Ut pictura poesis: the image of Simone Martini’s art in Mario Luzi’s poem “Earthly and Heavenly Journey of Simone Martini”

Abstract

The poem “Earthly and Heavenly Journey of Simone Martini” (1994) was composed by a great Italian poet of the 20th century Mario Luzi when he was eighty years old. Simone Martini’s painting, spiritual, poetic, rooted in courtly culture and at the same time reflecting a meditative and medieval worldview, is close in spirit to Luzi’s poetry. The poet and the painter share the focus of their creative gaze on the Heavenly, viewing the world sub specie aeternitatis. “Giving a voice” to the Sienese painter, speaking on his art, Luzi expresses his views on his own poetry: painting in the poem becomes a metaphor for poetry and, more broadly, for art in general. At the same time, an excellent knowledge of the art of Simone Martini enabled the poet to create a surprisingly accurate and expressive image of his work. The purpose of the article is to analyse part of the poem entitled “He, his art”.