by Giambattista Marino

The most renowned poet of seventeenthcentury Italy, Giambattista Marino, was born in Naples in 1569. Though his family attempted to force him into a career in law, he soon abandoned his studies to pursue his literary ambitions and so was expelled from his father’s house. In 1596 Marino became the secretary of Matteo di Capua, Prince of Conca, and experienced for the first time the luxuries of court life. He was, however, twice imprisoned during this period: once for having seduced a rich merchant’s daughter, who died attempting to have an abortion; a second time for forging documents to help a friend avoid the death penalty. After escaping prison and fleeing to Rome in 1600, Marino spent a few years traveling through Italy in the service of a nephew of Pope Clement VIII, Cardinal Aldobrandini, with whom he moved first to Ravenna and then, in 1608, to...