Il simbolismo della nigredo alchemica nel De partu Virginis di Jacopo Sannazaro, esaminato nel suo contesto storico, culturale e spirituale
The Symbolism of Alchemical Nigredo in Jacopo Sannazaro’s De partu Virginis, Examined in Its Historical, Cultural and Spiritual Context

Summary/Abstract: De partu Virginis is the work in Virgilian Latin verse that, together with Arcadia, is considered Sannazaro’s masterpiece, as an intense and singular expression of the Neapolitan Renaissance. This inspired sacred poem focuses on the conception, birth and destiny of Christ, the Son of God according to the Christian faith. The Blessed Virgin’s delivery is therefore the main thematic center of the work, in which Mary’s womb is the dark place that welcomes the miracle and renews all things in it. The informal darkness, which is pure potentiality, appears as a constant obsession in Sannazaro’s poetry. We can see that in the shepherd Sincero’story, who in Arcadia descends into the earth to return to his homeland, and also in the description of the sea in Eclogae piscatoriae, as a liquidity that is deep and indecipherable, also associated with magical rituals around secret correspondences among different realities. Following a similar hermeneutic path, it is possible to identify a unitary meaning within the Christian poem of Sannazaro, referring to the alchemical symbolism of the nigredo and its theological aspect typical of Franciscan philosophy. This is, the cult of paupertas, the fifth decisive element: sister death, as our ideal goal and divinizing return.

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