Gino Moliterno. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Italian Culture
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(1971), his own experience as director of a psychiatrist hospital becomes the subject of a
powerful and compelling narrative. In Il manicomio di Pechino (The Peking Madhouse)
(1990), the autobiographical tone is increasingly foregrounded by a diaristic style in
which the narrator, Tobino’s alter ego, recounts his medical experience, the relationship
with his patients and the personal dilemma of an individual divided between an
allegiance to his profession and a passion for literature. If investigations of the self and a
preoccupation with the mystery of the human mind are central themes in Tobino’s
literary works, he nevertheless does not ignore broader social issues which take priority
in novels like Il clandestino (The Underground) (1962). A strong attachment to his native
region, Tuscany, is another of Tobino’s recurrent motifs, and appears in most of his
writings.
PAOLO BARTOLONI
Togliatti, Palmiro
b. 26 March 1893, Genoa; d. 21 August 1964, Yalta, Russia
Politician
As undisputed head of the Italian Communist Party (see PCI) for the first two decades
after the Second World War, Togliatti was, together with his great adversary, the
Christian Democrat leader Alcide De Gasperi, one of the two most important political
figures in immediate postwar Italy. His death in 1964 definitively marked the end of an
era in Italian political life.
Born in Genoa of schoolteacher parents, Togliatti completed his high school in
Sassari, Sardinia, and then won a scholarship to Turin University where he studied
philosophy and law. In 1911 he met Antonio Gramsci and soon became part of the
socialist group which edited Ordine Nuovo (1919). He participated in the campaign for
factory councils in 1920, was a foundation member of the Italian Communist Party in
1921 and in 1926 went to the Communist International in Moscow, where he remained
until 1944. From 1934 onwards he was a major architect of the united front against
Fascism and Nazism. In 1937 he became the third leader of the PCI, and remained
general secretary until his death in 1964.
Although Togliatti fell out with Gramsci in 1926 over Togliatti’s support for Stalin’s
attack on Trotsky, both men came to share a strong conviction that Italian national
traditions needed to be taken into account when planning revolutionary policy. Togliatti’s
Lessons of Fascism (1935) bear out his willingness to work with other anti-fascist forces,
and in fact, after returning to Italy in 1944, Togliatti built the ‘new’ Communist Party on
a policy of crossclass alliances, particularly with Roman Catholics, in order to achieve a
progressive parliamentary coalition. Thus by 1947 the Communist Party had over 2
million members, and it remained the second-largest party in Italy in terms of voters,
members and parliamentary representation throughout Togliatti’s life. Following the
Russian invasion of Hungary in 1956, an event which provoked a strong reaction in Italy,
Togliatti firmly committed the party to an Italian road to socialism and, after a long
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period of hostility with the Socialist Party (see PSI) which had placed the Communists in
a political ghetto, he also re-established links with the Socialists and their leader Pietro
Nenni.
Togliatti’s long residence in the Soviet Union and his leading position in the
Communist International has led to much debate about his possible complicity in the
Stalinist purges and to accusations of having played a double game. However, after the
war he gave ample proof of his support for a polycentric communist movement freed
from Moscow’s control, and made major statements (in Nuovi Argomenti in 1956 and in
his Memorial from Yalta in 1964) about the defects of Stalinism and about Khruschev’s
attempts to divorce that experience from the structural and social problems of the USSR.
In the Memorial he also suggested that a non-violent and democratic road to socialism
was the most appropriate for all countries. Nevertheless, his cautious, cold and indecisive
academic style, coupled with his extreme authoritarianism within the party itself, did
create a constant suspicion of his motives while at the same time provoking opposition
from hardliners such as Pietro Secchia.
Togliatti was prominent in promoting the intellectuals’ role in Italy through Rinascita
and other journals. While conservative in his literary and artistic tastes, he encouraged
debate on such matters. Despite some delays, he had Gramsci’s prison notes smuggled
out of Italy, to be returned and published in full between 1947 and 1951. He thereafter
became the major interpreter of Gramsci, portraying him as a loyal party man and a
Leninist whose ideas had inspired the policies of the ‘new party’.
Demonstrating their esteem for one of the founding fathers of the Italian Republic,
one million Italians attended Togliatti’s funeral in Rome in 1964.
Further reading
Agosti, A. (1996) Togliatti, Turin: UTET.
Sassoon, D. (1981) The Strategy of the Italian Communist Party, London: Pinter.
Togliatti, P. (1979) On Gramsci and Other Writings, ed. and introduced D.Sassoon, London:
Lawrence & Wishart (a representative selection of Togliatti’s writings translated into English).
ALASTAIR DAVIDSON
Tognazzi, Riccardo (Ricky)
b. 1 May 1955, Milan
Film director
Son of actor Ugo Tognazzi, one of the great protagonists of Italian postwar cinema,
Ricky began in the movies as assistant to directors such as Pupi Avati, Luigi Comencini
and Sergio Leone. After starring in Scola’s La famiglia (The Family) (1987), he directed
an episode of the series Piazza Navona entitled ‘Fernanda’ (1987) and Piccoli equivoci
(Small Misunderstandings) (1988). However, it was with Ultra (Ultras) (1991) and La
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scorta (The Bodyguards) (1993) that Tognazzi re-evoked the ethical style and social
commitment of neorealism. Ultras unquestionably displays powerful visual and thematic
tones as it follows a group of subproletarian Roman youth in their Violent life’,
eventually ending in tragedy and death during a soccer game. The Bodyguards is a tight-
paced and engaging political thriller which draws its inspiration and strength from
contemporary Italian events related to the fight against political corruption and the mafia.
Tognazzi’s 1996 Vite strozzate (Strangled Lives) is the disheartening tale of a true plague
of contemporary Italian society, usury.
MANUELA GIERI
Tognazzi, Ugo
b. 23 March 1922, Cremona; d. 27 October 1990, Rome
Film actor
Together with Alberto Sordi and Vittorio Gassman, Tognazzi was one of the most
prominent faces of Italian film comedy His name became inseparable from the commedia
all’Italiana (comedy Italian-style), the comic genre prevailing in the 1960s and 1970s in
which he was consistently cast as the eternal adolescent, whose appalling selfishness and
sexism are, nevertheless, pathetically funny.
In one of the classics of the genre, Risi’s I mostri (The Monsters) (1963), an episode
film in which Tognazzi stars with Gassman, he plays the multifaceted embodiment of the
era’s moral monsters. Twenty years later, Tognazzi was to work under Ettore Scola’s
direction in La terrazza (The Terrace), a sharp criticism of the very genre he epitomized.
Tognazzi also collaborated with more auteurist film-makers like Pasolini (Porcile
(Pigpen), 1969), Ferreri (Non tocare la donna bianca (Don’t Touch the White Woman),
1974) and Bertolucci (La tragedia di un uomo ridicolo (The Tragedy of a Ridiculous
Man), 1982).
DOROTHÉE BONNIGAL.
Tomba, Alberto
b. 19 December 1966, Bologna
Skier
Tomba took the world by surprise at the Winter Olympic Games in Calgary in 1988 by
winning both the men’s slalom and the giant slalom. Four years later in Albertville,
Tomba won the giant slalom again, becoming the first skier ever to take the same event in
consecutive Winter Games (see winter sports). Tomba’s unique style combines great
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power and technique which has led many to consider him as the greatest slalom skier of
all times. Nevertheless, he has managed to win the overall World Cup only one time, in
1995. Early in his career he promised his mother that he would never compete in the
dangerous men’s downhill event, and this decision has deprived him of the precious extra
points to be gained for the combined event, meaning he often finishes the season behind
skiers such as Zurbriggen and Girardelli who have taken full advantage of the combined
events. What has made Tomba a truly international star, however, is that, in addition to
his sporting talents he enjoys the limelight of the media and is willing to play to it, a
rarity in a sport whose protagonists are often very reserved and averse to the public gaze.
PAOLO VILLA
Tomizza, Fulvio
b. 26 January, 1935, Materada, Istria; d. June 1999, Trieste
Novelist, journalist and dramatist
The geographical instability of Tomizza’s childhood, which saw Italy and Yugoslavia
battle for his native Istria, was later played out in his literary works. The uprooting of
thousands of Istrians is documented in his first three novels, later published together as
the Trilogia istriana (Istrian Trilogy) (1967) which also strongly depict the resulting
alienation and the lasting emotional trauma. Even more autobiographical is a series of
novels tracing the maturation of a young man as he marries, experiences both post-
invasion Prague and the literary circles of Rome, and finally returns home. Perhaps
Tomizza’s most successful work, however, is the novel La miglior vita (The Better Life),
winner of the Strega Prize in 1977 and which, in the tradition of Manzoni and Verga,
portrays the lives of humble folk near the Italo-Yugoslav border against the backdrop of
larger historical and political events.
LAURA A. SALSINI
Tondelli, Pier Vittorio
b. 1955; d. 1991, Correggio, Reggio Emilia
Novelist and literary critic
One of the new generation of Italian writers to emerge in the 1980s, Tondelli made a
spectacular literary debut with his Altri libertini (Other Libertines) (1980), a collection of
short stories that was immediately officially censured as ‘obscene’, although it was
subsequently absolved due to widespread critical acclaim for its provocative themes and
tragi-comic style. This was followed in 1982 with Pao Pao (Bang Bang), a
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semiautobiographical novel which parodies barracks life as it depicts a year of obligatory
military service, with all of its daily routines, subversive pranks, visits to discos and
homosexual liaisons. His next novel, Rimini (1985), is complex and multilayered, telling
a number of stories concurrently, all of which in some way eventually cross with a
journalist’s attempt to solve the mysterious suicide (or murder?) of a prominent political
figure. Camere separate (Separate Rooms) (1989), published only two years before the
author’s death from AIDS, is much more dramatic and muted in tone and seems to
presage Tondelli’s own premature disappear ance. Literary critic for the weekly
L’Espresso, Tondelli also edited the series Giovani blues (Young Blues), dedicated to
publishing the works of young authors.
GINO MOLITERNO
Topolino
Topolino, the Italian version of Mickey Mouse, was launched in the early 1930s as a
comic book character. After the war Topolino, a periodical featuring only Disney
characters (with Italian names: Paperino/Donald Duck, Zio Paperone/ Uncle Scrooge,
Pietro Gambadilegno/Peg-Leg Pete) became the most widely diffused comic book in
Italy. Initially targeting children and adolescents, it increased its adult readership to six
million per week by the 1990s. Since 1948, Italians have begun to write and draw stories
for these characters following the basic narrative structure of the American model but
introducing references to Italian culture and thus intensifying both the readers’ interest
and the processes of identification. The ‘Great Parodies’, like L’inferno di Topolino
(Mickey Mouse’s Hell) and I promessi paperi (The Betrothed Ducks), stories in which
the classics of Italian and Western literature are adapted to the world of Disney
characters, are a characteristic of the Italian version, along with the creation of new
characters like Brigitta and Trudy, the fiancees of Paperone and Gambadilegno.
See also: comics
FRANCO MANAI
Tornatore, Giuseppe
b. 27 May 1956, Bagheria, Palermo
Film director
Self-taught cineaste and photographer, Tornatore became internationally-known with
Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (New Paradise Cinema), winner of the 1990 Oscar for Best
Foreign Language Film. His earlier work had included documentaries and television
programmes featuring aspects of the popular tradition and culture of his native Sicily. His
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first cinematographic experience was also linked to Sicily, as in 1984 he had been
assistant director to Giuseppe Ferrara on Cento giorni a Palermo (One Hundred Days in
Palermo), and generally his major works are all of Sicilian inspiration, including Cinema
Paradiso, his 1990 road movie Stanno tutti bene (Everybody is Fine) and his 1995
Academy Award-nominated L’uomo delle stelle (The Star Maker). However, with Una
pura formalità (A Simple Formality) made in 1993, Tornatore created a radically
different film which starred Gerard Depardieu and Roman Polanski in a powerful and
complex metaphysical detective story set largely in one single room. In a further
departure, in 1998 Tornatore adapted a theatrical monologue by Alessandro Baricco into
the megaproduction La leggenda del pianista sull’Oceano (The Legend of the Pianist on
the Ocean), with Tim Roth as the pianist and a musical score by Ennio Morricone.
ANTONELLA FRANCINI
Torrini, Cinzia
b. 15 May 1954, Florence
Film director
Cinzia Torrini is the first Italian female director to reach an international audience after
the successes of Lina Wertmüller and Liliana Cavani. After working as a news
photographer, Torrini studied at the Munich Film School where she directed several short
films, one of which, Ancora una corsa (One More Race), toured extensively on the
festival circuit. Her first feature, Giocare d’azzardo (Gambling) (1982) is an intriguing
film about a gambling housewife, gambling being a recurrent theme in Torrini’s work.
Following several documentaries produced for television, in 1987 she directed an
international feature, Hotel Colonial, starring Robert Duvall and Massimo Troisi, the
story of an Italian political refugee in Central America in the 1980s. Between 1990 and
1994 she directed several other shorts and features for television including La colpevole
(The Guilty Woman), Dalla notte all’alba (From Night to Dawn), L’aquila della notte
(The Night Eagle) and Un taxi la nuit (Night Cab). In 1995 she directed Caramelle
(Sweets), her first erotic film.
ADRIANA MONTI
Toscani, Oliviero
b. 22 February 1942, Milan
Photographer
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Italy’s most notorious fashion photographer and widely regarded as the ‘enfant terrible’
of the advertising industry, Toscani studied photography in Zurich in the early 1960s. His
work soon appeared in prestigious international magazines such as Elle and Vogue. He
continued photographing for established fashion houses such as Valentino and Fiorucci
but first raised controversy with an advertising campaign for Jesus Jeans, which coupled
the erotic image of the behind of a girl in cut-down jeans with the caption, ‘whoever
loves me should follow me’. He achieved even greater notoriety during the 1990s with
his advertising campaigns for Benetton which utilized arresting photographs of subjects
like mafia murders and AIDS sufferers which many found shocking and in bad taste. The
ads were nevertheless effective, and Toscani subsequently became one of the pillars of
the Benetton group’s publicity machine, acting as both editor of their trimestral glossy
journal, Colors, and director of Fabrica, an exclusive high-class art college initiated and
funded by Benetton.
GINO MOLITERNO
Totò (stage name)
b. 15 February 1898, Naples; d. 15 April 1967, Rome
Comic actor, songwriter and poet
Already established as a comic stage act by 1922, Totò (the stage name of Antonio De
Curtis) topped the bill in innumerable variety shows (memorably with Anna Magnani)
until his last stage performance in 1956. He made the first of his almost 100 films in
1937, Fermo con le mani (Hold Your Hands Still) and by 1948 he was famous enough to
have his name in the title of a film—Totò al Giro d’Italia (Totò and the Tour of Italy)—
the first of thirty-four to bear his name, including the first Italian film in colour (Toto a
colori (Totò in Colour), 1952). He published a volume of Neapolitan poetry, A livella
(1964), of which he was justly proud, and in his last years he also made a number of
television shorts. He often worked with Nino Taranto and Mario Castellani as his straight
men, but also performed with other famous comics such as the Neapolitans Edoardo,
Peppino and Titina De Filippo as well as Vittorio De Sica as an actor and director, the
Roman Aldo Fabrizi and the Turinese Macario. He was almost always flanked by one or
more of the most beautiful starlets of the time. Many of the films, such as Totò Tarzan
(1950), Che fine ha fatto Totò Baby? (What Ever Happened to Baby Totò?) (1964) and
Toto d’Arabia (Totò of Arabia) (1965), were parodies of current successes, but others
were completely original comedies.
The roles he played were always founded on the persona he had developed from his
early days in variety theatre and which had its roots in the commedia dell’arte tradition.
He was part Pulcinella (Punch) and part Harlequin, and not unlike Charlie Chaplin in
some ways; but Totò’s character was nevertheless a very individual creation. A funny
little Neapolitan in a bowler hat and baggy trousers, slap shoes and coloured socks, a
shoelace for a tie and a tail coat too small for him, he typically fights against the big, the
bullies and the bureaucrats and wins through with a combination of innocent anarchy and
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of not so innocent guile. His classic division of the world was between ‘men’ (real
people) and ‘corporals’ (officious asses), a quip that he had picked up during the First
World War but which he then made his own, incorporating it in the title of one of his
best-known film comedies, Siamo uomini o caporali? (Are We Men or are We
Corporals?) (1955). Gifted with a naturally funny but disarming face, he used mime
techniques and puppet movements together with virtuoso displays of puns and tongue-
twisters which he mostly improvised on the set.
To his chagrin, his films were sneered at by highbrow critics despite constant popular
success, so he was very gratified to work with ‘intellectual’ directors like Pasolini and
Nanni Loy in the last few years of his life.
Much loved and revered by ordinary Italians, he was nevertheless a profoundly
contradictory character. He was both generous and jealous, ironic and iconoclastic, both
on and off the set. He was also fiercely proud of his aristocratic title and always insisted
on being addressed as ‘Principe’ (he was the unacknowledged illegitimate son of a
Marquis De Curtis, and spent much effort proving his noble descent). Politically, he was
both a socialist and monarchist. Married to Diana Rogliani, with whom he had had a
daughter, Liliana De Curtis, in 1933, he lived with Franca Faldini from 1952 until his
death. Since then his popularity has continued to increase to the point where he now
enjoys cult status.
Further reading
Caldiron, O. (1980) Totò, Rome: Gremese (a comprehensive illustrated survey, includes a full
biography and a detailed presentation of all his shows and films).
Governi, G. (1980) Vita di Totò, Principe napoletano e grande attore (Life of Totò: Neapolitan
Prince and Great Actor), Milan: Rusconi (includes filmography and theatre).
JAMES WALSTON
Touring Club Italiano
The aim of the Touring Club Italiano (TCI) is to promote and assist tourism in Italy,
especially through a series of publications that focus on the natural and artistic beauties of
the country. Founded in Milan in 1894 as TCCI (the second ‘C‘standing for Ciclistico
(Bicycling)), its first function was the organization of trips, excursions and non-
competitive bicycle races. Soon the emphasis switched to the needs of the automobile
driver. TCI now produces studies and surveys to determine and improve the condition of
the roads, supplies accurate road maps and roadside assistance in conjunction with ACI
(Automobile Club d’Italia), and provides the necessary documents for Italian drivers
travelling abroad. TCI is also involved with the hotel industry, for which it publishes
manuals and sponsors hotel management classes and training programmes. Hotels,
restaurants, campgrounds and other establishments that display the TGI logo have been
inspected and approved by the organization.
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PAOLO VILLA
tourism
Italy offers a diverse range of tourist products, from cultural tourist attractions based on
art, culture, music and religion, to coastal tourism, mountains, hot springs and spas,
natural resources, theme parks and special events. It has been estimated that at least 40
per cent of the world’s cultural and historical heritage (including 50 per cent of the
world’s artistic heritage) is concentrated in Italy (Bonini, 1993). However, such
concentration presents the Italian government and the tourist industry with a conundrum:
Italy’s cultural heritage will inevitably help to maintain that country’s attractiveness to
domestic and international travellers but, at the same time, large numbers of tourists
present complex visitor management problems, which ultimately threaten the
sustainability of tourist resources.
Domestic tourism is the mainstay of Italy’s tourist industry, with domestic travel
highly seasonal and heavily concentrated in the traditional holiday months of July and
August. Tourism is also concentrated geographically Northern Italy contains five of the
leading tourist destination regions in terms of visitor arrivals and bed-nights, reflecting
the economic differences between the wealthy north and the poorer south. The major
destination areas in Italy continue to be Rome, Florence and Venice. These cities, with
lengthy tourism histories, have experienced recent declines in their tourist market shares
because, among other things, their hotels are old and overly expensive, restaurant prices
are excessive, transportation is inefficient and many cultural attractions keep irregular
hours (for example, opening only in the morning or in the afternoon), are closed on
Sundays and public holidays, or are open only on special request. In addition, the
Naples—Capri-Sorrento area was one of Italy’s largest tourist destinations until the
mid1970s, when social problems, pollution and degradation led to declines in its share of
tourist travel (Bonini, 1993). Conversely, former minor historical and cultural sites
(attributes which appeal to the growing numbers of discerning tourists) concentrated in
central and northern Italy (such as Assisi, Pisa, Siena and Verona) have steadily increased
their shares of the tourist market. This area too, however, especially the Umbria region,
suffered extensive physical damage in the disastrous 1997 earthquakes, the consequences
of which were extremely severe and wide-ranging.
Italian tourism itself has had a long, significant but turbulent history. During the
Roman Empire, ‘state official travel offices’ provided travel permits incorporating maps
with information on accommodation and transportation services. With the fall of the
Roman empire and the coming of the ‘dark ages’, tourism was largely restricted to
pilgrimages. From the seventeenth century onwards, Italy regained its position as one of
the world’s leading tourist destinations, with the Italian peninsula the core destination
within the ‘Grand Tour’. In the nineteenth century, Thomas Cook’s career as a travel
agent began when increasing numbers of English people took an active interest in
travelling to the beaches of the Italian Riviera (Formica and Uysal, 1996). From 1860 to
1960, tourism was Italy’s biggest and most lucrative industry (Bosworth, 1996).
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In 1912, Bonaldo Stringher made dubious claims that tourism contributed invisible
assets which kept the national balance in budget and thereby contributed to Italy’s
development and prosperity (see Bosworth, 1997). However, the onset of the First World
War created a sense of urgency to develop a national tourism policy. Although many
Italian tourist resources were either destroyed or extensively damaged in the two world
wars (during the Second World War, 40 per cent of hotels were destroyed and another 20
per cent were damaged), there was recognition that the management of postwar tourist
attractions and sites (such as battle sites) would require public sector intervention and
planning. Subsequently, the Ente Nazionale per le Industrie Turistiche (ENIT) was
established in 1919, mainly as a result of F.S.Nitti’s commitment to rational economic
planning. By October 1922, as Fascism came to power, this body was inevitably still
feeling its way, and the Fascist regime, beginning in 1923, had the major responsibility
for developing a detailed policy for ENIT’s future and for international and domestic
tourism planning and promotion (Bosworth, 1997). Despite the well-documented failings
of ENIT, a second government tourist agency (the Compagnia Italiana Turismo, CIT)
was established in 1927, followed in 1934 by the Direzione Generale per il Turismo
(DGT, which fell under the authority of the Ministry of Press and Propaganda) and then
the Ente Provinciale per il Turismo the following year. The charters of these and other
independent agencies (for example, the Royal Italian Automobile Club, RIAC) created
considerable overlap in tourism policy and administration, thereby generating much
postwar debate about which of the administrations should be retained and how it should
be structured domestically and internationally (see Bosworth, 1997).
The problems in the public administration of Italian tourism aside, by 1950 Italy had
become the world’s third most popular tourist destination after the United States and
Canada. Although Italy’s tourist facilities were modest, its prices for accommodation,
transportation and meals were internationally competitive. Between 1951 and 1965,
tourism growth in Italy averaged 11.5 per cent per annum, and tourism’s share of exports
rose from single figures to 19.3 per cent. However, during this period the international
tourism scene changed dramatically as population growth and demographic changes
(such as the baby boom), technological innovations (such as jet aircraft) and
socioeconomic developments (such as reductions in working hours) encouraged
international travel and competition, and as tour operators began to invest heavily in the
comparatively cheap coastal areas of the Mediterranean (especially Greece, Spain,
Turkey and Yugoslavia). These areas competed successfully with Italy mainly on the
basis of price and sustained marketing and promotion programmes.
This competition was all the more damaging since the public organization of tourism
in Italy had long been ineffective. Public tourist organizations lacked strategic foci and
appropriate institutional frameworks. The Ministry of Tourism and Performing Arts,
abolished in April, 1993, was previously responsible for all leisure-related public policy,
but it did not have a separate tourism portfolio and it patently demonstrated little concern
with the sustainability of the Italian tourist industry. The Ministry was transformed into a
Tourism Department of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, and is now
responsible for international tourism policy and for coordinating tourism development
and promotion. Until the early 1990s, most public sector activity had been concerned
with funding large events such as the 1990 World Soccer Championships and the 1992
500th anniversary of the discovery of America. Simultaneously, the Ente Nazionale
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