Gino Moliterno. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Italian Culture
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defeats in the local elections of 1993 undermined these efforts. In January 1994, in an
attempted break with the past, the party was ‘re-founded’ as the PPI (Partito Popolare
Italiano—Italian Popular Party), with the support of the Church, expressed in an open
letter from the pope invoking the principle of the ‘political unity of Catholics’. In spite of
this, the move was unsuccessful; the party split and there was a ‘diaspora’ of Catholic
politicians in every direction. Left-wing ex-DC MPs led by Pierre Carniti created a group
of Cristiani Sociali (Social Christians) allied with the PDS, Public Fiori and Antonio
Selva joined the ex-neo-fascist Alleanza Nazionale (see National Alliance), another
group formed the CCD, and only about 30 per cent of the former DC entered the PPI.
Further reading
Allum, P.A. (1994) ‘“From Two into One”, The Faces of The Italian Christian Democratic Party’,
in M.Donovan (ed.), Italy, vol. 1, Alder shot: Ashgate.
Donovan, M. (1994) ‘Democrazia Cristiana: party of government’, in D.Hanley (ed.), Christian
Democracy in Europe: A Comparative Perspective, London: Pinter (probably the best short
account of the ‘DC phenomenon’ in English).
Furlong, P. (1996) ‘Political Catholicism and the Strange Death of the Christian Democrats’, in
S.Gundle and S.Parker (eds), The New Italian Republic: From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to
Berlusconi, London: Routledge (a key text on the collapse of the DC and its ‘regime’).
Leonardi, R. and Wertman, F. (eds) (1989) Christian Democracy in Italy: The Politics of
Domination, Basingstoke: Macmillan (a detailed analysis of the origins and development of the
DC).
Pollard, J. (1996) ‘Italy’, in T.Buchanan and M.Conway (eds), Political Catholicism in Italy, 1918–
1968, Oxford: Oxford University Press (a useful short history of the DC and its precursor the
Partito Popolare, 1919–1926).
Scoppola, P. (1995) ‘The Christian Democrats and the Political Crisis’, Modern Italy 1 (1):18–29
(an interesting overview of the history of the DC by a Catholic academic who was briefly one of
its senators).
JOHN POLLARD
De Andrè, Fabrizio
b. 18 February 1940, Genoa; d. 11 January 1999, Milan
Singer-songwriter
One of the most popular and highly-respected singer-songwriters of the first-generation
(see cantautori), De Andrè abandoned a comfortable middle-class background and an
almost-completed degree in Law in order to pursue a passion for music and poetry.
Fascinated by anarchist thinkers like Bakunin, he also came to be influenced by the
French chansonnier tradition and his lyrics often incorporated numerous poetic allusions
ranging from medieval poets like Cecco Angiolieri and Francois Villon to moderns like
Edgar Lee Masters.
Entries A–Z 221
Although he had already established a presence on the popular music scene with a
number of singles in the late 1950s, De Andrè’s success really began in 1968 when Mina
recorded his charming fable, La Canzone di Marinella (Marinella’s Song) and it became
a runaway bestseller. The strong and genuine social commitment expressed in so many of
his compositions aligned him quite naturally with the social protests of 1968 and he soon
became one of the leading voices of the student movement. His popularity continued to
increase throughout the 1970s during which time he produced many innovative albums
whose songs were united by a central theme.
At the height of his success and following the birth of his second child he retired to
live and work on a property he had bought in Sardinia. However in August 1979 he and
his wife were kidnapped by a local gang and held for ransom for four months before
being eventually released unharmed. Characteristically, the experience prompted no
recriminations on his part but rather an album of songs about Sardinia and its problems.
This was followed in 1984 by what many critics judged one of his very best albums,
Creuza de ma (Muletrack by the Sea), composed and sung in the Genoese dialect.
After several years of relative silence in the early 1990s De Andrè returned to
prominence in 1996 with Anime Salve, a bestselling album which again united the critics
in praise. In the same year, together with Alessandro Gennari, he also co-authored a
novel Un destino ridicolo (1996, A Ridiculous Destiny). He was still writing and
performing and on the crest of popularity at the time of his untimely death in early 1999.
Further reading
Meacci, G., Di Roberto, M., Serafini, F. and Vendettuoli, G. (1994) ‘Fabrizio De Andrè’ in La
Lingua Cantata: L’ltaliano nella canzone dagli anni Trenta ad oggi (The Language of Song in
Italy from the Thirties to Today), eds G.Borgna and L.Seriani, Rome: Garamond (an
illuminating and detailed stylistic analysis of the poetic mechanisms of De Andrè’s
compositions).
GINO MOLITERNO
De Benedetti, Carlo
b. 14 November 1934, Turin
Entrepreneur and industrial manager
De Benedetti has always depicted himself as the only Italian practitioner of American-
style capitalism. Since 1976, when he was ousted as managing director of Fiat after only
three months in the position, his aggressiveness and proverbial immodesty have set him
at odds with Cesare Romiti, and later with Enrico Cuccia, who became his fiercest
enemy As head of Olivetti from 1978 to 1996, De Benedetti boasts a few ephemeral
successes but many strategic defeats. In 1981 he unwisely accepted becoming
shareholder and vicechairman of the Banco Ambrosiano, a private bank run by Roberto
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Calvi (a banker linked to the mafia) only to withdraw with a considerable profit two
months later, just before the bank’s bankruptcy, thus provoking a trial and a loss of public
prestige. Declaring himself averse to politics, he nonetheless used his close ties with the
publishing group L’Espresso-La Repubblica to support Ciriaco De Mita, thereby
attracting the enmity of Bettino Craxi. Even his ambition to win international stature for
CIR (the mixed conglomerate he owns) faded after the failure of his hostile takeover bid
for the Société Generate de Belgique in 1988. A controversial performer as an
entrepreneur, De Benedetti has nevertheless succeeded in assembling, dismantling and
trading companies, thus demonstrating his capacities as a financial alchemist.
STEFANO BATTILOSSI
de Berardinis, Leo
b. 3 January 1940, Gioj, Salerno
Actor, playwright and director
Generally regarded as one of the protagonists of the ‘new’ generation of Italian
neoavantgarde theatre, Leo de Berardinis forged a career based on radical and
controversial adaptations of classic texts. In the 1960s he teamed up with Perla Peragallo,
and throughout the 1970s worked on an experimental community theatre project
involving amateur actors in a working-class town near Naples. In the mid-1980s he
worked in Bologna with professional actors on an improvisational and collaborative
approach to Shakespeare. He subsequently established his own company and continued
the line of experimental exploration that characterized his entire career, using classical
texts and improvisation to explore form and meaning in the theatre, both through
collaborative projects with other actors and as a solo performer. His unswerving
dedication to research into performance and its potential for self-knowledge mark him as
an outstanding representative of the Italian theatre tradition of the actor-author-director.
See also: theatre directors
Further reading
De Marinis, M. (1991) ‘From Shakespeare to Shakespeare: the Theatre Transcended’, New Theatre
Quarterly 7:49–63 (an informative interview with Leo de Berardinis).
TIM FITZPATRICK
Entries A–Z 223
De Carlo, Andrea
b. 11 December 1952, Milan
Novelist, scriptwriter and director
After travelling in Australia and the United States and working as a waiter, musician,
teacher and photographer, De Carlo devoted himself to literature and cinema. He
published critically acclaimed novels, amongst them Treno di panna (Train of Cream)
(1981)—prefaced by Italo Calvino and later made into a movie by the author himself—
and also worked as assistant to Federico Fellini in the making of E la nave va (And the
Ship Sails On) (1983). By employing a cinematic narrative technique to express his
characters’ perception of the surface of things, De Carlo represented Italian youth culture
from the 1960s onwards, and its easy manipulation by the media. In later novels such as
Tecniche di seduzione (Techniques of Seduction) (1991) and Uto (1995), there is an
increasing interest in psychological themes and environmental issues to document both
the individual and collective search for social and political identity.
FRANCESCA PARMEGGIANI
De Carlo, Giancarlo
b. 12 December 1919, Genoa
Architect, engineer and urban planner
Although De Carlo’s libertarian socialism has undoubtedly limited his portfolio, his
beliefs have never been compromised by fashion, as witness the consistent stance taken
by his journal Spazio e società and his persistent support for his colleagues in Team X.
Devoted to developing a place for regionalism within the modern movement, he voiced
the need for building rehabilitation already in the 1950s, making this a major
preoccupation of his programme at the International Laboratory of Architecture and
Urban Design. Ideological dissentions caused his ‘noisy’ resignation from Casabella in
1956. De Carlo has had especially close ties with Urbino, having authored its master plan
and having built extensively for the university. His Matteotti quarter in Terni, and later
Mazzorbo housing complex near Venice are examples of the most successful
architectural ‘participatory democracies’. He taught at his alma mater, the IUAV, as well
as at Genoa and in the USA.
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Further reading
Zucchi, B. (1992) Giancarlo De Carlo, Oxford/ Boston: Butterworth Architecture (a thorough
presentation of De Carlo’s credo and projects; includes an interview, biographic and
bibliographic data and a translation of Architecture’s Public’ (1970)).
GORDANA KOSTICH
de Céspedes, Alba Carla Laurita
b. 11 March 1911, Rome; d. 14 November 1997, Paris
Writer
De Céspedes, who began her career as a journalist in the 1930s, became famous in 1938
with Nessuno torna indietro (There is No Turning Back). The book, like her following
novels Dalla parte di lei (The Best of Husbands) (1949), Quaderno proibito (The Secret)
(1952) and Il rimorso (Remorse) (1963), was translated into twenty languages. In
Germanoccupied Italy, de Céspedes crossed the lines into Allied territory to collaborate
with the Bari partizan Radio under the pseudonym of Clorinda, and later founded
Mercurio, the first cultural review to be published in Italy after the war. She was the first
woman to be elected President of the International Council for Literary Authors (CISAC)
and among the first authors to highlight women’s difficult path to economic, legal and
intellectual independence.
Further reading
Carroll, P. (1993) Esperienza e narrazione nella scrittura di Alba de Céspedes (Levels of
Experience and Narrative Form in the Writings of Alba de Céspedes), Ravenna: Longo (a
comprehensive survey of the author’s narrative works).
PIERA CARROLI
de Chirico, Giorgio
b. 10 July 1888, Volos, Greece; d. 20 November 1978, Rome
Painter
Born in Greece to Italian parents, de Chirico succeeded, throughout a long and varied
career, in proving himself possibly the most influential Italian artist of the twentieth
century. His reputation was established by his pittura metafisica (metaphysical painting)
Entries A–Z 225
of 1910–18, depictions of mannequins and threatening shadows in modern city squares.
Unlike most of his contemporaries, who were moving toward abstraction, de Chirico
continued to use figurative elements, combining them in striking ways which drew
attention to the mystery of being. His interest in heightened perceptions and a reality
which lies beyond physical objects made him a crucial model for the surrealists.
Critical and commercial consensus is that de Chirico then suffered a very long period
of decline, when he repeated, plagiarized and even faked his own works. At the same
time he took legal action against art museums which owned earlier versions of his work,
claiming that these apparently genuine examples were forgeries. In his ‘Baroque’ style,
which lasted from the 1930s into the 1960s, there is much evidence of the brushstroke,
tacky mockheroic references to mythology, and extensive white highlighting, giving an
overall feeling of kitsch. Nevertheless, his works from the Fascist period and later
inspired the transavantgarde, who saw his rather idealized realism as a bridge between
traditional and contemporary art. His all-over style, with attention to the spaces as well as
objects, his simple modelling and his use of black outlines reappear in their work.
In the 1960s and 1970s de Chirico returned to the smoother brushwork and bizarre
juxtaposition of elements of his metaphysical style. The Return of Ulysses (1968), for
example, shows an effete hero paddling a small dinghy across his living room floor.
De Chirico’s most timeless feature is irony, amply manifested, for example, in his
1950 advertisement for the Fiat 1400, which displays the car in classical grandeur with a
young god leading a prancing Pegasus. The god is gesturing towards the Fiat as if
pointing out its virtues to his steed, perhaps even suggesting that the automobile will
eventually supplant him. More generally in de Chirico’s work, there is an implied irony
in the perspective used to construct pictorial space, which is intentionally ‘not quite
right’. De Chirico anticipates that, to an eye attuned to Renaissance art, such proportions
will cause unease and discomfort.
De Chirico’s eclecticism and his taste for pastiche and the recycling of styles put him
completely at odds with the modernist notion of the avantgarde in vogue at mid-century,
but it was precisely these elements that made him the outstanding precursor of
postmodernity.
Further reading
Calvesi, M. and Ursino, M. (1996) De Chirico: The New Metaphysics, trans. M.Eaton and F.Lutz,
Rome: Edizioni De Luca/Craftsman House (concentrates on the later work from the 1960s and
1970s, with colour illustrations).
Far, I. (1968) De Chirico, trans. J.Bernstein, New York: H.N.Abrams (substantial illustrations but
basic and uncritical text, by the artist’s wife).
Lista, G. (1991) De Chirico, trans. E.Crockett, Paris: Kazan (small format; deals intelligently with
philosophical underpinnings of works; illustrated).
MAX STAPLES
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De Felice, Renzo
b. 8 April 1929, Rieti; d. 25 May 1996, Rome
Historian
Renzo De Felice’s early academic career as a Marx-inspired historian of late eighteenth-
century Italian revolutionaries offered few hints of the furore he would provoke when he
turned his prodigious research and publication energies to the apparently sympathetic
study of fascism. The appearance of each volume of his magnum opus, an eight-volume
biography of Mussolini inaugurated in 1965 and still unfinished thirty years later, became
the occasion for controversy far beyond university halls. Political opponents accused him
of making Mussolini a progressive figure, inventing a mass consensus for his regime and
diminishing the value of the Resistance; fellow historians deplored his lack of
methodological rigour, conceptual clarity and interpretative perspective. De Felice
retorted that it was time to jettison the ideological straitjacket inhibiting the serious study
of fascism and that his conclusions were directly based on the vast array of hitherto
unknown documents he had unearthed. The bitter dispute was fuelled by often
provocative interviews given in the years of terrorism, when any threat to the historical
and moral distinctions between fascism and anti-fascism had immediate political
reverberations. Beyond the polemics, the significance of De Felice’s work seems more
likely to rest on his accumulation of the documentary evidence necessary to assess
fascism than on his interpretations of the details he uncovered.
See also: historiography
Further reading
De Felice, R. (1977) Interpretations of Fascism, trans. B.H.Everett, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Gentile, E. (1997) ‘Renzo De Felice: A Tribute’, Journal of Contemporary History 32 (2): 139–51
(contains details of his major publications, interviews and historiographical credo).
DAVID MOSS
De Filippo, Eduardo
b. 24 May 1900, Naples; d. 31 October 1984, Rome
Actor, playwright and poet
The son of actor and playwright Eduardo Scarpetta and Luisa De Filippo, Eduardo (as he
came to be affectionately known by public and critics alike) devoted his entire life to the
theatre, which he regarded as the most powerful means to represent the plight of the
Entries A–Z 227
humble individual in a rapidly changing society. Through a large number of plays, which
he wrote, acted and directed for theatre, film and television, Eduardo left his stamp on
Italian culture as one of the greatest playwrights and actors in Italian twentieth-century
theatre.
Eduardo began his theatrical apprenticeship as a child, being assigned a small role in a
play by Scarpetta in 1906, and soon became a seasoned performer. While continuing to
perform and direct in theatre productions, he also wrote short sketches, among them his
first successful one-act play Sik-Sik, l’artefice magico (Sik-Sik, The Magician) (1929). In
1931 he founded the theatre company Teatro Umoristico De Filippo with his brother
Peppino and his sister Titina, mainly proposing a comic repertoire which combined the
farcical characters and vital dialect of the Neapolitan tradition with Luigi Pirandello’s
bourgeois drama.
From the 1940s onwards Eduardo wrote and staged his most famous plays, including
Napoli milionaria! (Millionaire Naples) (1945), Ouesti fantasmi (Oh, These Ghosts!)
(1946), Filumena Marturano (1946), Le voci di dentro (The Inner Voices) (1948), Il
sindaco del Rione Sanità (The Local Authority) (1960), Gli esami non finiscono mai
(Exams Never End) (1973) which were later collected in the three-volume Cantata dei
giorni dispari (Cantata of the Odd Days) (1979). Eduardo’s intense acting, a unique
combination of comic verve and dramatic expressiveness, his ability to charm any
audience, earned him an enthusiastic appreciation both in Italy and abroad. In recognition
of his artistic achievements, the University of Birmingham (1977) and the University of
Rome (1980) awarded him honorary degrees. In Rome he started a drama school and in
1981 was appointed senator for life by President Pertini. Physically frail in the 1980s, he
never-theless continued to teach and to perform until a few months before his death.
Although mostly set in Naples, Eduardo’s plays cross local boundaries to become
emblematic of the human condition. In his drama, he represents the individual’s despair
when forcefully confronted with reality. The characters’ charming candore (innocence),
their anachronistic attachment to noble sentiments and old family values, their
obliviousness to the greed for richness characterising the world they live in, provoke the
audience to hearty laughter which soon turns into the bitter acknowledgement of a tragic
human defeat.
Further reading
Barsotti, A. (1992) Introduzione a Eduardo (Introduction to Eduardo), Rome-Bari: Laterza.
Ciolli, M. (1993) The Theatre of Eduardo De Filippo, New York: Vantage.
Di Franco, F. (1984) Le commedie di Eduardo (Eduardo’s Plays), Rome-Bari: Laterza (an
introductory study of De Filippo’s theatre providing brief analyses of all his plays).
Giammusso, M. (1994) Eduardo: da Napoli al mondo (Eduardo: From Naples to the World),
Milan: Mondadori (a comprehensive survey of all De Filippo’s work, richly illustrated, with
details of all the plays, a filmography and a list of shows and performances abroad).
FRANCESCA PARMEGGIANI
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De Gasperi, Alcide
b. 3 April 1881, Pieve Tesino, Trento; d. August 1954, Sella Valsugana
Politician and prime minister
Born in the Trentino region, part of the AustroHungarian Empire until 1919, De Gasperi
served in the Vienna Parliament as a Christian Social MP from 1911 to 1919, a fact used
against him by the fascists in the early 1920s. After 1919 he became a prominent member
of the Partito Popolare, succeeding Don Luigi Sturzo as leader in 1923. Following the
forced dissolution of the PPI in 1926, he tried to escape Italy but was caught; he was
eventually released on a Vatican guarantee of his good behaviour.
In 1943, De Gasperi set about rebuilding a Catholic party but the newly-formed DC
was more than a mere reconstitution of the PPI, as it came to include younger elements
from the neo-Guelf movement, members of the Resistance and Catholic Action
organizations. Furthermore, from the very beginning De Gasperi faced strong opposition
from the left wing of the party led by Dossetti and La Pira. Nevertheless, in December
1945, De Gasperi became prime minister.
For the next three years, De Gasperi successfully steered the party through difficult
terrain. During the referendum on the monarchy in 1946, he wisely insisted on DC
neutrality. In early 1947 he managed to gain approval from even the communists in the
Constituent Assembly for the inclusion in the new Republican constitution of Article 7
which confirmed the 1929 Lateran Pacts between the Church and Fascism (see church,
state and society). Later in the same year he succeeded in expelling the PCI and PSI
from the government and in the general elections of April 1948, the first under the new
constitution, he led the DC to an overwhelming victory against the Left. In the following
years he continued to follow a political middle way, seeking to minimize the influence of
Vatican by retaining coalitions with small centre parties, despite the DC’s absolute
majority. In 1952, however, he only narrowly escaped Vatican pressure to enter into an
alliance with neo-fascists in the Rome local elections.
De Gasperi’s achievements during the longest premiership in postwar Italian history
were considerable. He presided over the postwar political settlement and Italy’s economic
reconstruction, in the latter case with the assistance of Luigi Einaudi. Aided by Carlo
Sforza, he also had considerable foreign policy successes. He brought Italy out of the
diplomatic isolation caused by the disasters of the Fascist period. The establishment of an
understanding with the USA meant a mitigation of the original terms of the Peace Treaty
of 1947, and eventually saved Trieste from falling into the hands of Tito’s Yugoslavia. In
1949 Italy was firmly aligned with the West by means of entry into NATO, and De
Gasperi had helped lay the foundations of Italy’s participation in European integration.
Nevertheless, his critics have argued that his failures were also considerable. Under
his leadership, the DC failed to carry out the deep economic and social reforms which
Italy needed or to implement much of the 1948 constitution. He also failed to develop the
DC into a mass, organized political party. In 1953 the DC and its allies lost heavily, and
De Gasperi was unable to form a new government. He died a year later.
Entries A–Z 229
Further reading
Ginsborg, P. (1990) A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics 1943–1988, London:
Penguin (chaps 3, 4 and 5).
Scoppola, P. (1977) La proposta politica di De Gasperi (The Political Proposal of De Gasperi),
Bologna: Il Mulino (a comprehensive analysis of De Gasperi’s historical role).
JOHN POLLARD
De Maria, Nicola
b. 6 September 1954, Foglianise, Campania
Painter
Born in Southern Italy, De Maria has lived and worked in Turin since the age of twelve.
He participated in his first group exhibition in 1973 (Turin, Galleria Il Punto). In 1975 he
had his first one-man show (in Naples and Genoa), and in the 1980s he was associated
with the Transavanguardia group. His paintings, on canvas, paper and velvet, are
extremely colourful and lyrical, incorporating symbolic writing that enhances their poetic
effect. Some are highly abstracted (for example, Song of Heavenly Sea, 1990), while
others are more obviously figurative but imbued with a strong metaphorical significance
(such as the Slaughter-House Poetry, 1980–1). Although much of his work is small-scale,
he was also asked to decorate whole rooms of the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum in Krefeld
(1983), and the Castello Rivoli in Turin (1985) where some of his paintings were hung.
Further reading
Bonito Oliva, A. (1982) Transavantgarde International, Milan: Giancarlo Politi (especially pp. 94–
8).
De Maria, N. (1992) Musica del mare (Music of the Sea), introduction by G.Raillard, Paris: Gal.
Lelong (exhibition catalogue representative of his later work).
OLIVIA DAWSON
De Martino, Ernesto
b. 1908, Naples; d. 1965, Rome
Ethnologist
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