Modica is the birthplace of Salvatore Quasimodo, Nobel Prize laureate for Literature in 1959, one of the greatest Italian poets of the 20th century. At Via Posterla 84, below the Clock Tower, the house where he was born is now a museum that recounts the poet's life and work.
Salvatore Giuseppe Virginio Francesco Paolo Quasimodo was born in Modica on August 20, 1901, the son of Gaetano Quasimodo, a railway station master, and Clotilde Ragusa. His father was on duty at the Modica station at the time of his birth. A few days later, the family moved to Roccalumera (Messina), Quasimodo's place of origin.
The family followed the father's constant transfers: Roccalumera, Gela, Acquaviva, Trabia. After the devastating Messina earthquake of December 28, 1908, young Salvatore (7 years old) lived with his family in a railway freight car while his father reorganized the station in the destroyed city.
After obtaining his diploma, Quasimodo left Sicily for Rome, where economic precariousness prevented him from completing his university studies. He worked as a shop assistant, an employee at Rinascente (from which he was fired for organizing a strike), and then as a surveyor for the Civil Engineering department in Reggio Calabria. In 1929, at the invitation of his brother-in-law Elio Vittorini, he moved to Florence, where he came into contact with Eugenio Montale and the literary scene.
Quasimodo's most creative phase includes the collections "Acque e terre" (1930), "Oboe sommerso" (1932), and "Ed è subito sera" (1942). In these works, his Sicilian childhood and the figures of distant loved ones are revived, along with the pain of uprooting in the industrial North.
In 1940, he published the famous translation of Greek lyrics, marked by the same feeling of painful detachment. He also contributed to the translation of plays by Molière and Shakespeare. He is considered one of the foremost exponents of Italian Hermeticism.
On December 10, 1959, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in Stockholm. He is one of only six Italian writers to have received this recognition, along with Carducci (1906), Deledda (1926), Pirandello (1934), Montale (1975), and Fo (1997).
Quasimodo died in Naples on June 14, 1968, after a cerebral hemorrhage. He was buried at the Famedio of the Monumental Cemetery in Milan.
The house is located in a panoramic spot in the historic center. The poet was born there and spent the first 14 months of his life. In 1996, his son Alessandro donated his father's personal items to the Sicilian Region, and in 2021, the Region acquired the property to ensure its preservation as a museum.
The museum is divided into four rooms. The bedroom contains an wrought-iron bed, a prie-dieu, a headboard, and early 20th-century furnishings. The Milanese study houses an Olivetti typewriter, a desk, a record collection, and a bookshelf with the poet's works. The reading room is furnished with armchairs for consulting Quasimodo's texts. The multimedia room, inaugurated in 2016, features videos, including a recording of the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm and the poet's voice reciting his poems.
Quasimodo's connection with his birthplace was not straightforward. Once famous, the poet preferred to declare himself a native of Syracuse — at the time, Modica was part of the Province of Syracuse (until 1927). Quasimodo likely felt Syracuse, a city of Magna Graecia, was closer to his poetic world and his mythical connection with classical culture.
Modica, understandably, struggled to recognize a poet who had disowned his origins as an illustrious son. Until 1996, the plaque on his birthplace incorrectly stated "Nobel Prize for Poetry" instead of the correct "Nobel Prize for Literature." Today, the relationship is reconciled: the house-museum is a cultural landmark, and Quasimodo's name is proudly linked to the city.
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