After an unfortunate trip to Bitinia, Caius Valerius Catullus among propraetor Memmius suite, came back to Sirmione perhaps for the last time, and dedicated to it the scazontic iambic trimeters of an unusually serene poem through which appears the desire of the existential troubles in the silent peace of the ancestral abode.
It was the 56 B.C. and there was little time left before the poet got that perpetual night evoked in other lines.
Eight centuries later, in 765, noble Cunimondo killed Maniperto, Queen Ansa's "gasindio". At King Desiderio's and Adelchi's will, and in order to escape the traditional revenge of the victim's relatives, the killer paid a very high wergild, confering his estates to the Basilicas of Sirmione and to the Brescian Monastery of S. Salvatore.
Church of S. Pietro in MavinaThe building of the Church of S. Pietro in Mavina ( from summa vinea: taller vineyard) dates back to that period.
In July 774 Carlo Magno, king of Franks and Longobards as well as Roman patrician, gave Sirmione to the Abbey of S. Martino of Tours, to whom in 796 Alcuino, the great Anglosaxon scholar, would have been preferred.
In 879 Carlomanno confirmed the immunities and the privileges given by his ancestors to the Monastery of S. Salvatore and S. Giulia, which had "the piscaria of Sirmione".
In 1197 the Gardesan peninsula was given over to Verona.
In 1220 Emperor Federico II, Barbarossa's nephew, granted the inhabitants of Sirmione the possibility to fish in all Lake Garda. In the decree of the 8th of July we read: "Et nullus potestative in eorum mansiones ingredi temptet, nec fiet eis contradictio piscandi per totum Benaci lacum".
In 1276 Mastino I Della Scala ordered the capture of the dualist Catharists called Patarini, who lived in his domain: many heretics from Sirmione (the historians of the period said between seventy seven and one hundred and fifty) refused the abjuration and were condemned to the stake in the arena of Verona.
Count Giovanni Girolamo Orti Manara, in a book dedicated to Federico Guglielmo IV from Prussia and published a few years after the second half of the last century by Giuseppe Antonelli, writes that "per questo bel tratto" (for this good stretch) the Scaligers received from Pope Nicolò III the castle of Illasi, belonging to Ezzelino III da Romano "colle sue giurisdizioni e pertinenze" (with its jurisdiction).
In 1405 Sirmione gave itself up to the Venetian Republic spontaneously.
In 1452 Garda, Torri and Sirmione agreed upon the regular use of S. Vigilio fishing area. The birth of the Ancient Originaries Corporations of the three municipalities, probably dates back to this year.
In 1546 Giorgio Jodaco Bergano, a monk in the Veronese Abbey of S. Zeno, published his short poem "Benacus", where "acque dall'odore di zolfo, ribollenti nel lago presso Sirmione" (sulphureous waters, boiling up in the lake of Sirmione) are described. This is the first historically documented reference to the spring "Boiola".
In August 1683 the rich notary Francesco Bettini died. He left the municipal corporation some of his estates and two tousand ducats, ordering that every year ten of them had to be given to the girls of marrigeable age. The beneficiaries should be no more than six and the coins could only be given on their wedding day. The first lucky ones were Francesca Dorgato, Domenica Bocchio, Catterina Bazzolo e Caterina Asola, who married between 1690 and 1693.
In 1719, with an increase in the population, they reached the yearly number suggested by the notary.
Later it was necessary to draw for names, the number of the girls having increased.
In January 1801, after the armistice of Treviso and before the peace treaty of Luneville, French General Le Combe St. Michel, commanding the artillery of the Italian army, gathered his officers and district notaries to celebrate Catullus.
The poet from Desenzano, Angelo Anelli made up rhymed septenaries in reply to Le Combe, who did not disdain the Muses.
It was a beautiful day and the guests, spread among the millenary ruins and the secular olive trees of the promontor, were delighted in all "the marvels that Benaco assembles", as we can read in Cesare Arici's happy synthesis.
But some inhabitants came to mourn the damages caused by the soldiers.
General Chasseloup, commander-in-chief, as a sign of respect to the bard of Lesbia, kindly granted every request.
The feast-day ended with lots of toasts.
One of them was dedicated to Napoleon, who had visited Sirmione four years before during his travel to Passariano. It was the time of the Campoformio treaty which marked the end of the "Serenissima", or "the sacrifice of the Country", as Jacopo Ortis, the unhappy fugitive, said.
In 1816 Sirmione was part of the Brescian possessions.
In 1841 Giovanni Prati imagined that his unlucky Ermengarda went with her lover "tra i penduli salci ove s'estinse/l'armonia di Catullo" (among the pendulous willows where Catullus's harmony ended).
Six years later, looking at the excavations of the Roman villa made by Giuseppe Razzetti, young Gaetano Bocchio, future major, first had the idea of getting benefits from the "Boiola" source.
At the end of 1876 Giosuè Carducci started to write a barbarian ode dedicated to Sirmione.
He imagined that Dante Alighieri, expelled from Florence and guest of the Scaligers of Verona, appeared at the tower built by the rulers at the end of the thirteenth century.
In August 1889 the plumber Giuseppe Piana, helped by the diver Procopio, managed to isolate the hot springs and to make them gush to the surface.
In that very autumn Angelo Gennari began the sulphureous bath therapy, carrying the thermal waters in big vats to one of his hotels located in the castle square.
In 1909 Antonio Fogazzaro, Giacomo Zanella's pupil, dedicated to Sirmione a poem where sounds, scents and colours of spring seem to soften the regret of appeased memories.
Seven years after, the American poet Ezra Pound in "Studio di estetica" described a local boy's enthusiasm while looking at "a great catch of sardines".
In the same year, during the Great War, Luigi Pasquali, President of the Charity Congregation, drew the names of Erminia Tomenzoli, Dosolina Leoni, Lina Albina Rossi, Guglielmina Tellaroli, Felicina Binati and Anna Pierina Tellaroli.
Not all these girls got married. Since then no more girls could have had the ancient and munificent notary's ducats.
In 1920 James Joyce, who was working on his Ulysses in Trieste, met his friend Pound in Sirmione. After his embrace at the landing-stage, history gives way to the story.
But the poets' voices don't weaken.
Franca Grisoni, a local writer, in front of the "lac che sta là 'n font" (the lake that is over there), says she wants to know about villages as beautiful as hers.
Barbara Migliorati gazes at the waves that "lambiscono/i passi del tempo" (lick up the steps of time).
David Maria Turoldo thinks that "saggio è unirsi all'usignolo/che canta nella deserta sera" (it's wise to join the nightingale/that sings in the desert evening) on the hill where there's a temple surrounded by the olive trees.
Other events of Sirmione, which has now given rise to international renown, have been treated by several authors.
Among the Italians, besides Orti Manara already mentioned, we have to cite Monsignor Paolo Guerrini, Mario Mirabella Roberti, Gian Pietro Brogiolo, Ruggero Boschi, Elisabetta Roffia, Gian Paolo Treccani.
We can't forget Guido Salvelli, Antonio Melluso, Michele Augias, Tullio Ferro, Danilo Tamagnini.
Catullus's GrottosAnd as history must be read also in the monuments, we suggest you visit the above mentioned "Catullus's Grottos", the remains of S. Salvatore Temple, the Church of S. Pietro in S. Maria Maggiore, S. Francesco and S. Maria of Lugana and the Churches of S. Vito and S. Orsola.
Mario Arduino, major of Sirmione
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