The Italian word “Gattità”, meaning “essence of a cat,” first entered the Italian language stealthily, in 1981 with these verses by Gianfranco Palmery: “…he targets birds he will never / catch; searches for food, naps, checks / for fleas: nurtures his arduous cat nature.” (Mitologie, Il Labirinto, 1981).
The Treccani Dictionary added the word gattità to its listings in 2014: “Gattità noun. Essence of cats, with the characteristics that are attributed to them such as independence, elegance, mysteriousness…”
In 2025, Il Labirinto published Gattità, an anthology of Palmery’s poems dedicated to cats. On October 22, at the initiative of Congressman Gian Antonio Girelli, Gianfranco Palmery’s Gattità and the Social Dimension of Domestic Felines was presented at the Chamber of Deputies of Italian Parliament. For the occasion Gianfranco Palmery’s widow, Nancy Watkins, was asked to provide insight into the man and cats behind his poetry. She gave the following address:
Gianfranco not only loved cats but also shared some traits with them: curiosity, an incredible capacity for focusing attention and a lack of sense of time. He seemed to belong more in the past or future eras, being concurrently both ahead of his time and more ancient.
How was he ahead of his time? His Italian neologism, “Gattità” (essence of a cat), was created in 1981. To put it mildly, back then there wasn’t the sensitivity toward animals that exists today.
I once remarked, “You had the fastest horse!”
As often happened, his response was both memorable and hilarious. “No, it’s that my horse was standing still. Therefore, when the others reached the finish line, I was there, waiting for them.”
Are we at the “Gattità” finish line?
You could say that our publishing house, Il Labirinto, was born and grew with “Gattità.” The word appeared in Mitologie (Mythologies), our very first title, and was in the opening poem of Gatti e prodigi (Cats and Wonders), a key book for us and a bestseller for 30 years. When Edoardo Ferri proposed an anthology of all of Gianfranco’s poems dedicated to cats to be entitled Gattità, I immediately embraced his wonderful idea with great enthusiasm.
Every cat has its own unique personality but there’s a certain type of cat that looks at you and sees right through you. He’s understood everything; you can’t hide anything. Gianfranco was that kind of cat. He was able to penetrate people, poetry and art at a molecular level. He would read a poem and immediately know its influences, its music and whether it brought something new and valuable. The same went for art. Entering an artist’s studio, he’d look at the work intently and then make a comment. The artist’s eyes would widen, “Absolutely true, but no one has ever noticed!” With people it was more complicated. He was generous and kind but not everyone appreciates being seen for who they truly are.
Gianfranco formed a particularly intense relationship with a ginger rescue cat that came into our lives as a kitten. In the days when the kitten was being given a name, he was intent on understanding what a mirror was and so earned the name Narciso (Narcissus). The poem “Il demonio infelice” (The Unhappy Demon) follows Narciso in his daily life. “I sogni dei gatti” (Cat’s Dreams) instead observes him while he sleeps and speculates on what he is dreaming and feeling from the movements of his eyelids and paws.
The close relationship with Narciso was mutual. I’m American and we sometimes went on long trips to the US. Our four cats were always left at home with a trusted person. Not someone who just came to feed them but someone who actually moved in with us. One time the cat sitter immediately called us to tell us that while the female cats were all fine, Narciso had inexplicably gone crazy. A few days later she said he’d calmed down – too much. After a month’s stay, we returned and found our big beautiful red cat unrecognizable: skinny, gaunt, his fur ashen. He had almost died of despair and was too weak to get up. Held in our arms and hand-fed morsels, he slowly completely recovered and lived another seven years. Before other trips we were careful to explain to Narciso, that yes, we were leaving but that we would be back.
Unfortunately, cats don’t live forever. When Narciso died, it was Gianfranco who risked dying of sadness. He would have done anything to bring him back.
After a year of mourning he decided it was time to get a kitten and he and the cat “opened a precarious little paradise,” that lasted sixteen years, as his verse recites. His ferociously lively muse was an endless source of joy, celebrated throughout their relationship. He dedicated an entire book to her, Profilo di gatta (Profile of a Cat), with not only poems but also drawings.
I think that anyone lucky enough to live with a cat will be able to recognize their own cat in Gianfranco’s verse and also understand at a deeper level what a cat is as well as the cat-human relationship. I also believe that even for people who don’t particularly like cats something changes when they read his poems. At the very least, they have to recognize that cats are beings deserving of respect.
In what way was Gianfranco from a past era? He wasn’t interested in appearances for the sake of appearances, in doing things with haste, or in easy effects. Instead he wanted to reach out and touch the eternal, the absolute. To achieve this he was willing to work tirelessly, often without even recognition for the work done.
As an example, when he founded Arsenale Magazine with other writers, he wrote a magnificent editorial without putting his name on it. Creating a magazine like Arsenale requires hard work, both by the editorial group as well as by others outside the staff. Gianfranco was the central figure, the key person, for Arsenale. He was capable not only of theorizing what was ideally essential for a magazine but also, with his expansive knowledge, his critical sense, his keen curiosity, and his determination, was able to translate that ideal into reality. Every text submitted to the magazine, and later to the publishing house, was edited by him word for word, line by line. He created titles, resolved problems in translations, rewrote notes, and then generously published the results under the signatures of others. Speaking of the magazine, he offered a definition that also perfectly fits himself:
“What gives a magazine its magnetic, polarizing power? Having a prior purpose: being a space of spiritual resonance, rather than a deposit for the concretization of various texts; being timely, yet far from the sirens of current events.”
Gianfranco’s papers, housed in the Manuscript Center at the University of Pavia, are rich in inspiration. They range from his original notes, organized by book, essay and article, to limited edition books, manuscripts by other authors with his annotations, not to mention his phenomenal collection of books of contemporary poetry. Today with us, Dr. Trotta, archivist of the Manuscript Center, did the remarkable job of cataloging the contents of no less than 26 boxes!
The Arsenale archives in Pavia contain the complete manuscript collection of everything published in the magazine. This includes well-known poets such as Caproni, Luzi, and Bertolucci, novelists such as Carver, Consolo, and Bonanni, essayists including Quinzio, Agamben, and Baldacci, along with translations and many other authors, often at their first publication, who have now become the well known names. In its twelve issues, Arsenale published works by 145 writers and 35 artists, for a total of 870 pages.
The archive also contains curiosities. There is a handwritten note with a list of twenty poets suggested for Arsenale by Joseph Brodsky, then a recent Nobel Prize winner. Three from the list, at the time almost unknown in Italy, would go on to win the Nobel Prize. Carlo Pulsoni wrote about the list for Treccani.
Shelley said that poets are “the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Is there any truth to this? I think so. For the last few years I’ve lived on Sanibel, an island city in Florida. Despite the more than three million cars that cross the causeway every year, you’ll find throngs of birds, butterflies and alligators. Sea turtles lay their eggs on its pristine beaches. Fifty years ago the island was in danger of becoming developed like Miami. It wasn’t simple, but thanks to the vision of artists, the sensitivity of those who love and respect nature, combined with the practicality and savoir-faire of politicians and a comprehensive book of regulations, a sanctuary where wild animals and humans coexist was created.
I hope for an equally happy coexistence with all the beloved felines in our homes.
****
Two poems by Gianfranco Palmery (Translations by Barbara Carle)
We will open a little precarious
paradise, set up with daily
joys: games, sleep
on my knees and the ritual
twists and turns around the burners,
bowls never punctual: enough
with the hell, the unwell and the bazaar
of all the devilries which have been
my poetry: all black you will dominate
the whiteness of paper, and my hand
will track you content, make a fine
impression: a profile of a cat
***
You are a compendium of nature, my living
documentary, domestic zoo, archive
of a National Geographic which I write
and illustrate only with you, swift serpent
of Aesculapius, black squirrel, black
foxling, flying monkey, Abyssinian
panther, who flashes light and darkness
in corners, you pounce on tables, bounce
against walls, on hind legs, little periscopic
head, you lift yourself to scrutinize
dangers, then leaping you flee and run fly
on closets and doors and perched
up high you study the prey that you eyed
Bibliography
Enrico Pulsoni intervista Nancy Watkins
Enrico Pulsoni interviews Nancy Watkins
Lo “Speciale” Treccani per Gianfranco Palmery
Il canone inedito della poesia secondo Brodskij
Palmery, Gianfranco / ArchiVista
Silverio Novelli sulla Gattità:
L'autore
- Nata a Chicago, Nancy Watkins vive a Roma dal 1978. È un’artista. Ha esposto in molte gallerie e musei in Europa e negli Stati Uniti e la sua opera è apparsa in decine di libri e copertine di riviste. È stata l’Art Editor di “Arsenale” e è autrice di quattro libri: Autoritratti senza lo specchio, The Poet’s Room, Il fiore è un’idea e Visionary Flowers. È la vedova di Gianfranco Palmery.
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