Gino Moliterno. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Italian Culture
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network owned by Silvio Berlusconi’s Fininvest corporation. Berlusconi’s network had
emerged through flouting the existing anachronistic legislation which restricted private
broadcasting to the local level. The Mammì law established a minimum of quality
controls to regulate private broadcasting. It established the post of il Garante (the
‘Guarantor’) to keep a register of stations, rule on libel controversies, report to
Parliament, meet with a Viewers’ Advisory Council and set up minimal regulations on
accepted standards of decency in programming and scheduling.
PAUL STATHAM
Leone, Sergio
b. 3 January 1929, Rome; d. 30 April 1989, Rome
Film director and producer
Son of silent film director Roberto Roberti, Leone served his apprenticeship in cinema as
assistant director to De Sica and Mario Bonnard. However, his international renown
derives mostly from his association with the ‘spaghetti western’, a hybrid genre that
developed in the 1960s and which, with its stylized, exaggerated and humorous renditions
of a derelict world ruled by merciless and vindictive outlaws, revolutionized the classical
Western tradition. Leone’s bemusedly self-conscious films are inseparable from the
musical scores of composer Ennio Morricone.
Significantly, Leone’s mastery over the genre is founded on only five Westerns,
though these include the legendary Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (The Good, the Bad and
the Ugly) (1966), and the equally celebrated C’era una volta il west (Once Upon a Time
in the West) (1968) starring Henry Fonda and Claudia Cardinale. With his last film,
C’era una volta in America (Once Upon a Time in America) (1983), starring Robert De
Niro, Leone also demonstrated his command of the epic gangster genre.
Further reading
Bondanella, P. (1994) Italian Cinema, New York: Continuum (see ch. 7: A Fistful of Pasta: Sergio
Leone and the Spaghetti Western’)
DOROTHÉE BONNIGAL
Levi, Carlo
b. 29 November 1902, Turin; d. 4 January 1975, Rome
Entries A–Z 461
Novelist and painter
A medical doctor with a passion and a talent for painting, Levi was also an active anti-
fascist. Tried by the regime in the 1930s, he was sent to a small town in the Southern
region of Lucania (Basilicata) where he remained for some years. The result was a
number of paintings of the South and its people, and also one of the most potent works of
fictional autobiography in Italian literature, Cristo si è fermato a Eboli (Christ Stopped at
Eboli) (1945). The work presents a striking portrait of the misery, poverty and the
atavistic fatalism pervading the southern peasant population, filtered through the
intellectually alert eyes of an educated northerner. The book, moving but not sentimental,
is characterized by a dense narrative and a sharp psychological dissection which does not
spare the pettiness and the provincialism of the local bourgeoisie. The autobiographical
mode also pervades other works by Levi such as L’orologio (The Watch) (1950), Le
parole sono pietre (Words are Stones) (1955) and Tutto il miele è finito (All the Honey is
Finished) (1964).
See also: peasants
PAOLO BARTOLONI
Levi, Primo
b. 31 July 1919, Turin; d. 11 April 1987, Turin
Holocaust survivor, writer and chemist
Primo Levi is best known, and most admired outside Italy, as one of the most powerful
witnesses of the Holocaust, although since his death scholars and readers have become
increasingly conscious of the literary value of his work. His testimony—which begins
with his first book of memoirs, Se questo è un uomo (If This Is a Man) (1947), continues
with La tregua (The Truce) (1963), with stories, poems, essays and lectures, and is finally
summed up in I sommersi e i salvati (The Drowned and the Saved) (1986)—is a lesson in
commitment for the present and the future. Levi stresses that the memory of the death
camps does not belong only to Jews, but to the whole of humankind, and the duty to
remember also involves the duty to think historically, trying to recognize the danger
signals.
Levi’s writings, however, have dimensions and meanings that go beyond the
Holocaust. An industrial chemist who worked in a paint factory for nearly thirty years, he
looked at the cognitive and moral aspects of scientific and technological work,
representing it as an individual testing ground as well as the source of political and moral
conflict. His masterpiece, Il sistema periodico (The Periodic Table) (1975) is a series of
twenty-one stories, mostly autobiographical, each named after one of the chemical
elements in Mendeleev’s table. The stories are narratives dealing with the lessons which
Levi’s autobiographical persona and other characters learn from experiences of direct
contact with an element, and are also interconnections of discourses on history, science
and Jewishness. La chiave a stella (The Wrench) (1978), fourteen stories centred around
the globe-trotting adventures of a Northern Italian industrial fitter, is at once a celebration
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of the challenges of all skilled work, a reflection on the craft of narration and a linguistic
experiment, recreating as it does the Italian of post-Second World War working-class
culture. In the essays collected in L’altrui mestiere (Other People’s Trades) (1985) Levi
consistently, and often humorously, stresses the need for human beings to be ‘curious
about many things’, to keep learning about and from history, science and technology, to
apply this knowledge to their daily experiences and to communicate what they have
learned.
A middle-class, assimilated Jew who was forced to rethink his identity when anti-
Semitic laws were passed in Italy in 1938, Levi discovered the richness of European
Jewish culture in Auschwitz. He subsequently made conscious efforts to retrieve
elements of Jewish tradition and to pass them on to his Gentile readers, in his
autobiographical works, his essays and his one novel, Se non ora, quando? (If Not Now,
When?) (1982), the story of a unit of Eastern European Jews who carry out guerrilla
actions across Nazi-occupied Europe and, at the end of the war, head for Palestine. A
confirmed agnostic, Levi viewed his heritage in a strongly humanist light, emphasizing
above all its love for learning and its principle of solidarity between human beings.
See also: Jewish writers
Further reading
Cicioni, M. (1995) Primo Levi: Bridges of Knowledge, Oxford: Berg (a general introduction to
Levi and his writings for English-speaking readers, with a full bibliography).
MIRNA CICIONI
Levi Montalcini, Rita
b. 22 April 1909, Turin
Neurologist and medical researcher
One of Italy’s few internationally recognized female scientists, Levi Montalcini
graduated in medicine in 1936, going on to specialize in neurology and psychiatry. She
was forced to flee Italy to escape anti-Semitic persecution, but returned after the Second
World War to work as a research assistant at the Institute of Anatomy at Turin
University. In 1947 she moved to America to teach and research at the Washington
University of St. Louis, alternating with periods at the Rio de Janeiro Institute of
Biophysics. She returned to Rome in 1969 to direct research into cellular biology for the
CNR. Her own researches led to the discovery of the NGF (Nerve Growth Factor), for
which she received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1986, sharing it with the American
researcher Stanley Cohen. A respected and much-loved figure in Italy, she has published
a number of divulgative scientific books as well as an autobiography, Elogio
dell’imperfezione (In Praise of Imperfection) and a book of advice for young people
called Il tuo futuro (Your Future) (1993).
Entries A–Z 463
Further reading
Levi Montalcini, R. (1988) In Praise of Imperfection: My Life and Work, trans. L. Attardi, New
York: Basic Books.
GINO MOLITERNO
Levini, Felice
b. 1956, Rome
Painter
Levini was one of the artists represented in the exhibition Nuovi-Nuovi: From Italy to
Canada, which toured North America in 1986–7. Renato Barilli, art critic and art
historian at the University of Bologna, grouped Levini with five other ‘young artists’
under the label Nuovi-Nuovi (New-New) and situated them within the general
phenomenon of postmodernism. In his painting, Levini combines both abstract and
representational elements, juxtaposing imagery derived from the contemporary world
with subject matter from the past. His iconic images are set against abstract and textured
decorative motifs, and he experiments willingly with scale, always aiming at linear
elegance. Levini’s more recent work was celebrated within a retrospective of the Nuovi-
Nuovi held at the Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art at Turin in 1995, beside
work by other Nuovi-Nuovi such as Luigi Ontani and Marcello Jori.
OLIVIA DAWSON
Liala
b. 31 March 1897, Carrate di Lario, Como; d. 15 April 1995, Varese
Novelist
The undisputed queen of Italian light romance, Liala (the pseudonym of Amalia Liana
Cambiasi Negretti Odescalchi) published more than eighty titles during her long life.
After her debut in 1931 with Signorsì (Yessir), her books enjoyed an unbroken popular
success in spite of critical reservations from the literary establishment and even personal
abuse and attack during the years of feminist agitation. Indeed until the 1980s she was the
only Italian writer able to sell one million copies a year. The majority of her narratives
recall, in one form or another, her tragic love for the marquis Vittorio Centurione Scotto,
who died in a hydroplane accident in 1926. While this event is particularly the subject of
Ombre di fiori sul mio cammino (Shadows of Flowers on My Path), it is re-evoked in the
theme of aviation which is the recurrent motif of most of her novels. Indeed, Gabriele
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D’Annunzio created her nom de plume precisely with the intention of ensuring that ala
(wing) would always constitute a part of her name. Untouched and unperturbed by any of
the social changes that swept through Italy in the wake of 1968, she continued to write
light romances which in the 1990s still sold 50,000 copies per year.
VIRGINIA PICCHIETTI
Libera, Adalberto
b. 16 July 1903, Villa Lagerina, Trento; d. 17 March 1963, Rome
Architect
Libera’s career closely followed the most significant social and political changes in
twentieth-century Italy. Originally he designed in a rationalistic style and later in the so-
called monumental idiom favoured by the fascists. In 1927 he joined the so-called
Gruppo Sette (Group Seven), and soon after organized major exhibitions in Rome,
Budapest and Berlin with renowned architects Piccinato and Minnucci.
After 1945 Libera used decoration as an integral part of the architectural object rather
than as mere addition, and his works from this period are manifestly successful in
integrating decorative elements and architectural form.
In 1958, Libera consulted for the commission that evolved the master plan for Rome’s
Olympic Village, and in 1962 he participated in redesigning the university architecture
curriculum, a move which eventually divided the architecture faculties of Rome and
Florence. Libera’s design career culminated in the villa built for author Curzio
Malaparte on the island of Capri, later the stunning setting of Jean-Luc Godard’s film le
Mépris (Contempt) (1963).
Further reading
Garofalo, F. and Veresani, L. (eds) (1992) Adalberto Libera, New York: Princeton Architectural
Press (an illustrated anthology of Libera’s built and unbuilt works, also contains biography,
extensive bibliography and a list of projects and writings).
FASSIL ZEWDOU
Liberal
Founded in March 1995 by Ferdinando Adornato, who continued to be its editor-in-chief
and its principal driving force, the magazine Liberal was born with the declared aim of
instituting an active dialogue between Catholic and lay forces and generally to promote a
Entries A–Z 465
spirit of true political liberalism in the ‘new’ Italy, outside party formations. The
magazine, originally an attractively illustrated large-format monthly, received strong
support and collaboration from many important figures; the first issue, for example, took
on the daunting theme of how to change both the Left and the Right, and also carried a
discussion between the Archbishop of Milan, Carlo Maria Martini, and semiologist
Umberto Eco on the subject of faith and ethics. Through its affiliated Foundation of the
Friends of Liberal, whose members included august financial figures such as Cesare
Romiti, the magazine also promoted intellectual exchange and dialogue through a series
of high-level colloquia and conferences. The magazine was turned into a weekly in
February 1998 and initially sold well, but sales soon declined to around 10,000, raising
fears that despite its undoubted quality, the magazine might not survive into the twenty-
first century.
GINO MOLITERNO
Linus
The first Italian magazine to focus on comics and to upgrade that marginalized medium
to the higher ranks of the artistic avantgarde, Linus first appeared in 1965 and was backed
by intellectuals such as Oreste Del Buono, Umberto Eco, Elio Vittorini and Vittorio
Spinazzola. It was targeted at an educated adult readership who were likely to appreciate
those comic strips which had fascinated them in adolescence. The most famous authors
and characters of international comics were presented in correctly translated versions
which revisited old hits or proposed new ones. Not only did one find Dick Tracy by
Chester Gould, Li’l Abner by Al Capp, Krazy Kat by George Herriman and Popeye by E.
Segar but also Peanuts by Charles. M. Schulz, Pogo by Walt Kelly, The Wizard of Id by
Parker and Hart and Barbarella by Jean Claude Forest. The magazine also hosted many
budding Italian talents among them Renato Calligaro, Guido Crepax, Hugo Pratt, Enzo
Lunari, Altan and Sergio Staino. The choice of Schultz’s peculiar character for the title of
the magazine was highly significant: Linus, the neurotic and complex-riddled kid, thanks
to his intellectual ability, manages to win out over the scheming Lucy and the clumsy
Charlie Brown.
At the outset Linus was an elitist magazine, but its anti-conformist snobbery was to be
accepted and diffused among the masses: its message was fundamentally left-wing. Its
readership grew to include adolescent students, who were especially drawn to Peanuts, a
cult which spread rapidly. Elegantly drawn in a sober two-dimensional style, the young
characters of Schulz’s mini-stories display, despite their age, all the typical adult middle-
class neuroses and respond with comic irony, pathetic melancholy and sarcasm to their
condition of existential loneliness. Readers whose need for socialization was left
unsatisfied in their everyday lives could easily identify with them while keeping a critical
distance. The magazine’s success was also due to its eclectic juxtaposition of different
and contrasting languages and styles. The concise, well-mannered, elliptic and allusive
strips appeared alongside long erotic stories like those of Barbarella and the deeply
polemical, and often coarse, discourse of the Italian satirists and their caricatures. Linus
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opened the market for many magazines of, and about, comics, among them Eureka, Sgt.
Kirk and many other emulations such as Comics-rama, Smack, Okay, Tommy, Tilt and
L’Asso di Picche (Ace of Spades).
Towards the end of the 1970s, Linus increased its social and political commitment and
dedicated more room to satire and social criticism, a formula which helped maintain its
readership until the 1990s. From the outset, it ran supplements offering material which
could not be included within the magazine itself. In 1974 one of these supplements
became a magazine in its own right, Alter Linus. It published mainly adventure stories,
which had always been sacrificed to some extent in favour of the short comic strips.
Popularity increased when it started to publish material from the French vanguard comics
periodical Metal Hurlant (especially the work by Moebius). In 1977, Alter Linus changed
its name to Alter Alter. Under the new name it continued its quest for new expressive
dimensions, and launched in 1983 a group of avantgarde authors, the ‘Valvoline
Motorcomics’, who in their drawings made continuous reference to pictorial art,
especially to the Bauhaus and the transavantgarde. Publication ceased in 1986 due to a
general crisis engendered by the expansion of television and video.
FRANCO MANAI
literary journals
Literary journals in Italian contemporary culture fall into two basic groups: academic
journals, strictly devoted to hosting scholarly articles, and literary reviews oriented
towards general discussion of current artistic events, in their cultural, sociological and
political context.
The roots of the non-academic journals stretch back to the beginning of the century,
when intellectuals such as Croce, Pirandello, Prezzolini Papini, and Marinetti animated
the cultural scene, discussing artistic, historical, political and social issues in periodicals
like La critica, La voce, Lacerba and Nuova antologia. The connection between
sociological and literary issues became predominant in the journals founded after the
Second World War. Amongst these reviews were Il Politecnico (1945–7), directed by
Elio Vittorini, who promoted a cultural view closely connected with the social issues
raised by neorealism, although he tried to maintain a theoretical separation between
political activism and artistic production. This last goal was partially achieved in the
more openly literary-oriented review il menabò (1959–67), founded by Vittorini and Italo
Calvino. Il menabò was devoted to monographic subjects, and published new Italian
authors as well as new critical theories already known and debated outside of Italy (those
of Roland Barthes, for instance). Another important journal of the time was Officina
(1955–9), where authors such as Pasolini and Fortini confronted the ideological fading
of the neorealistic experience, and promulgated a return to a more realistic approach to
literature based on the late nineteenth-century tradition. On the opposite side was il verri,
founded by Luciano Anceschi in 1956 and still published today. In the early 1960s, il
verri became the home ground for writers belonging to the neoavantgarde (Eco,
Sanguineti, Porta, Balestrini and others) and so focused on the exploration of literature
Entries A–Z 467
as an ever-changing phenomenon, publishing work often written specifically in order to
subvert traditional literary forms. Another important and still active review hosting
fiction, sociological surveys and theoretical articles is Nuovi argomenti, founded in 1953
by Alberto Moravia and directed at various times by Pasolini, Attilio Bertolucci and
Leonardo Sciascia; the current editor-in-chief is Enzo Siciliano.
Most of the scholarly journals of Italian literature and culture are usually connected
with one or more universities. Amongst the oldest and more prestigious publications
oriented towards a rigorous critical and philological approach are the Giornale storico
della letteratura italiana, founded in 1882 and still published in Turin; Lettere italiane,
founded in 1949 and currently edited by Vittore Branca and Carlo Ossola, a journal
traditionally open also to theoretical essays and to foreign contributors; and La rassegna
della Letteratura Italiana, founded in 1953 by Walter Binni, a journal that offers a rich
and systematic review section of articles and books on Italian literature, subdivided by
century and by topic. Belfagor, founded in 1946 by Luigi Russo, traditionally hosts
classical and philological essays as well as critical debates and cultural discussions on
contemporary issues. Amongst more specialized journals, open also to analyses of
foreign cultures and of different disciplines, are Strumenti critici and Lingua e Stile, both
founded in 1966. The former focuses mostly on semiological studies, the latter on
interdisciplinary approaches which combine linguistics and literary criticism. Other
important journals are Filologia e critica, published in Rome, devoted mainly to
philological discussions and analyses; Italianistica, founded in 1972 and published in
Pisa, often centred on critical debates amongst different schools of criticism; and Critica
letteraria and Esperienze letterarie, both published in Naples, and both devoted to classic
and contemporary Italian literature. There are also numerous journals, in Italy and
abroad, devoted to specific subjects (Renaissance, baroque, romanticism and so on),
authors (Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch) or to contemporary Italian culture (for example,
Studi novecenteschi, published in Pisa). Outside Italy there are also some very active and
established journals of Italian studies, such as Italica and Forum Italicum (USA), The
Italianist and Italian Studies (UK) and the Review des études italiennes (France).
Further reading
Mondello, E. (1985) Gli anni delle riviste: le riviste letterarie dal 1945 agli anni ottanta (The
Years of the Reviews: Literary Reviews from 1945 to the Eighties), Lecce: Milella (a systematic
and contextual study of literary journals and reviews from the immediate postwar period to the
mid-1980s, with details of over 170 publications).
ANDREA CICCARELLI
literary prizes
The number of Italian literary prizes has increased substantially in the postwar period and
now is, literally, in the thousands. On the one hand, this is undoubtedly a sign of the
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fertility and the liveliness of the Italian cultural and literary landscape. The creation of
prizes such as the Grinzane Cavour or the Montblanc, which aim especially at the
discovery and the recognition of new young writers, is a stimulating enterprise and
cannot be anything but beneficial to the Italian world of letters. On the other hand,
however, it is also true that an excessive proliferation of prizes, some of which leave
much to be desired both from a cultural and artistic point of view, risks devaluing for
many readers the level of the most established and serious manifestations, such as the
Premio Viareggio (Viareggio Prize), the Premio Strega (Strega Prize), the Premio
Campiello (Campiello Prize) and the Premio Penna d’oro (Gold Pen Prize).
The Premio Viareggio was first created in 1929 by a group of intellectuals around
Leonardo Rèpaci, who remained for many years the president of the jury, and now
consists of three different prizes, one each for narrative, poetry and the essay. The books
are judged by a jury which over the years has included figures such as Massimo
Bontempelli, Giacomo De Benedetti, Natalino Sapegno, Giovanni Macchia and Geno
Pampaloni. The award takes place in Viareggio during the first ten days of July.
The Premio Strega was designed and founded by Maria Bellonci and Guido Alberti in
1947. The prize is awarded to an Italian novel published between 30 March of the
previous year and 30 March of the current year. The jurors are 400 friends of the
founders, the Amici della Domenica (Sunday Friends), who represent various aspects of
Italian culture. The books are chosen through two successive ballots: the first one takes
place in June, at Bellonci’s house; the final one is at the beginning of July, at the Ninfeo
di Valle Giulia, in Rome.
The Premio Campiello was created in 1963 by the seven Venetian industrial
associations which in 1958 gave life to the Fondazione Campiello (Campiello
Foundation). The prize is assigned only to first-edition Italian narrative works, and
emphasizes the active participation of some Venetian industrial groups in the cultural life
of the country. The jury awards at the beginning of June the Premi Selezione Campiello
(Campiello Selection Prizes) to five novels. Then 300 readers, representative of Italian
society, choose the winner of the Campiello on 1 September, in Venice.
The Premio Penna d’oro was established by the presidency of the Council of Ministers
in 1957 for those writers who have especially contributed with their work to the cultural
progress of the country. The prize intends to witness the fundamental function and
importance that the democratic government assigns to the free and autonomous
development of cultural life in Italy.
Among the other more respected literary prizes are the Bagutta, instituted in Milan in
1926 and able to count Emilio Gadda amongst its winners, and the more recently created
Campiello Giovani, which is restricted to young writers below the age of twenty.
Further reading
Tani, C. (1987) Premiopoli: un indice ragionato dei premi letterari (Premiopoli: A Reasoned Index
of Literary Prizes) (an investigation of the seamier side of literary prizes).
Tralli, F. (ed.) (1987–) Catalogo nazionale dei premi letterari (National Catalogue of Literary
Prizes), Bologna: Seledizioni (a catalogue of all the literary prizes available in Italy in a
particular year).
ENRICO CESARETTI
Entries A–Z 469
literature in dialect
Works written in dialect are usually labelled as ‘minor’ in standard literary histories,
although they have existed since the sixteenth century alongside writing in the Italian
language itself. Throughout the centuries this creative inheritance has increased, with
works in dialect becoming even more abundant in more recent times. Yet debate about
the antagonism between Italian and the dialects continues to this day, with even the best
commentators and linguists sidestepping the need to provide some explanation for the
flourishing of literature in dialect.
There is a tendency to maintain that fascism, in the years preceding the Second World
War, opposed the dialects and all their rich, cultural heritage (see also fascism and neo-
fascism). This is only partly true, since one should remember that Mussolini himself
ordered the publication of a complete edition of the works of Giuseppe Pitrè on the
language, poetry and folklore of Sicily in 1939. Furthermore, there is no evidence that
poets writing in dialect during the Fascist period were ever persecuted specifically for
their choice of language. By the same token, it is clear that during this period poets were
able to use dialects which were still widely spoken in order to address a middle-class
readership in the great cities and in metropolitan regions such as the Veneto.
During this era, poets such as Virgilio Giotti from Trieste published their first works,
but for the most part dialectal poetry during the first half of the century flourished along
the Milan-RomeNaples axis. It was based on a strong, almost overwhelming realism, and
had Pascoli and D’Annunzio as a constant point of reference. The results range widely
from the decadent impressionism of Delio Tessa, the musical impressionism of Salvatore
di Giacomo and the consolatory folkloric documentarism of Ferdinando Russo and
Raffaele Viviani to the elegies of Eduardo De Filippo and the fabulism of Antonio
Salustri (Trilussa).
In narrative, Carlo Emilio Gadda published his first novel, La Madonna dei filosofi
(The Madonna of the Philosophers), in 1931, followed in the postwar period by Quer
pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana (That Awful Mess in Merulana Street), which
appeared originally in the review Letteratura (Literature) in 1947 and then as a volume
ten years later. This work, a detective story set in Fascist Rome, is emblematic of
Gadda’s narrative method and his extensive experimentation with the use of dialects
mingled with slang and technical and scientific jargon. Yet Gadda’s linguistic
experiments remained marginal in the immediate post-war period, which was instead
dominated by neorealism and its polemics against the literature of the Fascist period
(which it charged with a lack of commitment).
Nevertheless, neorealist narrative, aided and to some extent preceded by the work of
several film-makers such as Rossellini, De Sica and De Santis, attempted to realize a
new stylistic model which adhered to spoken language, including dialects. Among the
most authoritative representatives of this current were Francesco Jovine, Carlo Bernari,
Cesare Pavese, Domenico Rea and Vitaliano Brancati. In the theatre, the plays of
Eduardo De Filippo, already recognized in the prewar period, were confirmed as the only
viable attempt to continue the tradition of nineteenth-century Neapolitan dialectal theatre.
With the end of neorealism, the use of dialect largely disappeared from narrative (the
one notable exception being the novel by Stefano D’Arrigo, Horcynus Orca (1975), in
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