Giuseppe Artale

Giuseppe Artale (Catania, 29 August 1628 – Naples, 11 February 1679) was a Sicilian poet, novelist, and duelist, known for his Marinist works. He was also a knight of the Constantinian Order of Saint George.

Biography Giuseppe Artale was born at Catania, in 1628. He was descended from an ancient Aragonese family. At fifteen, he made a hurried departure from his native city, where he had killed a rival in a duel. He entered the army soon after, and rendered himself conspicuous by his bravery. For a time, he served as Captain of the Guard to the palatine Ernest of Brunswick-Lüneburg, and was highly esteemed by the emperor Leopold. He distinguished himself in the Cretan War against the Ottoman Empire, and was made a knight of the Constantinian Order of Saint George, with permission to add the imperial eagle, or Double-headed eagle, to his family arms. As a swordsman he was unrivalled, and was commonly known by the appellation of the sanguinary knight, conferred upon him for his success as a well-practised duelist. He died at Naples in 1679, worn out by excess.

Artale was a member of the principal academies of Italy, and enjoyed a considerable reputation as a poet. He is best known today for his heroic romance Cordimarte (1660), and his Enciclopedia poetica (1658-1664), recognised as the last flowering of the pessimistic vein of Neapolitan Marinism. The Enciclopedia poetica, one of the most remarkable Italian poetry collections of the Baroque period, pushes conceptismo to its most extreme forms. The Cordimarte, written in an elaborate rhetorical style, is one of the last and most conspicuous examples of Italian Baroque chivalric romance.

Works

Dell’Enciclopedia Poetica parte prima, Perugia, 1658; Venice, 1660 and 1664. Dell’Enciclopedia parte seconda; ovvero la Guerra fra i vivi e morti, Tragedia di lieta fine; e Il Cor di Marte, historia favoleggiata, Venice, 1660; the fifth edition was published at Naples, 1679.