Pier Alessandro Paravia


Pier Alessandro Paravia was a Venetian writer, scholar, philanthropist and professor of Italian eloquence at the University of Turin.

Biography

Early years

Son of Giovanni, colonel of the Oltremarini, an elite infantry division of the Navy of the Republic of Venice, and grandson of Antonio, also a naval officer of the Venetian Republic, he was born in Zadar two months after the fall of the Republic.
As a child he moved to Venice, where he studied at the Lyceum of Santa Caterina. He graduated in law at Padua in 1818, and served in Venice as a state functionary for twelve years, until - in 1832 - he was called to the chair of Eloquence of the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Turin. He had already published several studies: mostly biographies of writers and artists, but also a popular translation of the Letters of Pliny the Younger.

In Turin

On taking up his new post, he commenced a prolific period of production, in which he ranged from Italian literature to Provençal literature and even Chinese novels. In addition to literature, he was also interested in history and politics, to which he dedicated an essay significantly entitled Del Sentimento Patrio. He purchased a villa near Treviso, which he frequented. Although politically conservative, he was constantly monitored by the Austro-Hungarians, owing to his adherence to Italian patriotic ideals
He was a friend of and corresponded with many illustrious Italians - from Niccolò Tommaseo to Silvio Pellico, from King Charles Albert of Sardinia to Vincenzo Gioberti - and had a sincere and lifelong affection for Antonio Rosmini, whom he had known since his days at the University of Padua.
Greatly interested in the Italian language, he wrote important essays about it which earned him a nomination to the Accademia della Crusca.
He died in Turin in 1857. In his honor a herma was erected at the University of Turin, where is also preserved a large and valuable collection of manuscripts that had belonged to his uncle Antonio.

Relationship with Zadar

Paravia never forgot Zadar, his native town, to which - following a visit in 1850 - he donated in 1855 his private library, consisting of over ten thousand volumes, in order to create, from this initial nucleus, a public library, which was later named in his honor Municipal Library Paravia. Its purpose was not simply philanthropic. Paravia pleaded: "Study your language, because in it lies your future greatness; it is a merit which nobody can deny you, and it is great honor." Paravia clearly meant, through his donation, to send a strong message to the Dalmatians, so much so that he invited the leaders of contemporary Italian culture, with whom he maintained a very active correspondence, to also offer books. This library, which was housed in the ancient Venetian Loggia of Zadar until 1938, was from its opening on August 18, 1857 the largest in the whole of Dalmatia. Closed because of war, it was reopened on October 14, 1945 with the new name Narodna Biblioteka.

National identification

Given Paravia's personal history, his enthusiastic adhesion to the sentiments of the Italian Risorgimento and his explicit affirmations of nationality, until recently his nationality was not in question. In present-day Croatia, however, his surname is occasionally found transliterated as Paravija, his explicit choice of nationality is regularly omitted, and he is simply indicated as having been born in Zadar.
While there is no doubt that Pier Alessandro Paravia was an Italian by nationality, the demarcation line of his class ancestry as stipulated by the Republic of Venice, links to the Schiavoni regiment and the 19th century society, suggests a family connection to an untitled commoner merchant class, which was a status above normal commoners.
In today's Croatia, people of mixed Northern Italian and Croatian ancestry whose families were tied to the merchant classes are sometimes referred to as Lombard Dalmatian indicating affiliation to the Dalmatian commonwealth and culture. This may be the source of the confusion in question.
Further to that, the Croatisation of Latin/Italian surnames and Italianization of Slavic surnames is an age-old tradition in Venetian Dalmatia and the Republic of Ragusa that simply translates a given name into dual language formats as means to acceptance and/or trade branding. While it does not imply a current shift in self identity, the collusion could, in theory, create perplexity, from a historical point of view.

Works