Gino Moliterno. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Italian Culture
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also the railway system and ports) is still badly needed in order to avoid serious
economic shortcomings in the future.
See also: tourism
STEFANO BATTILOSSI
avantgarde theatre
The immediate postwar era opened the Italian stage to works of American realism,
Brechtian epic theatre and French absurdist drama previously banned under Fascism.
American realism informs the early wordy drama of writers such as Giuseppe Patroni
Griffi and Natalia Ginzburg, while Giorgio Strehler disseminated Brecht’s politically
conscious theatre throughout Italy from his Piccolo Teatro in Milan. With its own roots in
the theatre of Luigi Pirandello, French absurdism in turn influenced the dramatic output
of Dino Buzzati, Mario Fratti and Enzo Siciliano, while French absurdism itself found a
precarious haven for production within Italy with the opening of Aldo Trionfo’s theatre
La Borsa di Arlecchino (Arlecchino’s Bag) in Genoa in 1957.
Trionfo, Carmelo Bene and Luca Ronconi approached dramatic texts critically, each
developing different strategies in order to expose and undermine the bourgeois
ideological assumptions of the traditional repertoire. Texts were contaminated by
extraneous and dialectical elements which allowed their context to be both read and
critically deconstructed. Trionfo subjected works of French absurdism to a process of
parody and pastiche, peppering them with gags, poems, songs, sketches and striptease in
the cabaret tradition. Following the theories of Edoardo Sanguineti and the Gruppo 63,
Ronconi sought to sabotage plays at the metalinguistic level by denaturalizing their
language. Ronconi established his reputation with a theatrical production of Ariosto’s
epic Orlando Furioso performed at the Spoleto Festival in 1969 by staging different
parts of the poem concurrently on separate wagons, thus forcing the audience to choose
which portion they wished to follow. Ronconi extended Brechtian dramaturgy by
emphasizing an episodic vertical structure over a linear dramatic one, and Brechtian
alienation by having his actors serve simultaneously both as narrators and protagonists of
the action. In 1977 Ronconi set up his Prato Theatre Workshop, where he has continued
his experiments with both new and traditional texts. Bene attacked canonized texts by
paring them down in a minimalist manner to what he deemed their ideological bare
essentials. He furthered Brechtian estrangement by his use of intrusive dialectical
soundtracks, the alienation of the actor’s voice, and his evasion of empathetic
interpretations and performance techniques.
Italian performance groups of the late 1960s and early 1970s sought to combine the
experimentation of their futurist heritage with leftist revolutionary politics, but the
utilization of dramatic texts for bringing about sociopolitical transformation bowed to
much more aesthetic concerns in the work of Giuliano Vasilicò and Memè Perlini. Based
at Teatro Beat ‘72 in Rome, Vasilicò deployed a parade of theatre pictures, tableaux
vivants, slow repetitive movements, suggestive sounds and brief snatches of dialogue to
evoke the consciousness of each of his chosen protagonists of different works, namely
Entries A–Z 61
Marcel Proust, the Marquise de Sade and Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Vasilicò left sense
perception unmediated by intellectual explanation, so that the audience was left to
actively interpret the performances in the manner of ‘open works’ (see Umberto Eco).
Perlini’s Pirandello, chi? (Pirandello, Who?) catapulted him to prominence in 1973.
Using only fragments of dialogue from Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore (Six Characters
in Search of an Author), the piece was an exercise in the intersection of choreographed
movements with highly calculated lighting techniques used to decompose and recompose
theatrical space and spatial relationships. Perlini’s later work continued this preference
for spectacle over representation. Postmodern performance groups of the late 1970s and
1980s, such as La Gaia Scienza in Rome and Il Carrozzone in Florence (see Magazzini
Criminali), expanded upon the work of Vasilicò and Perlini by focusing on the semiotics
of theatrical language in a more analytical manner. Together with groups such as Falso
Movimento, Krypton, Stran’amore and Trademark, they rejected literary-dramatic texts
in favor of electronic media, surrealistic imagery, pantomime, music and eventually
computerization.
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s ‘Manifesto for a New Theatre’ (1968) divided postwar Italian
theatre into the Theatre of Chatter and the Theatre of Gesture or Howl. The former
designates the talky realist drawing-room plays favoured by the bourgeois stabili (state-
run theatres), while the latter refers to the tendency of the Italian theatrical avantgarde to
discard the verbal in pursuit of anarchic experimentation emphasizing the visual and
kinetic. In response to this denigration of the verbal, Pasolini proposed his own ‘Theatre
of the Word’ by writing a number of verse dramas between 1968 and 1975. As the plays
both aspire to and, at the same time despair of, political engagement, they risk the
linguistic hermeticism of the dramatic work of Sanguineti. However, the challenge of
Pasolini’s texts provoked innovative and diverse production techniques from such artists
as Vittorio Gassman, Ronconi and Strehler.
In Milan, Dario Fo developed a comically agitational, politically engaged theatre
under his aegis as autocratic nattatore (showman), while his wife Franca Rame created
feminist works whose populist-activist aims corresponded closely to those of her
husband. In Rome, the Teatro della Maddalena served as the primary venue for feminist
theatre during the 1970s and 1980s, providing a forum for the plays of Dacia Maraini.
Maraini’s work ranges from a recurrent preoccupation with the prostitute as icon of
female subjugation in a capitalist society to biting feminist pastiches of works by
Friedrich Schiller and Aeschylus. In a Shavian manner, Maraini deploys wit, dialogue
and reason to expose the absurdity of the presuppositions of a male-biased culture.
Beginning in 1971, the Teatro dell’Elfo in Milan dedicated itself to the representation
and address of youth and urban subcultures. Also in Milan, the Centro Ricerca per il
Teatro (Centre for Theatrical Research) promoted traditional popular forms of theatre
such as mime, ritual, and street performance, and continued to sponsor various
community festivals in accordance with the ideas of Eugenio Barba who, like Pasolini,
sought to avoid the simplistic division of theatre into either institutional or avantgarde
categories. The Piccolo Teatro di Pontedera and the Teatro all’Orologio in Rome also
served as venues for avantgarde theatre, the former mounting innovative productions of
canonized texts, while the latter provided a forum for experimental plays, political satire,
cabaret performance and improvisation.
See also: theatre directors
Encyclopedia of contemporary italian culture 62
Further reading
Kirby, M. (1978) ‘Italian Theatre Issue,’ The Drama Review 22 (1) (a useful ‘special issue’,
contains a number of articles examining both general avantgarde tendencies as well as specific
performers such as Fo, Perlini, Vasilicò, Gaia Scienza and others).
Ponte di Pino, O. (1988) Il nuovo teatro italiano 1975–1988 (The New Italian Theatre 1975–1988),
Milan: Usher (a rich compilation of material, photographs, interviews and exhaustive
performance lists of all the major protagonists of avantgarde and postmodern theatre from the
mid-1970s to the late 1980s).
Quadri, F. (ed.) (1977) L’avanguardia teatrale in Italia (The Theatrical Avantgarde in Italy), 2
vols, Turin: Einaudi (a comprehensive survey of the theatrical avantgarde movement which
includes essays as well as manifestos and materials).
WILLIAM VAN WATSON
Avati, Giuseppe (Pupi)
b. 3 November 1938, Bologna
Film director
Avati belongs to that generation of the New Italian Cinema that in the 1970s began a
search for new ways to represent the emerging multiple identities in contemporary Italy
while not rejecting the need for a memory of the past that could be a bridge to the future.
After numerous failed attempts to get a university degree of some sort, Avati followed his
passion for music and travelled all over Europe playing clarinet with the Reno-Jazz Band.
In the late 1960s he began directing, and then produced a long and unending cinematic
tale of the provinces in his region, Emilia-Romagna, characterized by jazzy tempos as
well as by an often oneiric and mythic dimension. His most impressive films to date are
Aiutami a sognare (Help Me to Dream) (1981), Regalo di Natale (Christmas Present)
(1986) and Storie di ragazzi e ragazze (Stories of Boys and Girls) (1989).
MANUELA MANUELA GIERI
Aymonino, Carlo
b. 18 July 1926, Rome
Architect, educator and theoretician
Co-founder of Studio AYDE (1960), Aymonino taught at the University of Rome from
1963 and then at Venice, where he was Dean of Architecture from 1973–79. A member
of the editorial board of Casabella-Continuità from 1959, he has focused, both in his
projects and his theoretical writings, on the relationship between architecture and town
Entries A–Z 63
planning. As a member of the Associazione per l’Architettura Organica (Association for
Organic Architecture), he worked on housing projects for INA-Casa, first with Mario
Ridolfi and Ludovico Quaroni on the Tiburtino development, and later in Matera,
Foggia and Brindisi. His building opus is large and diverse. He is also a prolific author
with publications ranging from architectural monographs and studies of building
typology to a comparison of nineteenth-century Paris and Vienna and a discussion of the
‘Utopia of Reality’.
Further reading
Carlo Aymonino (1996), London: Academy Editions (well illustrated and referenced review of his
whole work).
GORDANA KOSTICH
Azimut and Azimuth
Azimut, the Italian word for ‘azimuth’, meaning ‘the arc of the horizon’, was the name
given by Enrico Castellani and Piero Manzoni to a gallery they founded in Milan in
1960, which played a key part in showing contemporary art. It held an important
exhibition devoted to Lucio Fontana, whose work had been strangely overlooked, and
hosted path-breaking work by Manzoni, such as his Lines, Breath of the Artist and Living
Statues. It also opened its doors to new work from Klein, Mack, Holweck and other
Europeans who, instead of the label ‘painters’, prefered to think of themselves as ‘artists’
for whom performances too were works. Azimuth was the name of the review, of which
there were only three issues: the first was largely historical in content, the second
included pieces by Manzoni and Castellani, and the third was a Fiat 500, considered
equally useful as a vehicle for contacting contemporary artists. The short-lived-ness of
the experience belied its significance for the invention of a new artistic language.
ROBERT LUMLEY
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B
Baget Bozzo, Gianni
b. 8 March 1925, Savona
Priest, author, journalist and politician
After graduating from the Gregorian University, Bozzo was ordained in 1949. A
contributor to various newspapers, including La Repubblica, he is also author of several
books, amongst them Il Partito cristiano al potere: il DC di De Gasperi e Dossetti,
1945–54 (The Christian Party in Power: the DC of De Gasperi and Dossetti, 1945–54)
(1974), and I cattolici e la letter a di Berlinguer (Catholics and Berlinguer’s Letter)
(1978). In 1983, with Giovanni Tanassini, he co-authored Aldo Moro: il politico nella
crisi 1962–1973 (Aldo Moro: A Politician in Crisis 1962–1973). During the early 1970s
Baget Bozzo had been moving closer to the Socialist Party (PSI) and eventually became
a strong supporter of Bettino Craxi. He was suspended a divinis from the priesthood after
his election as a Euro MP in 1984. In 1993 he transferred his allegiance to Silvio
Berlusconi, and has since remained one of his counsellors and speechwriters. He was
readmitted to the priesthood after leaving the European Parliament in 1994.
JOHN POLLARD
Baj, Enrico
b. 31 October 1924, Milan
Artist
After a period in the abstract vanguard of the 1950s, Baj developed a strong figurative,
satirical vein. His Generate (General) of 1961 pokes fun at a fat, pompous military
leader, in the spirit of Dada collage. His style is kitsch, as he readily admits, but he argues
this is an effective mode for serious themes, from nuclear holocaust to the population
explosion. His painted figures are cartoonish, adorned with stuck-on pieces of cloth,
sequinned patches, tassels, braid and costume jewellery. In the 1960s he used meccano to
construct humorous, life-size figures, later returning to this material for a series of
Entries A–Z 65
marionettes for a production of Alfred Jarry’s play, Ubu Roi. While not always
appreciated by the critics, Baj has achieved a financial success which suggests that,
ironically, his social satire has found a broad acceptance and wide appeal.
MAX STAPLES
Balestrini, Nanni
b. 2 July 1935, Milan
Poet, writer and political activist
Like most writers who became active in the late 1950s, Balestrini reconciled his poetic
vocation with cultural engagement by contributing to journals and newspapers and
working as an editor for Feltrinelli. His poetry, first launched by Alfredo Giuliani’s
anthology I novissimi, is highly representative of the iconoclastic mood of the
neoavantgarde movement. Rejecting traditional poetry, Balestrini utilized a language
drawn mainly from newspapers to turn poetry into a nonsensical accumulation of words
or the simple juxtaposition of statements.
In the late 1960s he founded the extreme-left group Potere Operaio but subsequently,
charged with participation in armed violence, he left Italy until charges were dropped in
1985. The novels he produced in the 1970s—transcriptions of taperecorded speeches and
articles obtained from the official and the underground press—proved both his continuing
political engagement and his strong commitment to faithfully documenting Italy’s social
reality of that period. In the 1987 novel Gli invisibili (The Unseen), Balestrini
reconsidered the political and intellectual activism of the 1960s and 1970s and finally
discussed the reasons of its failure.
See also: Gruppo 63; narrative; poetry
FRANCESCA PARMEGGIANI
Banca Commerciale Italiana
The Banca Commerciale Italiana (Italian Commercial Bank), established in 1894 as
German-type universal bank, played an important role in promoting Italy’s rapid
industrialization between 1896–1928, soon becoming the leading financial institution of
the country and the most internationally oriented one. It suffered from severe liquidity
problems during the banking crisis of the early 1930s, but was rescued by the state and
put under IRI’s wing in 1934.
From the mid-1930s to the early 1970s, the Banca Commerciale Italiana was led by
Raffaele Mattioli, an extraordinary example of a humanist banker. He upheld the
domestic and international prestige of the bank and its independence from the state, even
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though its market share was shrinking. Formally forbidden by law to engage in industrial
banking, Banca Commerciale was nevertheless able to long maintain its leadership as
provider of credit and financial services to the largest Italian corporations. It was
privatized in 1994.
See also: banking and credit system
GIANNI TONIOLO
Banca d’Italia
The Banca d’ Italia (Bank of Italy) is Italy’s central bank. It was established in 1893 from
the amalgamation of four previously existing banks of issue, and was granted the
monopoly of bank note issue in 1926, together with supervisory powers over the banking
system. Such powers were extended and made more effective by the Banking Act of
1936. After the Second World War, while monetary policy rested formally in the hands
of the Treasury, the Banca d’Italia enjoyed a broad de facto independence based upon its
prestige and technical skills, thereby playing a most substantial role in shaping Italy’s
economic policy.
The Banca d’Italia is headed by the governor, appointed for life by the government,
and is assisted by a Direttorio (Directorate) made up of the general director and the two
vice-general directors. A Consiglio Superiore (Board of Administration) makes the main
administrative decisions but has no power over monetary and supervisory policies. The
budget of the Bank is approved by its shareholders (public-owned banks and financial
institutions) at their annual assembly. In opening the latter, the governor traditionally
reads his Considerazioni finali, a most influential assessment of the country’s economic
conditions and policies.
The first postwar governor was Luigi Einaudi (1945–7) who later became President
of the Republic. He and his successor, Donato Menichella (1947–60), successfully
fought runaway inflation and stabilized the exchange rate in 1947–8. Menichella
consistently pursued monetary stability during the 1950s and established full
convertibility of the lira by the end of the decade. The next governors were Guido Carli
(1960–75), Paolo Baffi (1975–80) and Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (1980–92). The current
governor is Antonio Fazio.
During the 1970s the Banca d’Italia had no choice but to accommodate an increasing
demand for money made by the successive governments in times of social unrest and
outright terrorism. This resulted in double-digit inflation. In the years after 1978, when
the decision was made to join the European Monetary System (see European Union), the
Banca d’Italia played a crucial role both in controlling inflation—brought down to record
low levels by 1996–7—and in pushing for more competition in the banking system. In
1981 a measure was passed freeing the Banca d’Italia from the obligation of buying
government securities that remained unsold at auctions. This measure—nicknamed ‘the
divorce’—was a first step made towards granting the Bank formal independence from the
government. The second major step in the same direction was taken ten years later in
January 1992 when an Act of Parliament was passed granting the Bank, not the Treasury,
Entries A–Z 67
the power to set the official discount rate; in November of the same year, compulsory
lending by the Bank to the government was abolished. The existing legislation thus gave
the Banca d’Italia the degree of de jure independence required by the Maastricht Treaty.
Due to the stature of its governors and top managers, and to the high technical profile
of its staff, the Bank has traditionally played a major role in economic policy making
both directly in managing monetary policy and indirectly in providing advice and
technical support to several branches of the administration. Its national standing was
highlighted when, after the collapse of the party system in the early 1990s, so-called
‘technical governments’ were formed first by Ciampi (a governor of the Bank) and then
by Lamberto Dini (who had been Ciampi’s deputy at the Bank).
See also: banking and credit system
GIANNI TONIOLO
Banfi, Antonio
b. 30 September 1886, Vicamerate; d. 20 July 1957, Milan
Philosopher
After graduating from Milan in 1910, Banfi spent a year studying in Berlin, and enjoyed
a close relationship with Georg Simmel. He was thus heavily influenced by German
philosophy, particularly Husserl, though Husserl’s appeal to the originary evidence of
self-consciousness appeared to Banfi to anchor reason in a moment of intuition, and
hence dogmatism. Banfi perceived the negative results of this unreasoned moment
particularly in the works of Heidegger and Max Scheler. In 1940, Banfi founded Studi
Filosofici, a journal that became an important forum for debates on existentialism.
Although long nurturing socialist sympathies, Banfi became a Marxist during the Second
World War through participation in the Resistance with the PCI. After the war, he
remained in the party and contributed to L’Unità. These commitments led him to see
personhood not as a self-sufficient state, but rather as the product of the individual’s
enmeshment in the social responsibilities of humanity as a whole.
Further reading
Erbetta, A. (1978) L’umanesimo critico di Antonio Banfi, (The Critical Humanism of Antonio
Banfi), Milan: Marzorati.
THOMAS KELSO
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banking and credit system
Since the beginning of ‘modern economic growth’ in the nineteenth century, Italy’s
financial system has been heavily ‘bank oriented’. In the absence of well-developed
capital markets (stock exchanges), ‘universal’ (or ‘mixed’) banks typically provided both
long-term and short-term credit as well as investment banking services. During the 1920s,
the largest banks acquired control of an important share of manufacturing and utilities
companies, a situation that led to instability and eventually to a major bank and industrial
crisis during the Great Depression. In the early 1930s the government stepped in to save
the largest banks, an operation that resulted in the state’s control of a huge share of Italy’s
big business, later (1933) put under the aegis of the IRI. The 1936 Banking Act (legge
bancaria) radically altered the existing institutional setting of the banking system by
allowing deposit banks to engage only in short-term lending and limiting the extent to
which they would be allowed to own shares in non-financial companies. At the same
time, between 1936 and 1947 the Banca d’Italia (Bank of Italy) was given extensive
supervisory powers aimed at providing stability and promoting efficiency in the credit
system. In 1947 an amended Banking Act was passed to provide the framework for the
postwar development of Italy’s banking system which continued to the early 1990s.
The banking system that emerged from the banking crisis of the 1930s and the Second
World War was almost entirely owned by the state or other public bodies, in various—
and ingenious—institutional settings for ownership that reflected the history of individual
banks or type of banks. Deposit banks (whose operations were limited by law to short-
term lending) that were owned or controlled by public institutions could be divided into
three broad categories. First, there were the Istituti di credito di diritto pubblico—such as
the Banco di Napoli, the Banco di Sicilia, the Banco di Sardegna, the Banca Nazionale
del Lavoro—all owned directly by the Treasury and/or by regional governments and
enjoying a special legal status. Second, there were the so-called banche di interesse
nazionale (banks of national interest) such as the Banca Commerciale, Credito Italiano
and Banco di Roma that had been acquired by IRI as the result of the banking crisis of
1931 (they retained their previous legal status of public companies and, for long periods
of time, were listed on the Milan stock exchange). Third, there were the Casse di
Risparmio (savings banks), whose origins in some cases dated back to the first part of the
nineteenth century and were controlled by local institutions such as city halls, provincial
governments and chambers of commerce. With some exceptions (the most notable one
being the Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde), savings banks were mostly
medium-sized or small credit institutions deeply rooted in the local economies,
particularly where the latter were dominated by small-size companies.
Among the largest private deposits banks were the Banca Nazionale dell’Agricoltura,
Banca Cattolica del Veneto and the Banco Ambrosiano. Privately owned but heavily
regulated by the state were the co-operative banks (banche popolari and casse rurali e
artigiane), while long-term credit was the business of the so-called Istituti di Credito
Speciale such as IMI, Mediocredito centrale, Crediop and several others. Mediobanca,
Italy’s most important investment bank, had a special role all of its own.
Until the 1920s, the Italian banking system appeared well organized, shaped as it was
in a clearly defined pyramidal fashion with the Bank of Italy at its pinnacle, a few large
Entries A–Z 69
branch banks enjoying a substantial share of the market and a number of medium and
small-sized banks providing for the needs of the local economy. This system was
shattered by the banking crises of the late 1920s (involving a number of regional banks)
and of 1931–34 (involving the largest ones). After the Second World War, no conscious
attempt was made to restore the old pyramidal system: both governments and monetary
authorities favoured the development of local banking (particularly of savings and co-
operative banks) on the one hand and of the special (medium- and long-term) credit
institutions on the other. Italy’s banking system, sheltered from foreign competition,
coped well with the financial needs of the high-growth years (1950–73). From the mid-
1960s onward, however, huge amounts of credit were extended to both public and private
companies investing in capital intensive sectors such as steel-making, heavy engineering
and basic chemicals, particularly in the South. Overinvestment and underestimation of
risk produced a hidden but serious crisis of several special credit institutions during the
1970s when domestic growth slowed.
Some of the largest banks were involved in the industrial restructuring of the late
1970s and early 1980s, and new links were formed between banks and non-financial
companies. At the same time, the increasing globalization of financial markets and the
new drive towards Europe’s single market confronted both monetary authorities and
individual banks with the new reality of international competition. In these
circumstances, the institutional setting created in 1936–47 showed signs of obsolescence
and was slowly reformed: banks were again allowed to be ‘universal’, the savings banks
were transformed into limited liability companies, competition was favoured, and
regulation was scaled down and reformed.
Since the mid-1990s, privatizations, mergers and acquisitions have been slowly but
steadily changing the traditional state-owned and fragmented Italian banking system.
Banca Commerciale and Credito Italiano were the first to be privatized. The Cassa di
Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde, the largest European savings bank merged in 1998
with the largest Italian private bank (Banco Ambroveneto). The Banca Nazionale del
Lavoro and INA (a formerly state-owned insurance company) have taken over the ailing
Banco di Napoli and are planning a merger that will create the largest Italian banking
company. Savings banks are selling their shares to the public as well as proceeding to
mergers and consolidations at regional level.
GIANNI TONIOLO
Barba, Eugenio
b. 1936, Gallipoli
Theatre director
Eugenio Barba ranks as one of the great visionaries of modern theatre and one of the
most inspirational directors of the postwar period. He was deeply indebted to
Stanislavsky and Meyerhold and, in spite of occasional disagreements, had a close
affinity with such other innovators as Jerzy Grotowski. Dissatisfied with traditional
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