The poetic work of Francesco D’Ambrosio (1926 – 2003) reveals a profound link with his native land, Ascea, the ancient Elea-Velia. His poetry is nourished by simple images, shimmering with a classical beauty, taken from meaning-rich experiences: first and foremost, his family, whose example, which intimately informs almost every lyric, becomes an illuminating light for his entire existence; his native land, the object of incommensurable love, the home of famous thinkers and the repository of antique wisdom; respect for memory and for neighbours, a heritage that is often difficult to trace today.
Love for this ‘epochal land’ was the common ground on which the idea of composing a sonorous poem developed, an attempt to sublimate the imaginary plot recast by voice and sound, a tribute to the beauty of a mental place, the soul’s place even before real.
Ascea is a small town in Campania, in the province of Salerno, in which is located the ancient Elea-Velia, founded by the Phoceans in the 6th century B.C. (c. 540). One of Italy’s oldest and most renowned archaeological sites, a Unesco heritage site, it was the seat of the Eleatic philosophical school founded by Parmenides and Zeno. Ancient Hyele, as cited by the sources, had a long history of around two thousand years, during which it was a leading light of civilisation and a reference point for writers, philosophers, poets and scientists; it gained renown among the other Magna-Greek cities already with the Poem on Nature, Parmenides’ Περί Φύσεως and Zeno’s Paradoxes; mentioned also by great Latin writers such as Cicero (epistle to Trebazio Testa), Virgil (Aeneid) and Horace (epistle to Vala), it was also the seat of an ancient Medical School, whose legacy was probably picked up by the first European medical school, the Scuola Medica Salernitana. Today, Ascea is a renowned international tourist resort, located in the National Park of Cilento, Vallo di Diano and Alburni, one of the largest nature parks in Europe.