A Colombìade e L'Atlàntida: due poemi rinascenziali dell'ottocento europeo

The article proposes a comparison between the poem in Genoese by Luigi Michele
Pedevilla, A Colombìade (published in 1870) and the masterpiece by the Catalan Jacint
Verdaguer, LAtlàntida (final edition 1877). Among other similiarities, both works, despite
the differences in style and literary quality, deal with the discovery of America and
the figure of Christopher Columbus. All the same, it is not a question of reciprocal influence,
but of the independent adhesion of the authors (both religious personalities and for
a time in conflict with the ecclesiastical authorities) to the revival of European minority
cultures. In actual fact, their work forms part of the late Romantic climate of the second
half of the nineteenth century and belongs to cultural contexts characterized by certain
convergences and interrelations, even though the success of the Catalan Renaissance
runs parallel to the failed attempts to restore literary Genoese.