Miquel Costa i Llobera

Born in the Majorcan town of Pollença, Spain, in 1854, he was the son of a family of rural owners and was orphaned as a mother at the age of eleven. He grew up very influenced by his uncle, a medical doctor in Pollença, who introduced him to the local landscape and the interest in the classical literature.

He was a disciple of the writer Josep Lluís Pons i Gallarza, and studied in Barcelona, where he met Antoni Rubió i Lluch. In 1874 he won an award at the Floral Games.[1] He cultivated, in a first stage, romantic poetry, which he developed in the volume Poetry (1885) and in his best-known poem, Lo pi de Formentor (1875), an ode to a pine tree of Formentor, which inspired artists such as Joan Miró[2] or Anglada Camarasa.[3]

He devoted much time in reading the classics, especially Horace and Virgil. In 1906 he published his most important collection of poems, named Horacianes as a tribute to Horace. The same year, he gave the inaugural address of the Barcelona Floral Games and participated in the International Congress of the Catalan Language. In 1907 he published Poesies, a revisited edition of the work he had already published in 1885.

Later in 1907, the author, accompanied by other Majorcans such as Maria Antonia Salvá, began a pilgrimage through the Middle East, which ended in Palestine and the Holy Land. Costa i Llobera kept a diary of the trip, captured in the book Visions de Palestina (1908). Thereby the poet expressed the sensations and impressions that the sacred sites produced on him. The same year, Costa i Llobera gave the inaugural address of the Jocs Florals of Girona.

He died in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, in 1922.

Pollença, house of Costa i Llobera

• Poesies (1885), which includes the famous poem The Pine Tree of Formentor.
• De l'agre de la terra (1897)
• Tradicions i fantasies (1903)
• Horacianes (1906)
• Visions de Palestina (1908)
• Sermons panegírics (1916)

Translations:

• Himnes de Prudenci

• Miquel Costa i Llobera - UOC site