Francesco Anton Santori, poet, and dramatist passed away. He was born on September 16, 1819. He was from Picilia (Santa Caterina Albanese) in the province of Cosenza. He studied theology and spent most of his life in the Monastery, from where he left in the last years of his life. From an early age, he started collecting Arbëresh folk songs and creating them himself, he studied different genres and types, lyric, poem, novel in verse, novel, drama, tragedy, satire, and fable. He wrote a lot but managed to publish little. Among his publications are the collection of lyrics “Canzoniere albanese” (“Arbëresh Song”), 1846, the poems “Valle e haresë së madhe” (1848) and “Il prigioniere politico” (“The Political Prisoner”), 1850. with considerable skill 112 fables from Aesop and other poets. In his creativity, he mainly dealt with rare social issues and patriotic motives. Santori’s work is permeated by the democratic spirit. The genre that improved the most is dramaturgy. Santori’s fables are distinguished by the plasticity of the pictures, the liveliness of the dialogues, and the sharp humor. In Santori’s novels, the striking weaving of the intrigue and the sculpting of the characters, as well as the ethnography and the required effects and prolixity, stand out. Santori’s verse novels deal with social and political problems. In the most general trend, they are romantic-sentimental, but sometimes the environments and the inner world of the characters are given with realism. Francesco Santori expanded the theme of Arbëresh literature and enriched it with the dimension of humor. (Pictured: Aesop’s fables translated by Francesco Santori.)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 3, Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2009, page 2296-2297.
Photo: © Central State Archives
Graphic processing: AHCF
