Che più dalla vivace Mente, lampi scoppiavano Di poetica face, Che tali mai non arsero L’amica di Faon; Nè quando al coro intento Delle fanciulle lesbie L’errante violento Per le midolla fervide Amoroso velen; ... One evening in 1827, as the story goes, the great Manzoni in the presence of Lamartine called La Palli, the happy-hearted Italian poetess, a “Saffo novella.” Eurica Dionigi was called the “Saffo Lazia,” and Anassilide was named “Saffo campestre” by the inhabitants on the Piave. Their verses, however, fall far short of the real Sappho. In 1857 Giovanni Meli published _La Morti di Saffu_; and many another Italian writer has published poems in her honor, Gemma, Cipolla, Botti, etc. Tragedies on the subject of Sappho in Italy have been few, among others those of Luigi Scevola (1815) and Salvatore Cammarono (1842); that of Leopoldo Marenco (1880) pictured Sappho as one of the Furies who was rejected by Phaon when he became enamored of another woman. Giovanni Pacini (Naples, 1840) first produced an opera on the theme, but changed the figure of Phaon to one who fell in love with Sappho and became jealous of Alcaeus, but was ready to die with him. In recent years Carducci, in his _Primavere Elleniche_, makes Sappho and Alcaeus follow Apollo across the Aegean in a boat drawn by two white swans: D’intorno girano come in leggera Danza le Cicladi patria de’l nume, Da lungi plaudono Cipro e Citera Con bianche spume. E un lieve il séguita pe’l grande Egeo Legno, a purpuree vele, canoro: Armato règgelo per l’onde Alceo Da’l plettro d’oro. Saffo da’l candido petto anelante A l’aura ambrosia che da’l dio vola, Da’l riso morbido, da l’ondeggiante Crin di viola, In mezzo assidesi.