Tristano Di Robilant “Tarquinia”

The National Exemplar

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The National Exemplar presents Tristano Di Robilant’s “Tarquinia”

Tarquinia is a town, originally founded by the Etruscans, that lies northwest of Rome on the Aurelian Way.

Birthplace to Vincenzo Cardarelli, pseudonym of Nazareno Cardarelli (1 May 1887 - 18 June 1959) an Italian poet, essayist and journalist. He created, in 1919 with Riccardo Baccheli and Emilio Cecchi among others, the prestigious magazine La Ronda (1919-1923).
He won two literary awards, including the 1929 Premio Bagutta for Il Sole a Picco and in 1948 Premio Strega for Villa Tarantola.

A central figure in Italy’s literary world in the earlier part of the 20th century, he died in poverty in Rome in 1959. Cardarelli reacted to the prevalent decadent and symbolist mood of the period by calling for a return to a form, or in his words, a metaphor of classicism. His work, imbued by an intense melancholia arches over a vast temporal framework, always touchingly disenchanted.

Di Robilant’s clay tablets pay homage to fragments of Cardarelli’s poems, that ghostlike reappear in all their vibrancy. After his death Cardarelli’s name slipped into relative obscurity. His presence and legacy now largely forgotten.

Tristano di Robilant was born in London in 1964. He lives and works in Ripabianca, Umbria