Via Antonio Sforza

He was born in Otranto on 17 June 1891 to Francesco Sforza, a stationmaster. A diligent student at the Archiepiscopal Seminary, he received a training that was both austere and excellent from the religious teachers of the time. Among the many qualities attributed to him were a passion for classical poetry and a profound sense of religiosity, blended with an ethical conception of life. His first encounter with poetry took place in Venice, where he moved because of his administrative position at the Post Office, and where he met Vittorio Locchi, with whom he formed a strong bond of friendship. Through him, he joined the “Tavolissima,” a group of poetry enthusiasts through which he met many poets of the early twentieth century. At that time, the influence of Pascoli and D’Annunzio was strong, as was the tendency toward nationalism and interventionism. These currents inspired Sforza’s first work, dated 1915 and entitled The Birth of the German, or the Creative Devil, whose text was imbued with the war propaganda of that historical period.

While Locchi and his other friends left for war, he was declared unfit for service due to a serious visual impairment that led to the complete loss of sight in his left eye.

The military conflict inflicted heavy losses. In this climate of grief, Sforza composed the song “Mamma, che vegli, preghi, piangi e benedici,” a powerful testimony to the memory that carried him back to the years spent, between hopes and illusions, in his native land. Particularly meaningful are the verses: “Oh, how toward your white / small houses open to the sea / my distant Otranto / my thoughts run with longing!”, in which we clearly perceive the deep attachment and sense of belonging that inspired the author.

The following ten years were those of his most prolific production and were influenced not only by the events of the World War but also by the death of his friend Locchi, who perished in the shipwreck of the Minas, a troop transport bound for Thessaloniki. In 1927, the path toward blindness was completed, leading him to return to Otranto completely blind, where he resumed his work of composition in dialect. In 1931 he composed the Esercizi de lingua Otrantina, from which the epigraph is taken: “Nuddha lingua aggiu studiata / E de nuddha sacciu nienti / Sulu quiddha del lu tata / Me sta scioca ntra li dienti. – I haven’t studied any language/ and I don’t know any/ except my father’s/ which plays between my teeth.” In September 1943, outraged by Italy’s reversal toward its German ally, he enlisted, making use of his blindness as an aerophonist in Bologna.

In 1946, after the end of the war, he returned to Otranto and settled in the small town of Uggiano La Chiesa. The year 1949 marked the publication of Utrantu mia, a collection of sonnets that ends, significantly, with the reproduction of the text of the plaque set into the Church of St. Francis of Paola on the Hill of Minerva in Otranto. In 1957, in Brindisi, he performed at the main theatre La Sagra di Santa Goriza on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the death of the never-forgotten Vittorio Locchi. Between September and October 1957, Sforza composed The City of Weeping, in which he emphasized the value of the citizens who died during the sack of the city and the abandonment to which it was undeservedly condemned by posterity.

He died on 19 January 1979.