Short examination of three famous Italian miscellaneous manuscripts of the first Centuries, whose content might show the beginnings and the early fame of the most important poet of the age, Dante Alighieri, at a time when his celebrated Comedia was yet a long way to come. The paper was read at the international Workshop Multiple-Text manuscripts in Multiple Manuscript Cultures in Hamburg, Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, 24-25 January 2014.

This study aims to highlight some recurrent elements in both Siculo-Arabic verses and early Sicilian poems of the Magna Curia, the court of Frederick the Second (d. 1250). It is a small contribution to the broader debate on the phenomenon of influence, or contamination or cross-pollination, as it has been defined, of Arab culture on the production of the Sicilian School of poets. Sicily is an area of cultural contact that lends itself well to reflect on the relationship between the culture of the invader and the defeated and on the implications, it holds for the way the formation of European culture is viewed. The rich cultural production in the times of Frederick the Second was the result of fruitful seeds sown over centuries; the Emperor’s multicultural education attested to the Normans’ ability to embrace the Arab heritage.

This volume spans six generations of poets born in Sicily beginning in the 1940s. Fifty-five authors, many still living and working there, are represented from a wide variety of regions, some writing in Sicilian and others writing primarily in Italian. Ana Ilievska and Pietro Russo have selected the poets and characteristic examples of their work. The translations from Italian to English by Ana Ilievska are presented on facing pages. Poems in Sicilian include an Italian version below the Sicilian text. In his introduction to the volume, Antonio Sichera, professor of Contemporary Italian Literature at the University of Catania, asks “whether there really is such a category as contemporary Sicilian poetry.” The editors answer this question affirmatively. The poets in this anthology share a flow of verse that moves through lyrical eruptions and layers of silence. Under these, if one listens well, one can sense an energy that breaks into the fabric of everyday life. Foreword, introduction, notes, appendices. Multilingual Sicilian/Italian/English poetry. 492 pp. Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-59910-439-3 Price: $50.00 Paperback ISBN: 978-1-59910-440-9 Price: $30.00 Kindle Edition ASIN: B0C1KW8536 Price: $25.00 JSTOR, ProQuest Editions ISBN: 978-1-59910-442-3 Pricing will vary.