One of our Palladian E-Bikes is called Silvia.
A name already dear to the ancient Romans: Virgil in his Aeneid calls Silvia the sister of Almone who, together with her brother, tames a deer. Silvia is the fictional object of Giacomo Leopardi's love, who dedicates poignant and delicate verses to her.
But Silvia is also a Nymph, one of the protagonists of the story Aminta, by Torquato Tasso. The pastoral fable was a success in the main courts of Italy in the late 1500s, but the first performance took place in Ferrara.
The plot revolves around the unrequited longing of the young shepherd Aminta for the beautiful nymph. He devises a plan to make himself attractive in the eyes of the girl, saving her during an attack by a satyr who had seen her alone at a spring while she was bathing. However, the nymph runs away ungrateful towards Aminta who, later convinced of her death, decides to throw himself off a cliff for the pain of having lost her forever.
It is here that the happy ending advances, because Silvia, knowing of the death of the shepherd and never really dead, reaches him at the bottom of the cliff crying next to his helpless body. Aminta, a survivor of the fall, wakes up and seeing her at his side regains consciousness and the two are finally free to love each other.
Tasso is once again faithful to his time, even inserting some figures of the court in the poem and paying homage to the bucolic life and in contact with the simplicity of nature so coveted, not at all scratching the serious intent of the author, who composes a work of entertainment, maintaining a deep moral meaning.
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