Regresar

Trieste's Umberto Saba

Abstract:

I In the years between 1887 and 1892, while Svevo's novel Una Vita was taking shape, Umberto Poli was attending the Jewish elementary school in Trieste. Born on 9 March 1883, he was a pale, delicate child for his age. At school he received high praise from his teachers for some'genuinely talmudic'comments he had made on the sacred texts.'God be thanked that he does not take after his father,'they said to his mother.'We shall make of your son, dear Signora Félicita, a new beacon of Judaism, a man worthy to follow after your beloved uncle, our revered Master, Shaddàl.'(They referred to Samuel David Luzzatto, a teacher at the Rabbinical College of Padua at the beginning of the nineteenth century, who had written poetry and prose in both Italian and Hebrew and was an authority on the Torah and the Kaballah.) The story of the life, death and miracles of this unusual man must certainly have been known to …