In November 1974, as a freshly graduated BA student still to reach the adult age (at that time) of 21, I arrived in Pisa, Italy to proceed with my studies for my second degree at the university there. I graduated in June 1977.

Next step was my PhD. I enrolled at the University of Urbino, Italy for this. My first PhD meeting in the town of Raffaello’s birth, considered to be the prototype of Renaissance thinking and planning, happened in January 1978.

It was nice to meet new faces coming from all over Italy and abroad. One of these was Gabriella Alfieri, today a professor at the University of Catania, a linguist of the finest kind, one who has also been a protagonist in promoting the study of the Maltese language and an eminent scholar of Giovanni Verga’s works.

Another fellow PhD candidate was this Italian guy who lived in Luxembourg and who worked in the Italian section of the EU translation department. It was the first time in my life I got to know of the EU translation unit in Luxembourg, where, today, so many of my ex-students are making Malta proud with their sterling work. His name is Pino Mariano.

Forty-seven years have passed since that January 1978. My friendship with Gabriella and Pino still holds strong.

Apart from his translator work, Pino devoted most of his spare time to writing poetry and to various other cultural and literary activities in Luxembourg. Together with editor Mimmo Morina, he was the soul of a well-established quarterly literary journal, Nouvelle Europe, which was devoted to the languages and literatures of the world.

I started contributing to this journal with various articles on Maltese, British and Italian literature and languages. Among these: ‘On Byron’s relationship with the authorities in Italy’, NEuropa,  Luxembourg, VIII, 27-28 (Spring-Summer 1979), 30-32; ‘Un sonetto inedito di Vittorio Alfieri?’, NEuropa, Luxembourg, X, 33 (Winter 1981), 21-23; ‘Similarities, parallelisms and oppositions in the IV and X cantos of Dante’s Inferno’, NEuropa, Luxembourg, XIII, 46-47 (Autumn 1984), 17-18; and ‘La lingua maltese ieri ed oggi’, NEuropa, Luxembourg, XIV, 48 (Winter 1985), 21-25. For some time, I was even part of the editorial board of NEuropa.

By 1985, I had enriched my international work experience with a two-year teaching assignment at the Institut Montana International School in Zugerberg, Switzerland (1979-1981); two years teaching at the University of Catania (1981-1983); and had been teaching at the University of Roma ‘La Sapienza’ since 1983. Pino had instead moved to his hometown, Lecce, where he lectured at the philosophy department of the Centro Péguy.

Meanwhile, Mimmo and Pino had started in Luxembourg a mignon book series on the great writers of the world.

After some brainstorming sessions, Pino and I decided to give birth to a short anthology of Maltese contemporary poetry, with the original Maltese text and Italian translation. I still recall my two trips to Lecce from Roma to work on this edition, since internet and e-mail were still alien to both of us at that time.

Speed of mind and language

This was when Pino came into contact with the first poems by Oliver Friggieri, one of which, Protesta Maltija, was translated and included in the final product of which we were both so proud of: Il-Maltin Kontemporanji (editors: A. Cassola-P. Mariano), Paris-Lecce, Istituto Universitario di Studi Euro-Africani, 1985, 44pp.

The book was launched at the University of Catania Conference on Malta-Sicilia in 1985, which I had co-organised with my friends and colleagues Giulio Soravia and Gabriella , respectively of the universities of Bologna and of Catania. Pino and Oliver met physically for the first time at this great Catania conference.

Oliver Friggieri’s sketch of a bloody crucified Christ with dedication ‘al mio caro amico Pino, Oliver’.

From that day onwards, the friendship between Oliver and Pino was cemented: Oliver became part of the editorial board of NEurope, he took part in the World Congress of Poetry, organised by Mimmo in Sintra, Portugal and held under the patronage of then Portuguese president Mario Soares. The previous world congresses had been held in Marrakech, Athens, Florence and Crete, under the presidency of then Senegal president-poet L.S. Senghor.

Pino kept constant contact with Oliver and published in Luxembourg a collection of Oliver’s poetry Nous sommes un désir, in the series Melusina 5, published by EuroEditor (1998).

Pino last visited Oliver in Malta in Easter 2017. The Good Friday and Saturday religious ceremonies preceding the triumph of the Risen Lord brought to Pino’s mind many childhood memories in his beloved Salento. The festoons, the jet-black labara on the Maltese balconies, the lit-up crucifixes behind the window panes, all the religious ceremonies, the laid out ikliet tal-appostli (Last Supper displays), the Maltese Easter processions − all brought back these memories to this man from Lecce who had spent most of his life in Luxembourg and beyond.

In particular, the bread buns with a cross on top (or hot cross buns), which reminded him of the bread which was distributed for free to the poor outside the Lecce parish. And, then, the sound of the Maltese language, which Pino could not understand but which reminded him so much of his home dialect.

All this inspired Pino to come up with three poems written in the Salento dialect during his last stay in Malta. And Oliver immediately translated them into Maltese, with the speed of mind and language he was so renowned for.

The Maltese translations were never published since death took Oliver away. Indeed, only two of the Maltese translations have survived in Pino’s possession (see below).

To compensate for this loss, Pino still treasures a crucifix with a bloodied Christ and with a personalised dedication that Oliver had sketched. Pino interprets this crayon sketch as a metaphor of the physical illness that, at that specific point in time in 2017, was slowly but steadily eating away at Oliver’s energies, until death took completely over in November 2020.

The two surviving unpublished 2017 translations by Oliver Friggieri:

Sepulkri u purċissjonijiet

M'humiex għat-turisti dawn il-fervuri kollha

ta' sepulkri ta' fjuri u purċissjonijiet

għax dawn huma Għarab u huma serji

imbierka minn San Pawl fi żmien tfulitna

hekk għedt minn taħt l-ilsien lil Oliver:

li din il-gżira xi ftit lilkom ħelsitkom

u bil-lingwa u bil-qalb ta' Nsara

ta' Kristu bqajtu Kavallieri

aħna li lkoll xi darba konna

taħlita ta' Griegi  u ta' Rumani

ta' Goti ta' Spanjoli u ta' Borboni

nistqarru li minn dawn id-devozzjonijiet kollha

baqgħulna ix-xewqat u l-ħsibijiet:

għaliex lgħabna bla ħsieb il-misteri

minħabba li aħna intelliġenti u superjuri

(Il-wirja tar-Rabat u l-Imdina, 15.4.2017)

Quddiesa f'San Ġwann

Alla, hawn hu Alla tal-Insara

Mulej tas-sema u tal-art

il-ħanin tal-Misilmin

Alla tas-sliem u mhux tal-gwerra

tajna raġun lill-Ġudej

li kien il-ġeneral ta' armata

li setgħet teqred... “con la spada”

lil dawk li emmnu fl-allat

 il-papiet ma kinux nies nieqsa mill-armi

imma, fin-nofs qalb bosta galilej

wieħed mastrudaxxa ġieh il-ħsieb

li jgħidlek dak li inti ma tixtieqx

u li forsi t-triq kienet żbaljata

u hekk kien li mbagħad ħallas kollox

bis-salib bix-xewk u bl-imsiemer

is-Sinjur Alla il-Mulej

Imma 'l dan kollu n-Nisrani fehmu?

(St Julian’s, 16.4.2017)