim Thúy (2011)

Mondello Youths Award: Claudia Durastanti (2011) • Edoardo Albinati (2012) • Alessandro Zaccuri (2017)

"Targa Archimede", Premio all'Intelligenza d'Impresa: Enzo Sellerio (2011)

Prize for Literary Criticism: Salvatore Silvano Nigro (2012) • Maurizio Bettini (2013) • Enrico Testa (2014) • Ermanno Cavazzoni (2015) • Serena Vitale (2016) • Antonio Prete (2017)

Award for best motivation: Simona Gioè (2012)

Special award for travel literature: Marina Valensise (2013)

Special Award 40 Years of Mondello: Gipi (2014)