Stanislao Nievo
Stanislao Nievo was an Italian author and journalist born on June 30, 1928, in Milan. He grew up in Friuli, a region noted for its literary heritage, particularly through his ancestor Ippolito Nievo, a famed writer. Initially pursuing a scientific career, Nievo's life took a turn when he joined a scientific expedition in the Indian Ocean in 1953, later working as a seaman and dock worker while traveling the world. His literary career began in earnest with the publication of his novel *Il prato in fondo al mare* in 1974, which explores the mysterious death of his ancestor Eppolito in a storm, blending meticulous research with elements of myth and magic. This novel garnered significant attention in Italy, earning awards and becoming a bestseller.
Nievo's subsequent works continued his unique narrative style, often intertwining personal quests with broader social themes. His second novel, *Aurora*, introduces a male protagonist's search for feminine archetypes, reflecting on patriarchal society and suggesting a more inclusive worldview. In later works, such as *La balena azzurra*, Nievo delves into ecological themes, emphasizing women's connection to nature through the story of a scientist and a whale. His literary contributions are marked by an exploration of subjective truths and a distinctive approach that sets him apart from contemporaneous Italian authors. Nievo passed away in Rome on July 13, 2006, leaving behind a legacy that bridges personal narrative with wider societal issues.
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Subject Terms
Stanislao Nievo
Writer
- Born: June 30, 1928
- Birthplace: Milan, Italy
- Died: July 13, 2006
- Place of death: Rome, Italy
Biography
Stanislao Nievo was born on June 30, 1928, in Milan, Italy, to Anonio and Saveria Nasalli Rocca Nievo. Stanislao spent his early life in the northern region of Friuli, the home of Ippolito Nievo, a patrician ancestor and a widely noted author. Nievo initially had no literary ambitions and instead studied science at the University of Rome. In 1953, he joined a scientific expedition to the Indian Ocean. He became a world traveler, supporting himself through various occupations, such as seaman and dock worker. He later began contributing articles to several Italian publications and filming documentaries for Italian television.
A change came in 1974, when Nievo published a novel, Il prato in fondo al mare, about the death of his famous ancestor, Ippolito, in an ocean storm. After relating the circumstances of the death, Nievo describes his own search for the ship that sank with Ippolito aboard. Despite its fictional status, the book’s meticulous research won acclaim from critics who called it a font of biographical and historical information. Il prato in fondo al mare was a best-seller in Italy, winning awards such as the Premio Comisso and the Premio Campiello.
With two decades as an adventurer and journalist behind him, Nievo’s approach to fiction writing was vastly different from that of most other Italian writers. The prevailing literary concern was with the history of postwar Italy’s political development and the alienation of individuals from society. In contrast, Nievo’s work, while based on solid research, shades into myth, fable, and magic as a path to higher truths. His search for final knowledge about Ippolito Nievo takes on mythical proportions and is shown to be a heroic necessity though doomed to failure. Thus, Il prato in fondo al mare established a line of story development that Nievo followed in his subsequent works. Each story begins with a disinterested inquiry and progresses into the passionate pursuit of subjective truths.
Nievo’s second novel, Aurora, depicts a search by Alessandro, an archaeologist and anthropologist, for a lost feminine element from the remote past that, as he sees it, has been overshadowed in patriarchal society. The book has been described as a feminist novel written by a male, suggesting a better world that could exist if men opened their minds to the female point of view. However, just as Il prato in fondo al mare ends with the failure to learn the whole truth, so Aurora ends with the failure to locate Aurora’s temple in ancient Rome and, symbolically, the lost paradise of the feminine psyche.
Nievo’s work has evolved from personal quests to social and ecological issues. For example, La balena azzurra (1990; The Blue Whale, 2000) tells the story, again based on solid research, of the whale’s migration patterns and living habits. Illustrating Nievo’s belief that women are closer to nature than men, one of the two protagonists, a woman scientist, develops a rapport with the other protagonist, a female whale, that transcends the species language barrier. Nievo died in Rome on July 13, 2006, at the age of seventy-eight.