Lorenzo Da Ponte

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The Dawn of Italian Culture in America

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SOURCE: "The Dawn of Italian Culture in America," in The Romanic Review, Vol. X, No. 3, July-September 1919, pp. 250-62.

[In the excerpt below, Goggio summarizes Da Ponte's significance in introducing American college students to Italian language and literature.]

Lorenzo da Ponte, a poet of renown and the well-known librettist of Don Giovanni and Le Nozze di Figaro, was also an exile, a satirical sonnet against Count Pisani having been the cause of his banishment from his beloved Venice. He first sought refuge in Austria and later migrated to the United States. In New York, where he finally settled, he opened a little book store and earned his livelihood by the sale of Italian books and wares. Moreover, being especially fond of literature, he thought of devoting part of his time to teaching, and began to offer private lessons in the language of his native country. This new enterprise turned out far better than he expected, for many young men and women of distinguished families profited by the occasion and applied for instruction. The gratifying success which he attained as a teacher is well brought out in the many letters in Italian which he received from his pupils and which he himself published with his Memoirs. When his students had been well drilled in the rudiments of the language, he passed to the literature and introduced them to the best Italian poets and prose writers, expounding to them the works of Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio and of all the other great lights, including Alfieri and Metastasio . . .

From 1826 to 1837 Da Ponte held a professorship at Columbia College, which, however, was in reality a private tutorship, carrying no salary from the college itself. Through his suggestion and cooperation, many Italian books of literature were given a place on the shelves of the college library and were made accessible to the student body of that institution. In 1833 Italian Grand Opera was auspiciously initiated in New York under his direction, and a new source of interest was thus created by him in the language of Italy.

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How Da Ponte Became a Librettist and Glory and Downfall