Books. Paolo Brizzi presents “La versione di Laura”

The work is the fictionalized biography of a great character: Francesco Petrarca. On the frustration of the poet, for the unrequited love from Laura, the modern theme of desire is grafted. Starting from here, the novel realizes transformations aimed at focusing attention on the other, so the protagonist becomes Laura with her unpublished version of love. Even characters who have not had a voice in official history break the silence, such as the two natural children and the mother unknown to us of one of them. Imagination enters and exits from History without losing the notion of the present. We follow Petrarca’s most formative experiences from childhood, when his father emigrates, his studies in Bologna, marred by the death sentence of a student, justice with the absurdity of the witnesses of nothing, and the meeting with Laura in Avignon. Soon we realize that the essence of love is not possession and that the woman is not a model predetermined by the mind of a man. Also for this reason Laura is the fascinating copy of an unfindable original. It is from her that we learn the version of love: the “harsh beast”, the “sweet enemy”, now becomes the symbol of a truce. And perhaps what is avoided is as significant as what is desired: “Perhaps love is the desire to escape from desire,” as Laura says. In the background the adventure of Cola di Rienzo, with the dream and the spectacularization of politics. Petrarca settles in Milan for a few years under the aegis of the Visconti. Here Boccaccio comes to visit him, to narrate two unusual misfortunes of women. Stateless, the poet travels to forget Laura, who dies during the plague carrying, who knows, a secret with her. The work is current for the new point of view of the female character and is addressed to both young and adult readers. The narration is tempered with a humorous background, in it there is also a pedagogical corrective, evident in the story of the son. Finally, desire, as understood by the author, follows a red thread that connects it to today’s psychoanalysis.

Paolo Brizzi was born in 1950 in Livorno. Graduated in Humanities from the University of Pisa, he dedicated himself to teaching. He has written books for schools, articles and reviews for contemporary poets and writers.