To describe the peninsula of Sirmione in better words, I will be helped by the poets who loved and described it over the centuries. First of all Gaius Valerius Catullus, 87 B.C - 54 or 52 A.D.. The poet in 56 B.C. was in Sirmione, where his family had a villa. During this stay he wrote one of his odes, Poem 31. In this poem the bard gives a sense of joy and calm, added to a feeling of peace, which even today is reflected and breathed in the peninsula.
Catullus's love for Lesbia gets its apex in poem 87 which recites:
Non v'è donna che possa dirsi amata
quant'è amata da me la Lesbia mia.
Giammai patto d'amore più sincero
di questo mio per te fu stipulato.
Another poet is Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827). In the third hymn to the "Grazie" the wandering Zacinto's son writes:
Fanciulle, udite, udite: un lazio carme
vien sonando imenei dall'isoletta
di Sirmione per l'argenteo Garda
fremente con l'altera onda marina,
dacchè le nozze di Peleo, cantate
nella reggia del mar, l'aureo Catullo
al suo Garda cantò...
Giosuè Carducci (1835-1907) dedicates to Sirmione an ode in which we read:
Ecco: la verde Sirmio nel lucido lago sorride
fiore de le penisole.
...Qui Valerio Catullo, legato giù a nitidi sassi
il faselo bitinico,
sedeasi i lunghi giorni...
These important poets and others draw their inspiration from this peninsula of exceptional beauty.
Scaliger Castle
Chapel of S. Anna alla RoccaThe Chapel of S. Anna alla Rocca, the three Parochials of S. Maria Maggiore, San Francesco e Santa Maria di Lugana,
Church of S. Vito
San Pietro in MavinoAnd lastly the local shops and the famous thermal baths are worth being seen.
Gabriele Busti
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