Gino Moliterno. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Italian Culture

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Il Mulino

Founded as a ‘review of politics and culture’ by a group of young Bolognese intellectuals

in 1951, Il Mulino has become a well-established if still slightly unorthodox presence on

the Italian cultural scene thereafter. Il Mulino is in the first place a cultural association,

which oversees the activities of a bi-monthly review, of a publishing company regarded

as a major outlet for high quality research in the humanities and the social sciences, and

of a prestigious research centre, the Istituto Cattaneo. In its earliest years, along with a

few other intellectual innovators like enlightened industrialist Adriano Olivetti, Il Mulino

was instrumental in introducing empirical social science to a cultural milieu which had

been dominated by historicism and idealism. Based in the Emilia-Romagna region, an

area politically dominated by the communist Left but with a strong presence of Catholic

organizations, and with liberal intellectuals also heavily involved in its steering group, Il

Mulino has constantly operated as a bridge between different cultural and political

traditions in the country (see Ezio Raimondi).

MARIO DIANI

Munari, Bruno

b. 24 October 1907; d. 10 October 1998, Milan

Sculptor, painter, film-maker and graphic designer

Munari’s artistic career began as an artist of the second generation of futurists in 1927,

and he continued to exhibit with them into the 1930s. From 1939 onwards, especially in

his sculpture, Munari tended towards a constructivist aesthetic culminating in a series of

‘Useless Machines’, three-dimensional abstract forms constructed from painted

cardboard and other lightweight materials. After the Second World War, Munari

concentrated on industrial design. An early example is ‘X Hour’ (1945), an alarm clock

with rotating half-discs replacing the hands. In 1963, X Hour was produced as a multiple

and there followed the mass production of other not strictly utilitarian objects by Munari

such as the Flexy, a flexible metal wire structure that could be set in any number of

positions. In 1950 he also began to experiment with film, producing his first coloured-

light film with electronic music, I colori della luce (The Colours of Light) in 1963.

During a long and busy career, Munari continued to promote the principle of public

access to the means of visual communication, believing that anyone can produce objects

of aesthetic value if given adequate technological resources.

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Further reading

Tanchis, A. (1987) Bruno Munari: Design as Art, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (a comprehensive,

generously illustrated account of Munari’s achievement in artistic design).

OLIVIA DAWSON

Muratori, Saverio

b. 1910; d. 1973, Rome

Architect, town planner, and historian

A leading figure in twentieth-century Italian culture, Muratori confronted the principal

question relationship between civilization and nature, of contemporary Italian thought,

namely the through the analogous relationship between architecture and the environment.

In his formative period, he sought an amalgamated solution to experiments in

expressionism and rationalism. After 1945 he worked on reconstruction projects,

especially the INA-CASA neighbourhood housing project in Rome. In Vita e storia delle

città (Life and History of Cities) he retraces the principles guiding these projects,

developing a philosophical framework for his later notions of ‘city as living organism’.

He formulated his ideas systematically in his courses at the University of Venice from

1950–5 and in Rome thereafter. In the 1970s, he equated the crises of architecture with

those of civilization. His theoretical writings on the city as a living organism later found

enthusiastic audiences elsewhere, especially in North America, where they are still being

taught.

FASSIL ZEWDOU

Mursia

Founded in Milan by Ugo Mursia in 1955, Mursia soon developed into one of the most

prestigious names in publishing in postwar Italy. A large part of its editorial success has

been due to its series of classics of Italian and other national literatures aimed at a broad

readership, but always edited and annotated by renowned scholars in the field. Another

useful and successful enterprise has been its agile critical series ‘Invito alla lettura di’ (An

Invitation to the Reading of), devoted to providing accessible and wide-ranging

interpretations of a large number of modern authors. Throughout the years, Mursia has

built up a reputation both as a scholarly publisher connected to many university editorial

projects and as a cultural publisher able to target and reach out to a wider non-specialized

audience.

Further reading

Brody, E. and Brook, C. (eds) (1978) The Music Guide to Italy, New York: Dodd & Mead.

Gottesman, R. and Sentman, C. (eds) (1992) The Music Lover’s Guide to Europe: A Compendium

of Festivals, Concerts, and Opera, New York: John Wiley

ANDREW SCHULTZ

music institutions

Italy’s rich musical heritage has given rise to a lively contemporary musical culture in

which institutions play an important role. Since the Second World War, there has been a

recognition in Italy that governments have a responsibility to provide funding to support

and encourage cultural life and to see that institutions meet the aspirations of artists and

the needs of the public. In general terms, music institutions can be divided into

performing and educational bodies.

In the late 1940s the Italian government took a number of steps to foster and protect

musical theatre traditions. Opera was thought to be worthy of government subsidy, since

Italy was internationally recognized as a centre of excellence in this field. Producing

quality singers and encouraging the performance of Italian music were seen as priorities,

and so the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment, through a Music Commission, was

given the brief to control subsidy of opera and other performing activity.

State-subsidized theatres were officially designated in major cities such as Bologna

(the Communale), Milan (La Scala) and Venice (La Fenice). In the mid-1970s the

thirteen designated theatres and organizations became the joint responsibility of the

national and regional governments, and were given the title of National Institutions. At

the same time, other theatres were reviewed and fifteen were given grants because they

were considered to be of artistic or historic significance. These teatri stabili (established

theatres), including those in Parma, Mantua and Pisa, are usually located in provincial

areas and are often a focal point for the varied cultural activities of the area. In addition,

there are over forty opera houses in Italy that are neither National Institutions nor

Established Theatres but privately funded organizations which regularly present musical

activities. Similarly, there is a mixture of government sponsorship and private funding of

orchestras and ensembles in Italy. The RAI supports four orchestras—in Naples, Rome,

Turin and Milan -which present public concerts as well as recording for radio and

television broadcast.

Music education institutions in Italy can be categorized into four types. The most

highly esteemed are the national conservatoria, which are located in the major cities. The

curriculum in the conservatoria is strictly regulated so that the same diploma is available

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from each. Consequently, each state conservatorium has equivalent entrance

requirements, course structure and graduation levels. The curriculum in the national

conservatoria is divided into main and supplementary courses. The main courses are the

ones in which students specialize, such as piano or voice, whilst the supplementary

courses are those which are designed to give breadth to the students’ general knowledge

of music. Instead of dividing the courses into years, study programmes are separated into

levels such as lower, intermediate and advanced. Students who pass the advanced level of

their course are awarded the diploma, while those who complete only the lower levels are

awarded a study certificate. The advanced level can take up to ten years to complete.

While these conservatoria strive to produce equivalent curricula, it is interesting to

note that their history has made them all very distinct. The Conservatory di Musica

Giuseppe Verdi in Milan is unique in housing a number of rare collections of fifteenth-

century French and Italian songs in its library. In Genoa, the Conservatorio di Musica

Niccolo Paganini houses a statue of Paganini and also Paganini’s violin, which

distinguished musicians are occasionally invited to play. The Conservatorio di Musica

Benedetto Marcello in Venice conserves eighteenth-century manuscripts from the

Venetian school of sacred music and opera, and has an impressive museum of

instruments. The Conservatorio di Musica Claudio Monteverdi in Bolzano is a multi-

lingual campus—a necessity given its proximity to the Austrian border—and Pesaro’s

Conservatorio di Musica Gioacchino Rossini holds the composer’s manuscripts as well as

those by Donizetti and others.

Another type of institution, the ‘equalized institutes’, are recognized by the state and

monitored by the Ministry for Public Education. Each institution in this category has been

through a process of accreditation so that the diploma it offers is equal to that offered by

the conservatoria. The equalized institutions are subsidized to cater for students who

cannot attend a conservatorium in a large city. Equalized institutions also provide a

stimulus and act as a centre for rural musical activity.

A third type of musical training occurs in universities, where advanced courses in

musicology and music education are offered. However, while over thirty universities

offer music courses, very few offer complete degrees in music.

Lastly, there are innumerable local music schools and also summer schools, where

courses are fairly short and specific and quality is varied. These range from excellent and

specific programmes to generic summer workshops for beginners. The Stradivari School

of String Instrument Making in Cremona is an example of a high quality institution. It

trains and awards diplomas to makers of string instruments. The school is government-

sponsored, as Cremona is recognized internationally as a centre of excellence in this

field. Another outstanding music school is the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music, which

trains its students in the history and practice of Gregorian Chant. At the other end of the

scale one finds the six-week ‘Vacanza Musicale’—musical vacations -that tourists can

take in Venice. These are designed for foreigners and although courses cover conducting,

voice and musicology, the main aim of the course is to learn more about Italian music

and musical life generally.

Numerous other institutions exist which contribute to musical life in Italy. They

include academies (which support performance and study), museums and libraries (often

with important historical collections of manuscripts and instruments), radio, television

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and other media outlets, music publishers, private concert promoters, music festivals

landmarks and churches.

Further reading

Brody, E., and Brook, C. (1978) The Music Guide to Italy, New York: Dodd & Mead (for specific

details of each institution).

Uscher, N. (1988) The Schirmer Guide to Schools of Music and Conservatories Throughout the

World, New York: Schirmer (for details and a commentary on each school of music).

ANDREW SCHULTZ

Muti, Riccardo

b. 28 July 1941, Naples

Conductor

Muti is noted for his musical intelligence and accomplished technique. He graduated in

piano from the Naples Conservatory and began a degree in philosophy. A chance

invitation to conduct led him to abandon his degree, taking instead a five-year course in

conducting at the Milan Conservatory. In 1967 he won the Guido Cantelli Competition,

and soon after made his international debut. He was principal conductor of the Florence

Maggio Musicale from 1969–81, and in 1973 succeeded Klemperer at the New

Philharmonia Orchestra, a post which he relinquished in 1982. In 1980 he was appointed

musical director of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Equally active in opera, he became

musical director at La Scala in 1986, where he restored five Mozart operas to the

repertoire.

Muti preserves an admirable balance of head and heart in his interpretations of the

symphonic classics, but he has also been effective in introducing new works by such

composers as Ligeti, Petrassi and Dallapiccola.

JOHN KERSEY

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Nannini, Gianna

b. 14 June 1956, Siena

Popular music artist and composer

One of Italy’s foremost popular music artists, Nannini first studied piano at Lucca and

subsequently read composition and philosophy at the University of Milan. Her first

recording, Gianna Nannini (1976), achieved wide popularity, and in the ensuing years

she produced another fourteen albums. Although Nannini’s style remains within the

mainstream of European popular music, her wide intellectual interests have produced

some intriguing artistic projects. In 1982 she composed the music for Gabriele

Salvatores’s film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in which she also played the part of

Titania. Her short operas Eberhard Schöner (1996) and Palazzo dell’Amore (Palace of

Love) (1997) reveal a conscious search for an audience beyond the popular music field,

while her hit ‘Fotoromanza’ was made into a video-clip by no less than Michelangelo

Antonioni. In 1994 Nannini was awarded the degree of D.Phil. by the University of

Siena for a thesis on Tuscan traditional music.

JOHN KERSEY

Napolitano, Giorgio

b. 29 June 1925, Naples

Politician

Napolitano joined the Italian Communist Party (see PCI) in 1945 and always represented

its moderate wing. He served as parliamentary deputy from 1953–63 and again from

1968–96, was president of the PCI Parliamentary Group from 1981–6 and Speaker of the

Chamber of Deputies between 1992 and 1994. He was also PCI/PDS Shadow Minister

for Foreign Affairs between 1989 and 19992 and was subsequently appointed Minister of

the Interior in the Prodi government (1996–8).

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In the 1960s, Napolitano worked closely with Giorgio Amendola to encourage

cooperation and close ties with the Socialists. Always in favour of European integration

and NATO, he served as a Member of the European Parliament from 1989–92, as

President of the Italian Council of the European Movement from 1995 and a member of

the Italian delegation to the North Atlantic Council 1984–9 and again 1994–6.

Further reading

Napolitano, G. (1977) The Italian Road to Socialism, trans. J.Cammet and V.DeGrazia, London:

Journeyman Press (a series of interviews with Eric Hobsbawm in which Napolitano discusses

all major aspects of PCI thought and strategy).

JAMES WALSTON

narrative

Scholars have usually analysed the postwar narrative in the context of the radical social,

political and economic changes that Italy experienced in the second half of the century.

The turn from monarchism to republicanism in the 1940s (see Republic), the rapid

development from an agricultural to an industrial economy in the 1950s (the so-called

economic miracle), the increasing literacy of the Italians and their linguistic unification

all deeply affected Italian cultural life. These developments brought about important

changes in the means of production and reception of the literary work, from its

conception in the writer’s mind to its marketing by the publishing industry. By the mid-

1940s, narrative had come to be privileged over other literary forms such as poetry, for an

alleged capacity to present its social, economic and political context. Much fictional and

non-fictional narrative of the period aimed, often by a combination of expressionist and

realist modes with linguistic and structural experimentation, to represent the writer’s

relationship with reality.

Yet, while cultural critics have been able to establish rather confidently both the

temporal duration and the cultural functions of literary currents and movements such as

neorealism and the neoavantgarde, they have proceeded with more caution when

discussing the narrative of the last twenty years, as though continually reminding

themselves, as they approach the present, of an inevitable lack of historical

perspectivism. Nevertheless, the major thematic and stylistic trends in more

contemporary Italian narrative have been mapped from a number of theoretical

viewpoints, and now include not only the emergence in the 1970s and mid-1980s of

voices traditionally marginalized, such as homosexuals and women (see women’s

writing), but also the discourses of different ethnic groups, mainly coming from Africa

and Asia, in the late 1980s and 1990s (see immigrant literature).

In the years of the postwar reconstruction (1945–55), the dominant neorealist

narrative became an expression of social commitment seeking to carry out both a

pedagogical function (to educate the people) and a faithful, if at times ironical,

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documentation of the war experience and contemporary social conditions. Remembrance

of the events of recent history and political engagement were deeply permeated by the

optimistic belief in a perfect coincidence between ‘reality’ and ‘truth’; in other words, to

recount stories in order to represent reality meant to tell the truth. At first, it was the truth

of the resistance to fascism; then, it became the truth of the lives of ordinary workers and

peasants in northern and southern Italy, and the process of their social and political

emancipation. Realist narrative sought to express the voices of ordinary people by

recording their everyday language, slang and dialect, thereby finally dismantling fascist

rhetoric. The increasing economic exploitation of the working classes, however, and the

increasing hardening of Marxist ideology into political authoritarianism in the mid-1950s

proved how illusory had been the claims to truth of literary representation. Significantly,

in 1955 Pratolini’s novel Metello, the story of a young worker set in the context of the

social conflicts of the late nineteenth century, gave rise to much controversy among

leftoriented critics, with only some reading the novel as a true expression of a new-born

realism, while others saw its representation of the working class as populist and

consolatory. The critical debate on Pratolini’s Metello together with the subsequent

controversy over the publication of Tomasi di Lampedusa’s Il Gattopardo (The

Leopard) (1958) manifested an erosion of faith of the writer’s claim to be able to

represent the truth.

From this point on, postwar narrative registered the disintegration of the rationalistic

belief of anti-fascist intellectuals in the social and moral revival of the country together

with a profound sense of disillusionment with the official position of the Communist

Party (PCI). At the same time, it documented the birth of a different cultural attitude that

privileged a more ethical commitment to representing and understanding reality in the

place of political engagement. Giving voice to this new attitude, at the turn of the decade

Elio Vittorini and Italo Calvino founded the cultural journal il menabò (1959–67). In its

pages, they launched the notion of a new literature, neither escapist nor compromised

with socialist realism, but highly aware of the most pressing issues of the time and, as a

consequence, expressive of the common commitment to oppose the status quo without

cherishing false hopes, as had happened in the recent past.

The transition from the 1950s to the 1960s, and later into the 1970s, was highly

influenced by the appearance of phenomenology, psychoanalysis and structuralism.

These soon became the main theoretical frames for all debate on the role of narrative

discourse in contemporary society and provided the writers with new heuristic models

and a new language to express insight into the human subject and social dynamics. By

dismantling such traditional novelistic conventions as character, plot and linear narrative,

writers sought to refine the notion of a political and cultural commitment to understand

and change reality. For example, the neoavantgarde’s iconoclastic mood, which survived

the breaking up of its founding group (see Gruppo 63) turned into radical political

activism. Roberto Roversi, Francesco Leonetti and Nanni Balestrini, among others,

aimed at subverting the cultural and political establishment, particularly by means of a

documentary narrative (assemblage of excerpts from newspapers and people’s

interviews). At the same time, the ongoing debate within the Roman Catholic

community, urged to keep up the pace with the contemporary world, inspired the realistic

narratives of Pier Paolo Pasolini, Luigi Santucci and Mario Pomilio to name a few, who

attempted to reconcile Christian values with Marxist ideals by highlighting the notions of

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human caritas and social solidarity. No longer a way to convey the truth, literature

became the symbolic space where women and gay could express their own particular

truth and voice their demand for equal rights while also demanding to be acknowledged

as political, social and cultural subjects. Novels by Anna Maria Ortese, Natalia

Ginzburg, Elsa Morante, Lalla Romano, Gina Lagorio, Francesca Sanvitale and Dacia

Maraini were critically acclaimed and won favour with both male and female audiences.

Furthermore, in what had become the atomic era, novelists such as Giuseppe Berto,

Guido Morselli, Paolo Volponi and Stefano D’Arrigo fictionally staged the end of the

world and the subsequent meaningless survival of the individual. By drawing attention to

environmental issues, they also denounced technology’s potential for self-destruction.

The very notion of a realistic language, mirroring reality by reproducing its human

variety, was carried to extremes, to the point of threatening its own communicative

function. In the wake of Carlo Emilio Gadda’s stylistic expressionism and

plurilingualism, the experimental narratives of authors such as Antonio Pizzuto, Alberto

Arbasino, Giovanni Testori, Edoardo Sanguineti and Giorgio Manganelli, among

others, rejected the notion of the cognitive power of a language compromised with

tradition and culture while presenting the gap opening up between language and reality,

words and things, as the most apparent sign of the individual’s alienation from the self,

society and history.

In the 1970s and the 1980s, writers seemed to retreat into their private workshops as a

result of the general distrust in literature as a vehicle for knowledge as well as a radical

disillusionment with social reality resulting from the tragic outburst of terrorism.

Literary creation became then a mere display of narrative strategies to underscore the

self-referential nature of art. Having failed to explain reality, literature resorted to

representing only itself, and writing turned into a ludic interplay with the reader, wittily

challenged to solve unsolvable riddles. Particularly successful at the time was the

detective story, in which the reader also came to be inextricably involved in the

characters’ fictional search for the truth. Yet in narratives such as Calvino’s Se una notte

d’inverno un viaggiatore (If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller) (1979) and Eco’s Il nome

delta rosa (The Name of the Rose) (1980), to name only the most internationally

acclaimed, neither the author nor the characters nor the reader safely escape the intricate

narrative plotting which, in the end, deconstructs any cognitive tool or system of thought

in order to mislead human reason. Alongside this literature of clever entertainment and

skilful technique, there also developed, in the works of Sebastiano Vassalli and Roberto

Pazzi, a narrative which expressed the individual’s obsession with time and an uncanny

sense of the end of history.

In the context of the increasing power of the culture industry and the impact of media

and computers on culture and society, the Italian narrative in the 1990s has displayed a

multifaceted nature. Particularly popular among young readers, and controversial among

critics, is the hyperreal fiction of young authors such as Niccolò Ammaniti and Aldo

Nove, the so-called pulp or splatter literature. Influenced by Stephen King’s horror stories

and Quentin Tarantino’s cult movie, Pulp Fiction, these writers recount the everyday life

of ordinary people using a language which is a combination of slang and jargon, mostly

derived from the language of the media (particularly television and comics).

Contemporary society is represented in its most obsessive and shocking aspects,

unreasonably violent and paradoxical.

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