This brief portrait is dedicated to San Mauro Pascoli’s most celebrated son, the poet from whom the town itself takes its name. Once known simply as San Mauro di Romagna, the town was later renamed in his honour, a testament to the deep bond between Pascoli and his birthplace. His life and work remain inseparable from this landscape, whose memories, tragedies and rural rhythms echo throughout his poetry.

Giovanni Pascoli (1855 - 1912) Giovanni Pascoli was born on 31 December 1855 in San Mauro di Romagna, into a family of the rural middle class. His father, Ruggero, was steward of the La Torre estate, owned by the Princes Torlonia. Giovanni was the fourth of ten children.

The family’s peaceful life was shattered by a tragedy that would mark the poet forever. On 10 August 1867, Ruggero Pascoli was shot and killed. His father’s death plunged the family into financial hardship, forcing them first to leave their home and later to move to Rimini.

In the years that followed, further losses compounded their grief: his mother died, as did his elder sister and his brothers Luigi and Giacomo.

Pascoli graduated in 1882 and immediately began his teaching career, first in Matera and later in Massa. In 1895 he was appointed Professor of Greek and Latin Grammar at the University of Bologna, where he later succeeded his former master, Giosuè Carducci, in the chair of Italian Literature.

Pascoli died in Bologna on 6 April 1912. He is buried in Castelvecchio di Barga, where he had chosen to make his home.

In recent years, an early poem has come to light, revealing a youthful Pascoli with strikingly revolutionary and anarchic tones.

To explore Pascoli’s world more deeply, and to visit the house where he lived and wrote, please see: www.casapascoli.it