Sulmona - It's history. What to see - The poet Ovid...

Abruzzo has to be one of Italy’s most beautiful regions. A million colours describe a million different aspects of a terrain that's ever changing. From the crystal clear green blue sea of the Adriatic to the soaring heights of the Apennine mountains the terrain inbetween takes on every conceivable form with its myriad valleys and meadows, mountain top clinging villages, towns and cities. Every turn of the head presents a new photo opportunity. Abruzzo is the home to numerous important cities including arguably the most beautiful, the city of art Sulmona. In the time of the poet Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) the city went by the name of Svlmo this later became Svlmon and eventually Sulmona. Ovid was born in Sulmona in 43BC and died seventy four years later in 17AD. During his lifetime he married three times and divorced twice – he had one child, a daughter. In 8AD after writing one of his most famous works 'Metamorphoses', Ovid was banished by Augustus to the town of Constanta on the west coast of the Black Sea (at that time the town was named Tomis). The reason for his banishment is unclear but suffice it to say that he lived out the rest of his life at Tomis and wrote two more famous poems there – 'Tristia' and 'Epistulae ex Ponto'. He died hoping to be returned to Rome and his beloved third wife. In the historic centre of Sulmona there is a square called Piazza XX Settembre. At the top of said square there is an excellent bar called Gran Cafè. On one of the walls within this bar we can read the following latin sentence, ‘…ei mihi, quod domino non licet ire tuo!’. These are in fact the first two lines of Ovid's poem Tristia:

Parve – nec invideo – sine me, liber, ibis in urbem:
ei mihi, quod domino non licet ire tuo!

Little book – and I won't hinder you – go on to the city without me:
Alas for me, because your master is not allowed to go!

The English adjective 'sad' translates into Italian as the word 'triste' and the word 'sadness' as 'tristezza' we can probably assume then that the latin word 'Tristia' means sadness. Another interesting point to note; the Italian word for nose is ‘naso’ which was also Ovid’s surname, his nickname was ‘nasus’ - the Latin version of the word naso. This becomes relevant when we consider that in Piazza XX Settembre there is a statue to Ovid and in Constanta there is another identical one upon which we can see inscribed the following - in Latin of course:

Here I lie, who played with tender loves, Naso the poet, killed by my own talent.
O passerby, if you've ever been in love, let it not be too much for you to say:
May the bones of Naso lie gently.