"virescit VULN VIRTUS"
Salvatore Trovato *
taken from: "Essays in Nicosia toponymy"
pp. 83-86
edizioni Valdemone, via Casale - Nicosia (1997)
(su gentile concessione dell’autore)
Sull’architrave di una finestra poco alta sul piano della strada, sulla via Diego Ansaldi tra i numeri civici 7 e 9, a Nicosia, è incisa la data 1653 e l’emistichio VIRESCIT VULNERE VIRTUS, cioè “per la ferita si accresce il valore”.
Se la data, in mancanza di annali della città e di precise notizie d’archivio, non dice nulla, la sequenza latina, di primo acchito almeno, non può sembrare altro che la stravaganza di un qualche erudito che in quell’epoca abitò quella casa.
Il motto latino, infatti, appartiene all’antico poeta latino Furio Anziate (Second century BC.) Author of a lost poem Annales . The survival of the verse that resonates in its entirety Increscunt minds, virescit vulnerable virtus, is due to the curiosity of scholarly Aulus Gallium (II century BC.), Which precisely in its Noctes Atticae (18.11. Ed . Hosius 1903, II, 251-52) reminds us of the presence of verbs in - sco fully poetic for Galli, nothing poetic to the grammarian Chasing Vindice, in which Gallio argues in this regard.
Returning to the motivation of our membership, we realize that the hypothesis of extravagance scholarly losing ground if you give due consideration and a series of clues relating to the history of Nicosia, able to shed light on those grounds: the place where the inscription is placed, the contents of it and the date.
1. The rivalry between Marian and Nicoleta
should be immediately recalled, in fact, that the medieval and modern history of the city is characterized by the struggle between the secular residents of the Santa Maria (Marian) and those of the district of St. Nicholas (Nicolet). Ethnic struggle at the beginning - namely, the threshold of the XIV Seol - which becomes the fifteenth century onward in the struggle for the primacy of either church. Nicosia, of course, after the Norman conquest of Sicily, you will receive a colony of people from the southern Piedmont (Monferrato) and the Ligurian hinterland. The newcomers - which in the first half of the thirteenth century were added to the Lombardi Vaccaria - had to live with old people, Greek-rite if not language. The partnership had to be difficult from the outset.
relatively late (1340) is an act of peace (The Way 1898: 478-515), from which we get the news of the rivalry between the inhabitants of two districts. From that document we learn that Mariani and Nicolet were used to compete in an open field in a place still called Battle Serra.
Since that date the fights became less and turned into bloody struggle for preeminence its bell tower. Top players this time were the priests of the two churches, which until 1847 (year of the unification of the two chapters), in order to have recognized the superiority of his own church over the other, wasting huge sums for causes in the courts of Messina, Palermo, Naples and Rome.
The citizens of the two districts took an active part in the struggle, the history of the game which refers to 1972. For our purposes it is useful to recall that the city was long divided into two parts. Already in the polls in 1413 (Barbato 1919: 116) makes no distinction between judges quarterji Sanctae Mariae and those quarterji Sancti Nicolai. Later, in 1577, Archbishop Messina, Bishop John rectangular, addressing the increasingly unsustainable rivalry between the two factions, pro bono pacis is forced to order that the two main churches were taken and die in their own territory, "a separate ab alia ac is located in fuerint nec duabus civitatibus a dependent ab alia "(Playing 1972: 67). This decision establishes a division of law exists in fact. The
"peliere (current Piazzetta Leo II, the entrance to Via Francesco Salomone), in fact, marked the boundary between the two neighborhoods, while an area nullius, that leave from Piliere extended to the church of St. Joseph, served as bearing.
It was not uncommon, the uses and customs in force in the city, boys and young men who encroached beyond the limits of their neighborhood, they were stopped by the other peers that "with bolder ways - writes M. The Way (1898: 494-95) - asking them: - Who lives? ". Woe to not say "Viva Santa Maria" if the detainees were in the neighborhood of St. Nicholas, and vice versa.
Returning to our membership, it should be noted that the position in which it is situated is in the door of the district of Santa Maria: Soon after the church of San Giuseppe and the beginning of the road Diego Ansaldi. Based on this, the hypothesis of extravagance learned of the seventeenth-century owner of the house is losing ground, and entry and the place where it is require very different reasons.
2. The harsh threat
Turning now to the content dell'emistichio Latin and comparing again nicosia environment, not far from the truth in saying that it has the air of a real threat: <
The content, therefore, if my hypothesis is absolutely correct, the inscription is a motivating factor in relation to historical and cultural climate that the city lived for many centuries: the perennial fight between the two factions, that of immigrants against those northern of natives.
Failure of accurate information is the city's history. Thus, if the date of registration is precise and unambiguous - the 1653 in fact - and dumb they are, relative to that date, while the rich archives capitolari delle due chiese. È sicuramente la piccola storia dei fatti di ogni giorno – quella non registrata nei documenti scritti – che ha prodotto a Nicosia questa iscrizione. Essa vuol mettere in sull’avviso la tracotanza e la temerarietà dei Nicoleti con un linguaggio metaforico e con un verso assai peregrino, incomprensibile ai più. Ma certo tra i Nicoleti c’era chi aveva occhi per vedere e orecchi per intendere.
Prof. Salvatore Trovato
*(Ordinario di Linguistica generale presso la Facoltà di Lettere dell’Università di Catania)
