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'''''La buona novella''''' [i.e. [[w:The Gospel|The Good News]]] is the name of the fourth [[w:studio album|studio album]] by [[w:Italy|Italian]] [[w:singer/songwriter|singer-songwriter]] [[Fabrizio De André]], released in [[w:1970 in music|1970]]. Its plot revolves around the [[w:New Testament apocrypha|New Testament apocrypha]], particularly the [[w:Gospel of James|Gospel of James]] and the [[w:Syriac Infancy Gospel|Syriac Infancy Gospel]](as can be seen in the cover notes). | '''''La buona novella''''' [i.e. [[w:The Gospel|The Good News]]] is the name of the fourth [[w:studio album|studio album]] by [[w:Italy|Italian]] [[w:singer/songwriter|singer-songwriter]] [[Fabrizio De André]], released in [[w:1970 in music|1970]]. Its plot revolves around the [[w:New Testament apocrypha|New Testament apocrypha]], particularly the [[w:Gospel of James|Gospel of James]] and the [[w:Syriac Infancy Gospel|Syriac Infancy Gospel]] (as can be seen in the cover notes). | ||
Following the style of Apocryphal literature, the narration in the album focuses more on the human and less on the spiritual aspects of some of the traditional biblical personages (such as [[wikipedia:Saint Joseph|Saint Joseph]]), and gives more consideration to minor personages of the [[wikipedia:Bible|Bible]], who become the protagonists (for example, [[w:Penitent thief|Titus]] and [[w:Impenitent thief|Dumachus]], the thieves crucified alongside [[wikipedia:Jesus|Jesus]] (in other apocrypha such as the [[w:Gospel of Nicodemus|Gospel of Nicodemus]], an apocryphal gospel of the the 4th century A.D., the thieves names are '''Dismas''' and '''Gesta'''). | Following the style of Apocryphal literature, the narration in the album focuses more on the human and less on the spiritual aspects of some of the traditional biblical personages (such as [[wikipedia:Saint Joseph|Saint Joseph]]), and gives more consideration to minor personages of the [[wikipedia:Bible|Bible]], who become the protagonists (for example, [[w:Penitent thief|Titus]] and [[w:Impenitent thief|Dumachus]], the thieves crucified alongside [[wikipedia:Jesus|Jesus]] (in other apocrypha such as the [[w:Gospel of Nicodemus|Gospel of Nicodemus]], an apocryphal gospel of the the 4th century A.D., the thieves names are '''Dismas''' and '''Gesta'''). | ||
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==="Il testamento di Tito"=== | ==="Il testamento di Tito"=== | ||
;("Titus' Testament") | ;("Titus' Testament") | ||
Probably the album's best-known song, it revolves entirely around Titus, the "penitent thief". While on the cross, he explains the [[wikipedia:Ten Commandments|Ten Commandments]] from his point of view, saying that even though he didn't respect any of them, he never felt any sorrow or guilt, because the events of life, which the Commandments don't take into account, drove him to do it. In some way, Fabrizio De André is expressing his own sentiments from his life experience. Before dying, Titus tells his mother how, through the sorrow for the fate of " | Probably the album's best-known song, it revolves entirely around Titus, the "[[w:Penitent thief|penitent thief]]". While on the cross, he explains the [[wikipedia:Ten Commandments|Ten Commandments]] from his point of view, saying that even though he didn't respect any of them, he never felt any sorrow or guilt, because the events of life, which the Commandments don't take into account, drove him to do it. In some way, Fabrizio De André is expressing his own sentiments from his life experience. Before dying, Titus tells his mother how, through the sorrow for the fate of "this dying man" (Jesus), he has learned love<ref>Original lyrics: "[...]io nel vedere quest'uomo che muore / Madre, io provo dolore[...]".</ref>. | ||
The journalist [[w:it:Andrea Monda|Andrea Monda]], director of the Vatican newspaper [[w:L'Osservatore Romano|L'Osservatore Romano]], notes that this last song in the album is in reality a hymn to the mercy of Jesus. In fact Fabrizio De André himself said, during an interview with Giampaolo Mattei<ref>Mattei published this and other similar interviews in the volume '''''Anima mia''''' (1998)</ref>: | The journalist [[w:it:Andrea Monda|Andrea Monda]], director of the Vatican newspaper [[w:L'Osservatore Romano|L'Osservatore Romano]], notes that this last song in the album is in reality a hymn to the mercy of Jesus. In fact Fabrizio De André himself said, during an interview with Giampaolo Mattei<ref>Mattei published this and other similar interviews in the volume '''''Anima mia''''' (1998)</ref>: | ||
{{Quote|text=No one can take away the idea that Jesus Christ would have saved both of the thieves who were crucified alongside him, yes, even the impenitent one.|author=Fabrizio De André|source=interview with Giampaolo Mattei}} | {{Quote|text=No one can take away from me the idea that Jesus Christ would have saved both of the thieves who were crucified alongside him, yes, even the impenitent one.|author=Fabrizio De André|source=interview with Giampaolo Mattei}} | ||
This long acoustic ballad, which has ten verses each of which is dedicated to one of the Ten Commandments, tells the story of the life and death of the "good thief" Titus, and yet from the lyrics Titus doesn't actually seem all that "good". He is an angry and wounded man, and he expresses resentment and vindication. A bitter irony, ready to fall into sarcasm, is in his words, even when speaking about God, with whom he speaks by reminding him and even taunting him about His [[w:Ten Commandments|Decalogue]]. At the eighth commandment Titus makes his greatest accusation: «They know divine law by heart, / but they always forget about forgiveness». Titus condemns pharisaism, in other words the hypocrisy of those who preach a formal compliance with the law but never exercise mercy. A criticism of religion which does however reveal the search for a true, sincere and believable faith. A search | This long acoustic ballad, which has ten verses each of which is dedicated to one of the Ten Commandments, tells the story of the life and death of the "good thief" Titus, and yet from the lyrics Titus doesn't actually seem all that "good". He is an angry and wounded man, and he expresses resentment and vindication. A bitter irony, ready to fall into sarcasm, is in his words, even when speaking about God, with whom he speaks by reminding him and even taunting him about His [[w:Ten Commandments|Decalogue]]. At the eighth commandment Titus makes his greatest accusation: «They know divine law by heart, / but they always forget about forgiveness». Titus condemns pharisaism, in other words the hypocrisy of those who preach a formal compliance with the law but never exercise mercy. A criticism of religion which does however reveal the search for a true, sincere and believable faith. A search which doesn't reveal itself explicitly in the song, but is surely present in the finale, which sheds a whole new light on the rest of the song. | ||
It is in fact in the finale that the song accomplishes a breakthrough and turns the ballad into a dizzying emotion: in these ten verses about the Ten Commandments, there is a sort of an interruption after the ninth, and even the guitars stop in order to bring our attention to the voice of the songwriter, and as though he were speaking directly to those listening, he hints in this last verse at those two other commandments, the ones that sum up all the others of the old law, to use the words of Jesus. After having spit out all the bitterness within him, Titus looks up, overcoming the weight of his head crushed down to his chest from his torment, and finally looks beyond himself and sees the person next to him, Jesus: «seeing this man as he was dying, / mother, I feel sorrow». Up until that moment he had been an “homo curvatus” to use the expression of Saint Augustine, he had been closed in on himself, and now he emerges from his solipsism and opens himself to someone else finding in this other person someone who is similar to him, someone who is in his own condition, and he admits that he feels a sorrow for this man like no other he had ever felt before, having always angrily and arrogantly shut it out. | It is in fact in the finale that the song accomplishes a breakthrough and turns the ballad into a dizzying emotion: in these ten verses about the Ten Commandments, there is a sort of an interruption after the ninth, and even the guitars stop in order to bring our attention to the voice of the songwriter, and as though he were speaking directly to those listening, he hints in this last verse at those two other commandments, the ones that sum up all the others of the old law, to use the words of Jesus. After having spit out all the bitterness within him, Titus looks up, overcoming the weight of his head crushed down to his chest from his torment, and finally looks beyond himself and sees the person next to him, Jesus: «seeing this man as he was dying, / mother, I feel sorrow». Up until that moment he had been an “homo curvatus” to use the expression of Saint Augustine, he had been closed in on himself, and now he emerges from his solipsism and opens himself to someone else finding in this other person someone who is similar to him, someone who is in his own condition, and he admits that he feels a sorrow for this man like no other he had ever felt before, having always angrily and arrogantly shut it out. | ||
Titus feels compassion, in that moment he discovers his humanity and he discovers that he is alive. He is “born” in that precise moment in time, after an existence that only apparently could be called “life”. His hardness of heart starts to melt and slide away. There on the cross he starts to understand that the secret of a truly human living is in that mysterious thing called love, which he hadn't understood until that moment («perhaps I exchanged pleasure for love» he sang in the sixth verse). The last verse quite clearly redeems his bitter scale in a definitive manner: «In that compassion that gives not way to spite, / mother, I learned love». And perhaps it's not just pure chance that he repeats exactly two times the word “mother” (is it Titus' mother, or perhaps [[w:Mary, Mother of Jesus|Mary]]?), a mother who thus becomes a ray of light in the midst of the darkness of [[w:Golgotha|Golgotha]]. From there Titus, though he is dying, has a chance to start over again, because «There is no life that hasn't at least for a moment been immortal. Death is always a little bit later than that moment» (W. Szymborska).<ref>{{Cite news|title=Misericordia e riscatto| | Titus feels compassion, in that moment he discovers his humanity and he discovers that he is alive. He is “born” in that precise moment in time, after an existence that only apparently could be called “life”. His hardness of heart starts to melt and slide away. There on the cross he starts to understand that the secret of a truly human living is in that mysterious thing called love, which he hadn't understood until that moment («perhaps I exchanged pleasure for love» he sang in the sixth verse). The last verse quite clearly redeems his bitter scale in a definitive manner: «In that compassion that gives not way to spite, / mother, I learned love». And perhaps it's not just pure chance that he repeats exactly two times the word “mother” (is it Titus' mother, or perhaps [[w:Mary, Mother of Jesus|Mary]]?), a mother who thus becomes a ray of light in the midst of the darkness of [[w:Golgotha|Golgotha]]. From there Titus, though he is dying, has a chance to start over again, because «There is no life that hasn't at least for a moment been immortal. Death is always a little bit later than that moment» (W. Szymborska).<ref>{{Cite news|title=Misericordia e riscatto|last=Monda|first=Andrea|work=L'Osservatore Romano|date=2020-04-10}}</ref> | ||
==="Laudate hominem"=== | ==="Laudate hominem"=== | ||