Umberto Saba

Umberto Saba was born in Trieste on March 9, 1883 from a Jewish mother and a Christian father and is brought up by a Slovenian nanny. Right from the beginning he misses the father figure and divides his love between the biological and the adoptive mother, thus living a difficult and melancholic childhood. The surname seems to recall the strong feeling for his Slovenian nanny Peppa Sabaz.

Saba studies erratically  and in 1903 he leaves for Pisa for university studies where he begins to suffer from depression and nervous disorders. During the following years he lives between Florence and Trieste where he meets his future wife Carolina Woelfler who inspires the Lina of his Canzoniere.

During the writing years of Saba, Trieste is part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Three languages are spoken in town: German, the chiefly spoken local dialect, and Italian which is part of a high literary tradition. Saba uses the latter in his simple and original poetry which does not follow contemporary preferences.

His first book “Poesie” is published in 1911. In 1919 Saba buys and keeps the antique bookstore in Via San Nicolò. He dedicates his life to poetry and his bookshop. The first edition of the Canzoniere is published in 1921.

Later in his life his nervous instability grows and develops into a profound crisis and from 1929 on Saba goes into psychoanalysis with Doctor Edoardo Weiss in Trieste.

In 1945 Einaudi publishes the second edition of the Canzoniere gaining the author high praise from critics who up to this moment had given the cold shoulder to his verses, considering them lacking of freshness and originality.

Saba writes simple and clear poetry, uses everyday words and describes aspects of everyday life. Trieste, his birthplace, is the main protagonist of his poetry: the sea which stands for flight and spiritual adventures; love and sentiment for persons and family and the relationship with nature. Saba deeply loves what he is writing about.

For Saba fame and praise arrive after the World War; today he is considered one of the most important Italian poets of the 19th century. The poet dies in 1957 in San Giusto Hospital in Gorizia.