OCTOBER 1986 THE ITALIAN REVIEW OF BOOKS - LIT. 5.000

Tullio Pericoli: Italo Calvino Italo Calvino The Sun and the Moon by Natalia Ginzburg Cesare Cases: Rethinking the Absurd Salvatore Settis: The Importance of Being Originai Giorgio Caproni: Sbarbaro s Asparagus Francis Haskell: The Enlightenment of Franco Venturi pag. 2 L'INDICE N.8 • dei libri del meseBì

A Note front the Editor

As the subtitle of this special issue indicates, "L'In- Wie der Untertitel dieser Sonderausgabe verrat, dice" likes to think of itself as the Italian review of books. versteht sich "L'Indice" als die italienische True, it is a mere two years old: but it has illustrious Buchkritikzeitschrift. Sie existiert zwar erst seit zwei foster parents, and like most children it strives to live up Jahren, hat aber dafiir illustre Vorfahren und ist bemiiht, to their fame while maintaining a distinct identity of its ihren Ruf zu nahren, indem sie eine klare Eigenidentitat own. Though published in Italian, it hopes to build up a aufrechterhàlt. Obwohl sie nur auf Italienisch erscheint, readership in other countries. hofft sie auf weitere Leserschaft aufierhalb Italiens. This special issue in English offers a sample for those Diese Sonderausgabe auf Englisch bietet eine who do not read Italian but are interested in Italian Kostprobe fiir diejenigen, die zwar kein Italienisch books. It is, of course, much briefer than a regular verstehen, aber an italienischen Buchern interessiert sind. monthly issue (only 16 pages instead of 48, reviewing up- Natiirlich ist sie mit nur 16 gegeniiber 48 Seiten einer wards of a hundred books); stili, we trust that it will give regularen Monatsausgabe, welche iiber 100 the reader a good idea of the kind of service "L'Indice" of- Neuerscheinungen rezensiert, wesentlich kiirzer gefafit; fers. wir hoffen dennoch, dafi sie dem Leser einen The choice of articles in such a small number of pages hinreichenden Ùberblick iiber Art und Aufmachung der is obviously highly arbitrary. We decided at the outset to Zeitschrift "L'Indice" vermittelt. limit ourselves to recent Italian books. While this issue Die Auswahl der Artikel in einer derart gekiirzten certainly cannot claim to reflect "ali the best in Italian Ausgabe ist notwendigerweise hòchst willkiirlich. Wir publishing", an effort has been made to offer a balanced haben uns entschieden, uns prinzipiell auf italienische picture. Neuerscheinungen zu beschrànken. Da diese Ausgabe We are also taking this opportunity to show off the sicherlich nicht nur die "Glanzpunkte" aller italienischen portraits of our artist, Tullio Pericoli. Veròffentlichungen wiederzugeben behaupten kann, haben wir uns bemiiht, ein ausgeglichenes Bild zu vermit- teln. Wir mòchten diese Gelegenheit auch nutzen, um die Portràts unseres Zeichners Tullio Pericoli vorzustellen. Contents: 3 Natalia Ginzburg: The Sun and the Moon

REVIEWER AUTHOR TITLE 4 Cesare Cases Primo Levi I sommersi e i salvati 5 Giorgio Caproni Camillo Sbarbaro L'opera in versi e in prosa 6 Carla Marello Manlio Cortelazzo, Ugo Cardinale Dizionario di parole nuove (1964-1984) 7 Lidia De Federicis Franco Frabboni et al. (Eds.) Fare scuola. 1. La narrazione Mario Picchi Storie di casa Leopardi 8 Alessandro Baricco Alberto Basso (Ed.) Dizionario Enciclopedico Universale della Musica e dei Musicisti Renato Nicolini Stefano Benni Comici spaventati guerrieri 9 Riccardo Bellofiore Giorgio Ruffolo La qualità sociale. Le vie dello sviluppo 11 Francis Haskell Luciano Guerci, L'età dei Lumi. Studi storici sul Settecento Massimo Firpo (Eds.) europeo in onore di Franco Venturi Gian Giacomo Migone Giorgio Galli Storia del partito armato 1968-1982 12 Ronald Witt Sergio Bertelli et al. Le corti italiane del Rinascimento Sergio Bertelli et al. Rituale cerimoniale etichetta 13 Salvatore Settis Licia Vlad Borrelli, Due bronzi di Riace. Ritrovamento, restauro, Paola Pelagatti (Eds.) analisi ed ipotesi di interpretazione 15 Corrado Mangione Gabriele Lolli Le ragioni fisiche e le dimostrazioni matematiche Luigi Tavolaccini Michele Tansella (Ed.) L'approccio epidemiologico in psichiatria

\Ve gratefully acknowledge the help and support receivedfrom a number ofItalian institutions (and, as always in these cases, those in- dividuals within them who bave believed in the usefulness of what we are trying to achieve with this English edition): the Comitato per la promozione del libro italiano all'estero, coordinated by the Direzione Generale delle Informazioni Editoriali e Proprietà Letterarie of the Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri,; the Direzione Generale delle Relazioni Culturali of the Ministero degli Affari Esteri; the Dire- zione Generale degli Scambi Culturali of the Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione; the Direzione Generale per gli Affari Generali (Divi- sione Editoria) of the Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali; the Associazione Italiana Editori. It goes almost without saying that they bave no responsibility for the choice of books or the contentof the reviews. Where not otherwise indicateti, the articles bave been translated into English by Malcolm Skey. We thank him and Donata Ongo, who has done the other translations. Francis Haskell and Ronald Witt wrote their pieces directly in English. We also thank Katia Lysy and Virginia Kay who helped us with the editing and the proofreading ofthe English text. wmmmmmmm^ IINDICF 3 Ili DEI LIBRI DEL MESE^I

in Italy since Pinocchio. It ought to tati has pointed out. What the rea- be read in schools. Perhaps it is: if sons for this transformation may The Sun and the Moon so, it ought to be read more. The have been, what were the processes style is swift and trasparent. One by which it carne about, we cannot by Natalia Ginzburg can learn concreteness, conciseness, teli. It was noticeable, if anything, and a feathery brightness by reading in Calvino's walk, in his smile, in it. It is brimming with that same fes- his way of looking at you. And it The last time I saw Italo Calvino paper. There were only a few of us White Elephants. tive sunny light you find in II vis- was reflected in his writing. alive was in a room in the hospital working at Einaudi in those days: Calvino used to bring his stories conte dimezzato and in his earliest Citati writes: "With ever-increas- at Siena, the day after his brain oper- we were stili waiting for Pavese to for Pavese and me to read. They stories. ing tenacity and restlessness, with ation. His head was bandaged; his return from Rome, where he had were written in a minute, rounded Of ali the articles that have ap- an extraordinary capacity for pick- bare arms, strong and bronzed, lay been living for some months. Cal- hand, bristling with erasures. They peared recently in memory of Cal- ing up and transmitting vibrations, outside the sheets; and he seemed to vino and I stood there for ages, talk- struck me as very fine indeed, with vino, I feel the finest is that by Pie- Calvino delved into that enormous be asleep. His face was cairn, his ing by that stove: heaven knows their festive landscapes bathed in tro Citati; because, in his words, I part of our existence which lies hid- breathing steady: there were no vis- why we didn't fetch a couple of bright sunlight; at times they told of seem to recognize Calvino as he den behind our feelings and our ible signs of suffering. I imagined chairs. war, of death, of blood, but nothing really was, both in his youth and as thoughts, lurking in tne crevices, that he would recover quickly I well remember the stove, and seemed to detract from that sun- he later became. Not that he the depths, the abysses of the enough, and soon be able to leave the snow outside; but I cannot recali light; no shadow ever darkened changed much, physically speaking: spirit...". And again: "His mind un- that bed. Over the next few days, I what it was we spoke of. Short those green leafy woods, with their to look at, he remained a boy. But verwent a profound change. It be- read in the papers of things he had came the most complex, labyrin- said on awaking. Looking at the thine, winding, architectonic mind tubes protruding from the drips by of any modem Italian writer... He his bed, he had commentea: "It was no longer able to affirm any- looks like a chandelier". When his thing whatever, nor could he rule daughter entered the ward, asking anything out; for each affirmation him "Who am I?", he had replied: generated its own negation; and the "The tortoise". When one of his negation yet another affirmation, doctors asked him the same ques- and so on, in a dizzy movement tion, he got the answer "A police in- which at times rendered him inca- spector". To those of us who loved pable of speech or of writing". Calvino, those few phrases were a precious gift, a sign that he was stili Little by little the green and leafy himself, that nothing in him had landscapes, the glistening snow, the changed, that his mind was stili bright daylight, disappeared from peopled by tortoises, chandeliers, Calvino's books. A new light filters and police inspectors. through them, no longer radiant and sunny, but white: not cold ex- Ifind it quite impossible to think actly, but somehow utterly de- of him as dead. I don't know why, serted. The irony remained; but it but death always seemed such a long was imperceptible, no longer glad to way from Calvino. When I first met be alive, white and uninnabited as him, he was only twenty-three: a the moon itself. mere boy. And now I realize that I have never stopped seeing him as a Already, in that wonderful book boy, really. It never did strike me Le città invisibili — the best of ali, in that he could age, be transformed my opinion — this transformation into an old man with a limp and can be seen clearly. Certainly, the grey hair. And to teli the truth, at world is there, radiant, variegated, twenty-three he wasn't very differ- speckled with a myriad colours; yet ent to look at from what he later it is as if the gaze turned upon it, became. Time brought with it deep searchine and contemplative, is con- horizontal lines on his forehead, scious of being about to \eave it iox and a few tufts of white hair on the ever. From now on that gaze wijj temples; but very little else, in alight elsewhere, no longer on the infinite brightness of sky and sea or physical terms. In his youth he was the tangle of human affairs; from lean, straight, and swift in his move- now on it will search for that im- ments; and so he remained. mensity elsewhere, in inseets' shells Straight and upright though he or in cracks in the rocks — "the was, even when a young man he had crevices, the depths, the abysses of that habit of occasionally stooping the spirit". The pain of memory has forward a little, as if to curi himself condensed around the "invisible up as a defence against prying ques- cities" of the book's title. In ali of tions. As a young man ne tended to Calvino's other works, memory is stammer, too: true, he never did absent; or rather, when it is present lose his stammer entirely, but it was it is never painful. Here, in these more marked then. Often, he "invisible cities", not dreamed-of seemed to be pulling his words out but remembered, reigns the painful of some secret word-bag of his own, memory of a time which will never or tearing them from a secret return. Over the cities, towering bundle: as he pronounced them he beneath the sky, teemine and re- would stumble over them, frown splendent, swarming with human slightly, and look down at his inter- mistakes, brimming with goods and locked fingers, with a kind of obsti- foodstuffs of ali kinds, the domain nate, ironie perplexity, as if he were of rats and of swallows, the sun is doing an imitation of himself. But setting. And the eyes which gaze however effortful and slow his upon them are bidding farewell to a speech, there was no sign of effort world much-loved, from on board a or slowness in his thinking, or in stories, I think. Calvino had written children, animals, and birds. From at some stage his mind and spirit ship which is sailing swiftly out to anything else he did: effort, slow- one, entitled Andata al comando, the very start, Calvino's style was changed profoundly. And this, as sea. ness, and stammering were a way of and had sent it to Vittorini for his direct and limpid: with the years, it far as I know, is something only Ci- making fun of himself, and of review Politecnico; and Vittorini had was to become pure crvstal. In this others, part of his way of life. When replied, not without a few reserva- fresh, transparent medium, reality I first met him, that stammer, half tions. At that time my idol was appeared as if speckled with a genuine and half assumed, struck Hemingway, and I knew that he tnousand coloured lights; and that me as somehow extraordinarily was one of Calvino's idols, too: in itself seemed a miracle, at a time <• * 'jvV \ cheerful and gay: he had a wonder- either of us would have given ten when writing tended to be severe, ful faculty for making a continuous years of his life to have written frowning, and frugai, and the very comical commentary on himself, on Hemingway's story Hills Like White world we were trying to describe others, and on the infinite, hairy, Elephants. was dominated by fog, rain, and scaly tails which words drag along Shortly afterwards, Pavese re- ashes. behind them. turned from Rome. He and Calvino When Pavese committed suicide, I met Calvino in the winter of became friends. Andata al comando we shared the tragedy together: Cal- 1946, in Turin, in the offices of the was duly published in Politecnico. vino, Felice Balbo, Giulio Einaudi publishing firm of Einaudi. He was And Calvino, I believe on Pavese's and I. Over the years, that tragedy standing by a stove, in the corridor. suggestion, left l'Unità and carne to kept us united, it was locked away It was a snowy morning, grey and work for Einaudi. in the deepest roots of our relation- • dark, so the lights were on in the Two years later, on behalf of the ship. Other losses kept us united in flftV'V : ' 1 corridor. The stove was one of firm, Calvino and I went to Stresa the same way, even though in time ""/ri - \ . • • • . M those ceramic ones which come to meet Hemingway. We were glad we had come to live in different from Castellamonte and which to be going, but a little afraid that he towns, and our lives had taken dif- leave red marks on your hands if might refuse to see us. We were ferent courses. you touch them. Calvino was work- shown into his room. At a little In 1956 Calvino published his Le V " ing at l'Unità, and had simply drop table, lit — I don't know why — by fiabe italiane. I think that this re- ped in, quite by chance, perhaps in candles, we were at last able to teli telling of Italian folk-tales is the best search of books to review for the him how much we loved Hills Like book for children to have appeared sienstadt who finally found out why among the "intellectuals": one feels Rethinkìng the Absurd the victims in medieval portrayals that if it were not for a veritable of martyrdom look unconcerned or even happy while they are being be- by Cesare Cases headed or burned alive: there was nothing they could do about it. omission of the SS. PRIMO LEVI, I sommersi e i by Karl Kraus — is the attitude of must follow "virtue and The "particular situation" does Levi tends to consider the salvati, Einaudi, Turin 1986,167 those who take notice of atrocities knowledge"; but for the most part not by any means imply that ali phenomenon of the extermination pp., Lit. 10.000. only when it is Culture that is being the classics or the humanities — as human beings behave uniformly camps as basically an unrepeatable attacked. the episode quoted from the Pro- under the jackboot. Far from it; but one. I think he is right, at least as far For Levi, on the other hand, the messi sposi shows — bear out the that is no reason for not taking cir- as the type of organization involved Four decades on from Se questo è classics are useful only in that they contradictions of the human spririt cumstances into account. Hence is concerned. I also feel convinced un uomo, the best-selline (and much illustrate certain constants of the which make the horror somehow Levi's protests at those by his analysis of the differences bet- translated) account of nis time in human spirit. Thus, telline of the plausible, while Ulysses' exhorta- psychoanalysts who apply to the ween the Nazi death camps and the Auschwitz, Primo Levi returns in Sonderkommando whose job it was tion coincides rather with the particular world of the concentra- Soviet model or other monstrosities this new book to the problems to clear the corpses out of the gas chemist Levi's need for knowledge tion camps (even when they are ex- born of totalitarianism. The pathos which have troubled him ever since chambers and which once halted in as such. Scientific theoiy and prac- inmates themselves, like Bruno Bet- of memory must serve to that terrible experience. Forty years embarrassed amazement before a tice had given him a faith in the telheim) simplified models derived reconstruct the experience for those is a long time; and Levi has never girl who by some miracle had surviv- basic rationality of reality, and in from the world outside. And he is who are unaware of it even through been able to stop reflecting on it, hearsay : it would indeed reading others' accounts of it and be good if this book were to find its comparing notes. Jean Améry, way into the hands of the many anotner survior — to whom one of young people who (even without the chapters of I sommersi e i salvati having read Faurisson) doubt the is dedicated, and with whom Levi truth of such accounts simply evidently had a far from easy rela- because the mass media have taught tionship — called him "the them to believe that anything can be forgiver". Frankly, the description fantasy, with the same actors mov- does not seem particularly accurate. ing on from Holocaust to King Ar- Levi's book contains some par- thur and the Round Table. ticulary fine passages on memory But the distance between the and oblivion. One who is unable to world of the camps and the world of forget the wrongs suffered, who every day occasionally breaks the feels the need to make sure that they threads which link them. Levi never are not forgotten by others, con- completely abandons his basic con- tinually racking his brains over the viction that once the intrusion of incomprehensible and irrational the irrational is at an end, scientific aspects of what happened to him, rationalism will contrive to get wm ho "fails to understand" the Ger- itself, and the world, back on the mans (those Germans, obviously), rails. What he simply cannot and who frequents them and pro- swallow is that the esteemed vokes them into writing him letters manufacturing firm of Topf, in in the hope that they may shed at Wiesbaden, builders of crematoria least some light on the matter: a for civil use, should have supplied writer like this can hardly be called the equipment for Auschwitz Ind a "forgiver", surely. True, Levi then calmly returned to its former defines himself as one who doesn't activity without even bothering to know how to react: he is the sort change its name. It is here, perhaps, who after tracking down his former that the secret of the "immense folly tormentor to his very front door, of the Third Reich" (which Levi turns away without ringing the beli. tried in vain to fathom in Se questo è But this does not mean that he un uomo) really lies: if so, then it is a forgives his tormentor: why, other- universal secret. For science, wise, should he have expended so technology, and reason itself have much effort on tracing the man in ali in their turn crossed over to the the first place? side of unreason without so much as Jean Améry denied that Levi was a change of name. Of course, Levi is an "intellectual" (certainly a far well aware of this; but he is unable from privileged category, in not to point out the distinction, and Auschwitz): for him, the only true it is well that someone should feel "intellectuals" were on the the need to do so. It is worth look- humanities side, and Levi, as is well ing carefully at his chapter on known, is a chemist by training and "useless violence", in which Levi profession. Levi protests at tnis a distinguishes between "rational priori judgment, both because he violence" (which is violence with a rightly does not agree that those practical purpose — even when that with scientific training should be ex- purpose is extermination) and the cluded, and because well before useless variety, intended only to finally giving up chemistry for degrade the individuai, a sort of art literature, he had always felt that his for art's sake in which the Germans earlier classical education was essen- Tullio Pericoli: were masters. There are observa- tial to him: indeed, in today's world Primo Levi tions of great subtlety in this Levi (who, incidentally, not long chapter: here, too, I agree that it is ago published an anthology of his only proper to protest against the favourite authors) stands out as a liv- trend, in fashion since 1968, which ing monument to the tradition of puts a month's jail today on the the old Italian liceo classico, rooted ed the gas, Levi adds: "How can one the perfectibility of man, which particuarly incensed by talk of the same piane as a year in Auschwitz in Homer, Dante, Manzoni, and fail to recali the scene in I promessi Auschwitz was to put to the test. It "uncommunicable nature" of the ex- (moreover, Levi has no doubts Leopardi. And it is precisely the sposi where the rough corpse- is the sense of amazement allied pe;rience. Not just because he about what to think of model "scholastic" nature of this culture gatherer hesitates with "unac- with his implacable curiosity about hiimseli f belongs to the category of prisons, and begs to differ with a which — luckily — prevents him customed respect" before the this apparent betrayal, which gives eye-witnesses who like Ancient German friend who accepts the of- from being an "intellectual" in the mother who refuses to let the body many of Levi's pages their peculiar Mariner are impeOed to teli ali; but ficiai version of the suicides at Stam- Améry sense, a sort of person of her daughter be thrown onto the aptness and strength. What could because the experience through mheim). But is not this whom Levi sees as feeling no real in- plague-cart with ali the others"? Ceronetti or Cioran have found to which he lived was one in which the methodological division between ra- terest in the diversity of the men Auschwitz and an outbreak of say about Auschwitz, except "We ability to communicate was from tional and irrational violence a way who peopled Auschwitz but who plague in Manzoni's seventeenth- could have told you so"? Maybe the outset a question of life and of rescuing rationality when it is were not "intellectuals" themselves. century Lombardy are worlds apart, they would have been at least partly death, and in which the refusai to past saving? And in the eyes of that The trouble with the intellectual, in of course; but in each case there is right; but we should have learned communicate was a sure sign that God who is not (not in Levi's eyes, fact, is that he is absorbed with his the awareness that man is not a nothing about Auschwitz. If the end was not far away. The irrita- or in mine) might not the useless own category, interested only in his monolith, that there are moments mankind really were just a massa tion at talk of the "inadequacy of violence of the Germans appear a own kind. It is an attitude which of humanity even in those who have damnationis there would be no words", etc., is one-sided, if yoti barbarous hangover or throwback seems to me to be disastrously pre- become mechanical servants of evil. "grey area" in which good and evil like; but it is just as well that once in — like the behaviour ot a child who sent not only in the works of the The "two cultures" are equally cannot be separated with the naked a while such platitudes, however tortures an insect before finishing gallicized German Améry (the sur- present in the mixture of com- eye, and it is here that Levi is able to well-intentioned, should be brushed it off — whereas the rational, scien- name is an anagram of Mayer) but prehension and legitimate bewilder- apply his unrivalled analytical abili- angrily aside by one who has earned tific exterminator tranforms it in a also, for example, in Jorge Sem- ment which has enabled Levi to ty. This "grey area" is actually the right not to care a whit for flash into the famous shadow im- prun's memoirs of Buchenwald: write his finest books, of which I heyond good and evil: not because Beckett or Wittgenstein. Indeed, printed on the wall at Hiroshima? and here, too, the influence is the sommersi e i salvati is undoubtedly they are not present there, but Levi even has the pluck to find This difficulty of circumscribing same, the corporative spirit of the one. In the event it is science which because the particular situation Nietzsche intolerable: indeed, he ac- the area of horror is clear in the field French intelligentsia. Inhumanity is emerges as the more frustrated of makes them blend into one another tually goes so far as to say that he of linguistics, a field which seems not inhumane because it kills the two. True, in a chapter of Se and become somehow less relevant senses a certain connection between neutral enough but which is culture, but because it kills men. questo è un uomo Levi used Dante's for an overall judgment. In the the philospher and the camps. nothing of the kind, as Levi well "The lot, but not the Gobelins" — song of Ulysses as a reminder that Ghetto Museum at Prague there is a No, Améry was not mistaken in to quote the ironie title of a poem even in the midst of horror man note made by a prisoner in There- refusing to classify Primo Levi mmmmmm * riNDICF IH DEI LIBRI DEL MESEBB

r also — and this is the point — Montale, Sbarbaro brought his « throws light on the innate modesty home region of Liguria within the knows, for he devotes a lot of atten- Sbarbaro s Asparagus of Sbarbaro, especially if one circle of the holy places of Italian tion to it. It is sometimes said of the already knows that in the brief an- verse, strengthening the idyll with language of the camps that it was "a by Giorgio Caproni thology published by the Mercure his typically Ligurian terseness and particularly barbarized version" of (fifteen poets, from the elderly Saba economy". what the writer Victor Klemperer CAMILLO SBARBARO, L'opera in when an article of mine about his to the young Pasolini) Sbarbaro Enough said. What I feel about termed Lingua Tertii Imperii, even versi e in prosa, edited by Gina work appeared in II punto. Here it himself had been unaccountably left Sbarbaro I have already written on a out. That same Sbarbaro who was number of occasions. No point in proposing the acronym LTI "in an Lagorio and Vanni Scheiwiller, is: ironie analogy with the hundred already thought of as the greatest repeating myself here. Ali I wished Garzanti, Milan 1985, 726 pp., "DearC, others - NSDAP, SS, SA, SD, K2, figure in that important "Ligurian to do was celebrate, enjoy the event Lit. 50.000 As soon as I got the news, I rushed RKPA, DVHA, RSHA, BDM, - so out to catch the first bus to Savona, group" of poets (or "ligustrian in my own way. dear to the Germany of the time". where I found a copy of II punto at group" as I once punningly termed To begin again. A book of verse — Only to the Germany of the time, "A publishing event" proclaims the station book-stall (...). An hour it with a play on "Ligurian" and the any book of verse — is always a joy. and not to the world of today? Do the slogan on the olive-green wrap- later, having bought some asparagus Italian for the common privet: the Ali the more so when it contains today's initials stand for more in- per enclosing this handsome by way of celebration, I was back on expression was, incredibly, adopted some pieces we already knew before. Poems we have loved "sing- nocuous institutions? Perhaps. Let volume, nothing less than the com- the bus again, slowly working my by critics in the garbled form of ly" before they were ever collected: us not forget that another German plete works of Camillo Sbarbaro, way through your article, savouring "linguistic group"!). As Pier Vincen- poems which have found their way philologist, the Communist Werner edited by Gina Lagorio and Vanni every word. zo Mengaido writes: "well before Krauss, while awaiting execution in into our own private "anthology of Plòtzensee, actually wrote a satire the heart" which each of us slowly on Nazi Germany which had as its builds up without any regard for title the acrostic PLN (i.e. Postleit- criticai judgments or prejudices. An anthology of the heart, ali the more nummer, "post code"). The centrai precious for being irrational, character is the grotesque but not The Poet s Life and Works unreasonable. unpleasant figure of an Austrian-bo- And then, isn't a book of verse rn Nazi Postmaster-General, who forty years after the first, and differing so Camillo Sbarbaro was born at Santa really an object meant to be used, dreams up this wonderful inven- significantly from it that the two versions are tion: what more rational institution Margherita Ligure, not far from the Ligurian like a shoe-brush, a comb, or a dic- now traditionally printed together as a diptych. than this system which in a mere capital of Genoa, on January 12, 1888. His first tionary? Please do not be scandaliz- ten years will speed correspondence book of poems, written while at High School, Rimanenze (Scheiwiller, Milan 1955) contains ed by the comparison. What I mean from one end of the country to the was published in 1911. Apartfrom war service, the group of early elegiac poems known as Versi is that one sudaenly feels the need to other in just twentyfour hours (as in he spent nearly ali his life in and around a Dina and a number of other pieces dating re-read certain verses one loves, 1910) always provided we write the Genoa: the city (especially at night) and the back to the years 1921-22. It was followed by the some of which have temporarily envelope properly according to the prose o/Fuochi fatui (Scheiwiller, Milan 1956, escaped the memory; and there is locai countryside figure largely in his work. the book, ready to oblige, iust like computerizea rules? etc.), Scampoli (Vallecchi, Florence 1960), 1and Largely self-taught, he became a sought-after the photograph of girlfriend or wife Levi has never made any attempt translator from the Greek (Aeschylus, Cartoline in franchigia, dating from the First kept in one's wallet. No more, no to remove the camp number tat- Euripides, Sophocles) and the French (mainly World War (Nuove edizioni Vallecchi, 1966). less. tooed on his forearm, because it is the nineteenth-century classics. With A first collected edition of the verse was There is barely any point in say- the visible and outward sign of that characteristic modesty he also won an interna- undertaken by Scheiwiller in 1961. An an- ing here that of course, I already had degredation and sense of shame for donai reputation as a lichenologist, identifying thology of prose and verse, edited by Scheiwiller almost ali of Sbarbaro's works at the guilt of human kind about no fewer than 127 species and donating a but published by Mondadori, appeared in 1979: home — both books and originals, which he has written so movingly. I for he gave me many of the latter am sure that he is right. But suppose number of herbaria to academic institutions in it contains two essays by Eugenio Montale. Europe and the United States. Sbarbaro was The long-awaited collected edition reviewed before he died, including Vivante's he were to receive tnrough the post autograph letters Vivante, which he one of those little machine-readable awarded the Saint Vincent poetry prize in here (which respeets Sbarbaro's last wishes as ex- had used to compose a delightful cards — scheduled for introduction 1949, the Etna-Taormina prize in 1956, and pressed to Vanni Scheiwiller and thus excludes "self-portrait" entitled Autoritratto in Germany — bearing in their the Feltrinelli prize of the Accademia dei Lincei Resine and a number of other things) comprises involontario di Elena De Bosis, magnetized strip full details of six years later. From 1951 onwards he lived in the brief Vnmizìt, both versions o/Pianissimo, edited, Vie said, "so that those who everything that has ever eone wrong isolated semi-retirement with his sister in the with Rimanenze and a brief appendix, follow- knew her can stitt Yiear Vier voice*. \ in our lives (from baa marks at small seaside town of Spotorno, until his death ed by the prose Trucioli, Scampoli, Fuochi cannot get its lively style out of ;ny primary school to parking fines): on October 31,1967. fatui, and Cartoline in franchigia, plus several head, even now. would he pocket it, like the rest of As I was saying, I already possess- us? Is the difference ali that great? Considering his relatively small output, translations including the celebrated II ciclope Sbarbaro's bibliography is singularly complex. after Euripides. ed almost everything Sbarbaro Yes, of course, but... In God's eyes wrote; but that doesn't mean that On Sbarbaro and his work, see the short ali ways of "administering the Resine (Caimo, Genoa 1911) is a short collec- the celebration is any less the real world" are the same. tion of early efforts which he later said he did studies by Lorenzo Polato, in the series "Il thing, for the thick volume by my But God does not exist, so we not wish to have reprinted after his death. Castoro" (La Nuova Italia, Florence 1969, 2nd side is a lot more convenient to han- have to get along as best we can Pianissimo (La Voce, Florence 1914) is general- ed. 1974), and by Giorgio Bàrberi Squarotti dle than a heap of often rather among tne risks of making too ly considered his most important collection of (Mursia, Milan 1971), not to mention the delicate papers and paper-bound many distinctions and not making verse (but see infra,). A first series of short prose biographical volume by Gina Lagorio, Sbar- volumes. enough. It is a comfort, in this pieces, known as Trucioli (Vallecchi, Florence baro. Un modo spoglio di esistere (Garzanti, One day, if the mood takes me, I bigoted age, to see that Levi's 1920) was followed by Liquidazione (Ribet, Milan 1981: a reworking of Sbarbaro con- may sit down to compare the texts, agnosticism carne through Turin 1920), after which there was a gap of two trocorrente, Guancia, Parma 1973); which in search of variants and alterations. Auschwitz unscathed, although he For the moment, I am content to decades before the second edition of Resine contains the most complete available realized that faith, any sort of faith, spend my time looking up early was essential to survival (on this, (Garzanti, Milan 1948) and, in the same years, bibliography, including the periodical literature. loves. too, he has one of his illuminating the second series of Trucioli (Mondadori, A full-scale Bibliografia degli scritti di The very first of ali is the poem anecdotes, about a certain Fren- Milan). Camillo Sbarbaro is currently being prepared entitled Versi a Dina: chman who — after the Liberation In 1954 an entirely reworked edition of by Carla Angeleri and Giampiero Costa for "La trama delle lucciole ricordi — expressed amazement that Pianissimo appeared, (Neri Pozza, Venice), just publication by Scheiwiller. anyone could have despaired of ever being rescued, because "you ought s> to have known that Joseph was there!": and it took Levi some time to realize that "Joseph" meant Scheiwiller. An understatement if Please let me sav "thank you". I Stalin). In Se questo è un uomo there ever there was one. Indeed, one can can't think of anything more impor- is the figure of one Cohn, who after but stand aghast at the extreme tant, and more intimately true. The each "selection parade" thanked modesty of the publisher — a discre- "golden thread of harsh pity", the God for having spared him: Levi tion which the "frugai" Sbarbaro "private hell" to which I continually adds that if he had been God he would undoubtedly have return, and so on, are fundamental would have spat the prayer onto the wholeheartedly approved — in these insights which so far as I know ground. Here he confesses that days when the big drum is beaten nobody else has even put down on before a selection parade (and not with such monotonous regularity to paper. It is ali as penetrating and ex- afterwards) he had been tempted to ensure the success of the latest Dor- act as an X-ray. Comforting and pray. "A prayer in those cir- ing novel of the season. I am almost rewarding, too. cumstances, though, would not just tempted to compose a hymn of Two days ago I received from have been absurd. It would have praise to Garzanti of Milan, not just Scheiwiller the December issue of been blasphemous, obscene, full of to Sbarbaro himself. the Mercure de France containing the greatest impiety of which an Almost, but not quite. What the Bigongiari's selection of poems of unbeliever is capable. So I resisted editor has asked for is a review. But today. I re-read your Ascensore the temptation: I knew that if I sur- that is impossible for a mere poet, so travestito with renewed pleasure vived I would have been ashamed". I shall leave it to the experts; though (there are one or two points where I And it would indeed have been I doubt whether their complicated thought the rendering could have shameful to try this "wager" in the technical arguments will do much been improved) and the lovely In- teeth of imminent annihilation, in to brine the crowds flocking into terludio. "Proper poetry" it is; as that place whose very existence was the bookshops. people used to talk of "proper cof- a definitive denial of theodicv and This article, then, is no more than fee" in days when the real stuff was thus of the existence of a God with a more or less private (but open) hard to come by. arms wide enough to welcome ali celebration of the event, an attempt Yours ever, the repented sinners of our day. For to enjoy it as Sbarbaro himself Sbarbaro" God knows, there are enough of would have done. I am put in mind But if this letter reveals my own Tullio Pericoli: them. of a letter he wrote me back in 1960, incorrigible tendency to show off, it Camillo sbarbaro p riNDICF « ••DEI LIBRI DELMESEB

trees; and inevitably — in those days The twisted roots without which tion which incidentally did not Tullio Pericoli: Giorgio Caproni my own loves were between nearby the tree won't produce its flowers, displease him); the total absence of sul mar di Nervi, mia dolcezza Nervi and Loano — the verses etch- up above in the air". illusions, in a false world bereft of prima? ed themselves on my memory. I should like this celebration (how meaning; his ruthlessness towards (trasognato paese dove fui Until then I had never read so many other pages of Sbarbaro, in that Terra guasta (years before ieri e che già non riconosce il much as a line of Sbarbaro's verse, verse and in prose, have I turned Eliot's Waste Land)-, that dry pity, cuore). or indeed of any of the other poets back to in the meantime!) to bring the song sometimes sticking in the Forse. Ma il gesto che t'incise den- who had published their work in together the largest possible number throat, always directed at men and tro Riviera Ligure. And apart from odd of readers — and above ali the never at the Heavens (or the Com- io non ricordo, e stillano in me scraps of information heard here young, for since the originai puter): I am convinced that there is dolce and there, I learnt nothing more of volumes are so exceptionally dif- no other poet of this century closer any account until the years immedi- parole che non sai d'aver dette. ficult to find, they cannot possibly than Sbarbaro to the young people ately after the war, in Rome, where Estrema delusione degli amanti! yet know to any satisfactory extent of today, in disenchantment and in I first set eyes on Pianissimo and on invano mescolarono le vite this poet who is an ideal author for hidden revolt. How one would like some of the Trucioli. s'anche il bene superstite, i ricor- them. to be able to make a present of this di, I had been told that Sbarbaro was With his plain, unadorned, but oh splendid volume to ali the young son mani che non giungono a toc- a "poet of bitterness". so cogent voice; his inimitable people one meets: not for consola- carsi. "Bitter?", he once retorted. "The hendecasyllables, almost shuffling tion, but to show the power of Ognuno resta con la sua perduta bitterness is in the roots, maybe. along in carpet slippers (a descrip- reason. felicità, un po' stupito e solo, pel mondo vuoto di significato. Miele segreto di che s'alimenta, fin che sino il ricordo ne consuma e tutto è come se non fosse stato. Oh come poca cosa quel che fu Tolerant Detachment da quello che non fu divide! Meno by Carla Marello che la scia della nave acqua da ac- qua. MANLIO CORTELAZZO AND UGO CAR- Saranno state (works ofreference, newspapers and magazines, DINALE, Dizionario di parole nuove le lucciole di Nervi, le cicale novels, etc.) and in the ùrge number ofproper e la casa sul mare di Loano, (1964-1984), Loescher, Turin 1986, 209 pp., names and multi-word expressions entered as e tutta la mia poca gioia — e tu — Lit. 8.800. headwords. Among proper names we find Al- fin che mi strazi questo ricordare." The man (or woman) in the Street realizes Fatah, Amnesty International, Algol, An- that the language is changing only when they nales (two polical or para-political organiza- I am not going to clain that this is come across a "new word". They meet a tions, a computer language, and a school of Sbarbaro's finest poem: after ali, it vigilessa (a female traffic-warden, or "meter French historians): among multi-word expres- isn't always with the most beautiful "stripped to the bone, skeleton jaws maid"), for example; they are mystefied by the sions are mobilità sociale for "social mobility" clamped round the sea, which girl that one falls in love. host of new objects and processes whose names and costo della vita for "cost of living, etc. Another point worth making is eludes its thirst by merely spattering begin with video-; they are shocked by slang, or Such things usually tend to get lost, in those that we feel and see in a much-loved it with bitter spray...". poem a lot more than is actually ex- repelled by the jargon of technocrats. To hunt general dictionaries which include them at ali, It is this same love, bitter and pressed in it. Things whose down ali the new collages or borrowings amid in a morass of general information and ex- harsh, which inspires Montale's Ossi "presence" depends on the state of the myriad entries of a reasonable-sized general amples: in this Dizionario di parole nuove di seppia: but here the music is mind we were in, and the surroun- dictionary — around 100:000 headwords on they are conveniently given full headword always muted, not so much a gold- dings, the first time we read it. For average — is a labour of Hercules, even for pro- status along with actual "new words" in the tongued trumpet as a softly jingling example, I need only to recali the fessional linguists. Dictionaries devoted entirely strict sense such as defogliante (defoliant) or sistrum or a squealing Pan-pipe. So first line of Montale's Vecchi versi or to neologism, such as this welcome work by ellepì (a spelling-out of the English LP or "long- much so that one is tempted to see Sbarbaro, by virtue of that La casa dei doganieri and I'm im- Cortelazzo and Cardinale, listing about four playing record). mysterious influence of new voices mediately plunged into that cloudy thousand headwords, offer a valuable short cut: seaside air of Bonassola where I Cortelazzo and Cardinale have striven to on old, as the most Montalian of at best they may even offer a sort of alphabetical spent some of the toughest, but also maintain as neutral an attitude as possible: they poets avant la lettre, not least in that the most exciting, years of my life. index to the concepts and objects which have give a definition of the headword, sometimes an life-sickness which Montale calls "il Perhaps only music can compete recently ^n ter ed the culture of a given linguistic Italian equivalent as well (pausa caffè for "cof- male di vivere" and Sbarbaro "la with poetry in this capacity to en- community. fee-break" and siparietto pubblicitario for condanna di esistere". chant via atmospheric absorption. This Dizionario di parole nuove is perhaps "spot" in the commercial television sense), but It may seem strange, for the sons of a region which many, from I was just nineteen when one win- of less interest to the professional than to the do not sit in judgment. No jeremiads against dy, sunny winter morning, in Nietzsche to Valéry, have described general reader. To start with, it covers a period the wildfire spread of italiese (the Italian as an area firmly attached to con- Genoa, I walked as usuai on Satur- of time (1964-84) which is already dealt with ex- equivalent o/Franglais, duly recorded here as a day to buy my copy of L'Italia let- creteness and solidity; but one tensively by the most recent of Italian general headword); and no condemnation of new ex- teraria at the newsvendor's at the should not forget that almost ali the corner of Corso Buenos Airs and dictionaries, the eleventh edition of pressions mode out of home-grown materials. lyric poets of Liguria have been Via Casaregis. Clipped to the glass "Zingarelli" (Zanichelli, Bologna 1983); a This tolerant detachment at times makes the deeply versed in Oriental-type frontage was a new magazine, the number of its "first recorded instances" are reader smile, as when one reads, under stronzo philosophies, which lead them (and cover an odd reddish colour halfway frankly somewhat doubtful; and it could cer- ("turd", "shit") that it is "an insult now detach- here the ecstatic light of sea and sky between ochre and carrot. I saw that tainly have included more new meanings of ed from its originai etymological base". And must surely have some hearing) to it contained some verse (such "old" words. On the other band, there are just occasionally, one senses a slight shudder of yearn, despite their love of nature, for a flight to nothingness, an ir- magazines were not hermetically definite advantages — .which more general disapprovai at the vulgarity of our "Iiberated" resistible cupio dissolvi. sealed in polythene in those days) works can hardly expect to equal — in the abun- society. See for example, the entry for vaffan- and immeaiately bought it. Sbarbaro spoke of this longing — dant use of example sentences, selected from a culo ("Fuck off!"): "offensive swearword, as fre- which is also an impossible flight It was the first issue of Circoli, for wide variety of non-specialist publications quent as it isplebeian". January-February 1931. I read the from Evil — in dramatically ironie Versi a Dina sitting on a green- terms: painted park bench under the piane "Talora nell'arsura della via un canto di cicale mi sorprende. E subito ecco m'empie la visione From the very first page, written di campagne prostrate nella luce... in 1910, we are faced with that un- E stupisco che al mondo ancora mistakable, terrible sense of solitude sian which the city gives us. Solitude and The Only Italian Review of books gli alberi e l'acqua, corruption: tutte le cose buone della terra Over one hundred new books are discussed in each issue of L'indice dei libri del mese, the Italian "Vo nella notte solo che bastavano un giorno a review ol books. per vicoli deserti Books reviewed are mainly in italian and by Italian authors. smemorarmi... Apart from lengthy review articles by expert contributors, L'Indice contains fifty or more brief notes lungo squallide mura..." Con questo stupor sciocco on recent publications, as well as brief bibliographies and up to date information concerning Italian A mere hint, later developed fur- publishing. L'Indice is an excellent guide to Italian cultural life, both for the specialist and for the l'ubriaco general reader. ther in Pianissimo (his best-known riceve in viso l'aria della notte. in order to keep in touch, subscribe nowl If you have never read L'Indice, ask for a free copy. collection, along with Trucioli) Ma poi che sento l'anima aderire Among our contributors: G. Briganti, C. Cases, E. Castelnuovo, F. Fortini, A.G. Gargani, E. Garin, N. which Mengaldo identifies as ad ogni pietra della città sorda Ginzburg, A. Graziani, C. Magris, I. Origo, T. Regge, C. Segre, S. Settis, G. Vattimo, F. Venturi. "Baudelairian in its insistence o'n the com'albero con tutte le radici, Editor: G.G. Migone myth of the modem city as desert sorrido a me indicibilmente e and brothel". come But one should not end up by per uno sforzo d'ali i gomiti alzo..." • Please send me a free copy of L'Indice thinking of Sbarbaro as only a poet Yet another of my old loves, and • Please send me a year's subscription to L'Indice (ten issues) of negation and hopelessness or arid a suitable end to this personal cele- The subscription rates for Europe are: one year 70.000 Lit. or 50$ (or the equivalent in convertible currency); for overseas (air mail): one year 110.000 Lit. or 78$. despair. Like the "nihilist" Leopar- bration. Let the reader now tura to the volume, with its seven hundred- Name di, no-one had a greater love of nature, of the simple life, and above odd pages, and celebrate in his own Address ali of his frugai, harsh native region, way (with or without the asparagus) a "slender strip of land beside the his discoveries and surprises. It will • I am enclosing international check Na . made payable to L'Indice Coop. a.r.l. sea, hemmed in by a long Une of cost a mere fifty thousand lire, • I am sending my payment through the following bank _ bony mountains": Liguria, with its which is less than a celebration meal Please send this coupon specifying if you want any previous issue (4$ a copy) to: "windy screes", its "dry, bleached in a restaurant; and what is more, L'Indice - Via Romeo Romei, 27 - 00136 ROMA - Italy river beds", its "sun-soaked lemons", the food is as genuine as one could its agaves, the entire countryside wish for. [INDICE ? ••DEI LIBRI DEL MESEBB

narrative functions which are not Ioni justify the likeness which he We Are Ali Narrators immediately recognizable. He re- finds between the analyst's work minds the reader, for example, that and that of the literary critic: both the patient often introduces himself deal with expressive communica- by Lidia De Federiciis with a narration of his own, "an tion, a text which can be either autobiography set up for his own spoken or written, without how- edification and very often in order ever being able to take the text itself Fare scuola/1. La narrazione, people live in a pre-Galilean state, to ward off any possible inquiry literally. Quaderni di cultura didattica, and are not lacklng in knowledge from the psychoanalyst" (p. 23). In the extreme case of psychic suf- edited by Franco Frabboni, but in reasoning processes. These The analysis will have to "break up fering narration more clearly reveals Roberto Maragliano, Benedetto processes can easily be narrated..." these nice tidy stories, these unex- its reassuring, or blocking, mechan- ism, by classifying the experience Vertecchi, La Nuova Italia, (p. 19). Could this really be true? ceptionable fables"; it will have to take them to pieces "to find what into (apparently) consistent se- Florence 1985, 112 pp., Lit. How and what could scientists nar- rate? We would like to know more, they hold of most interesting" and, quences, thus redeeming banality by 12.000. but the article is too brief and ends if this should be impossible, it will setting it into a significant (i.e., ro- here. have to discard verbal communica- mantic) design. This is worth think- As the first volume of a series On the other hand Carloni, tion in preference for "a non-verbal ing about, ali the more so as just in which continued with an eclectic ex- speaking of the practice of psycho- language made of silences, mimics, these years we can observe that lit- amination of the various disciplines analytical dialogue, points out some gestures, postures". Thus does Car- erature is returning to narration, (the second title, in 1986, is The Thinking Machines), these annota- tions résumé a so to speak demo- cratic formula, which in our mem- ory is connected with the cultural imagination and the impetuous pedagoeics of a few years ago. Thus the addressee is a teacher whose doublé profession is underlined: DIZIONARIO ENCICLOPEDICO that of the educational technician, who needs tools for his trade; and UNIVERSALE and often in the shape of autobi- that of the scholar, or rather the in- ography. tellectual (a rather threadbare word DELLA MUSICA E DEI MUSICISTI In the didactic part of these anno- which is to be read on the cover- tations we are presented with an flap), for whom theorizations and Edited by Alberto Basso analysis of narrative form in comic books are of interest in themselves. in collaboration with over three hundred specialists strips (in articles by Gianni Brunoro The booklet therefore contains ano Ermanno Detti), and a com- essays which are divided into two parative essay by Remo Cacciatori sections, research (the greater part) The most updated and complete Music Encyclopaedia which juxtaposes a topic, a nine- and scholastic activities. Essays are and a basic contribution to the knowledge of Music teenth century party, in three followed by short intervening ar- novels: Demetro Pianelli and The ticles, in the form of interviews Leopard, two books frequently read with well-known figures and spe- in scholastic narrative, and the less cialists in various particular fields. well known La desinenza in A by The ensemble does not have an or- Carlo Dossi. However the thesis ganic development. The essays which leads to most discussion is which are intended to stand for the provided by Anna Folli and field of research do not correlate ex- Benedetto Vertecchi. This is An ex- actly with those which represent ample of a "prepared" text, a meticu- scolastic activities. Nor are the indi- lous analysis of Moravia's short viduai articles connected with each story Gt Raffa's search for herself, in- other by any apparent mechanism: tended for the elementary school in beginning with Enza Biagini, who a didactice prospective in which the opens the booklet, and ending with educational centre is identified in Remo Cacciatori, who closes it, the text and in the processes of each author has followed his own understanding which can be path, using his own methods, pre- brought about by this patient exer- DEUMM may be included among the most impor- DEUMM appears therefore, as a compiete, accu- cise. The problem therefore con- senting his own bibliography and tant works concerning Music. This is due to the rate, clear and wholly reliable instrument. These his chosen quotatioins, tending in abundance and the extent of data, subjects, and features enable it to address itself, both to a Wide cerns once more the function of general public and to scholars and specialists, other words to be exhaustive. items it deals with, as well as to the highly qualified reading in the age of development. contribution of well known authors. The thorough being based on criteria of clearly presented in- How does one read and what does One should therefore not con- editorial work of a team of experts provides both formation. homogeneity and organic unity. one read at school? Folli and Vertec- sider the book of use to the reader Twelve volumes in - large quarto of about 10,000 The two complementary sections, Lexicon and chi suggest a "selection of high qual- because of the relevance of the mat- pages in ali. Biographies, enable us to know in detail every First section: LEXICON. ity texts" (p. 79), accompaniea by ter for didactic purposes or because single aspect of the subject: the instruments, the Four volumes. additional external information of its exemplary linearity, but rather works, the Countries and the towns connected with Second section: BIOGRAPHIES. Eight volumes. Music, the famous people who, at different levels, which situates them in time and for the abundance and variety of the space, and subsequently analytically reflections to which he is led. To influenced the History of Music (such as com- The section concerning "Biographies" is supplied posers, singers, musicologists, dancers, scenery with complete catalogues of the works of the main studied from inside in the depth of my view the most engrossing of designers etc.). composers. their meaning. This is a suggestion these concern the concept itself of with which I agree. For why should narration. It cannot but give us a the commonplace imaginary world multidisciplinary outlook, as narra- which we deplore when we observe tion consists in communication be- it in adults be good for children? fore it becomes a literary or histori- UTEliii cal experience (Enza Biagini, Alessandra Briganti and Scipione (translation by Donata Origo) Guarracino write about this and Mario Lavagetto also briefly inter- venes). But it also gives us a multi- linguistic outlook, for one can nar- teriality of existence, theorized by and charity: "he owned one coat or rate with verbal and non-verbal lan- Ambiguous Tales the poet and indeed publicly and two in ali his adult life, often turned guage, with the body and with pic- corporally proclaimed by him. An over and inside out" (p. 5). We tures, with traditional handmade attitude which continued when, in a known that he was ili and de- images or with images produced by and until well into the twentieth more detached manner, scientists formed: the exhumation, in 1900, of MARIO PICCHI, Storie di casa and doctors of the positivist school what was little more than a few frag- technology, such as in films or video Leopardi, Camunia, Milan 1986, century, Leopardi was described and represented: as a rebellious or intervened, applying the instru- ments of bones revealed "that Gia- music. Dario Fo writes about narra- 359 pp., Lit. 30.000. tion in the theatre, Antonio Leone affectionate son, as an obstinate ments of their new science, they too como Leopardi's height, when up- on the radio, Luca Verdone in the Mario Picchi, the writer of essays heretic or as a convert, of chaste telling stories (clinical stories) to ex- right, was about 1 meter 40 to 1 cinema (why is no mention made of and fiction, translator, and journal- habits or precocious and perverse plain and exorcise Leopardi's black meter 45 (of which one meter is to television?); Antonio Faeti tries to ist for the Espresso, does not like bio- sexuality, with one or two humps melancholy (diagnosing and classify- be attributed to the lower limb, the explain the new and enigmatic graphical gossip. For example, I re- on his back, with or without beard. ing it). rest to the trunk)" (p. 14). Having youthful audience and Paola Pallot- cali a very funny review by him on It turns out in fact, that not only For years we have been learning, met him in Naples in 1834, the poet tino concentrates on images present- the life of Manzoni as told by Maria his family, but ali, or nearly ali, the even in school, to come to terms August von Platen wrote: "The first ing, throughout the volume a selec- Luisa Astaldi with an excessive pro- Italian cultivated world of the late with Leopardi's thought. Now this impression of Leopardi, to whom I tion of illustrations from the last pension for the so-called private nineteenth century was unwilling to book, whose purpose is not scholas- was brought by Ranieri the very two centuries which represent a vices. Yet this book of his based on accept the abnormal behaviour and tic, suddenly confronts us with day in which we met, is in some form of narration. Finally the inter- letters and memoirs, passages taken thoughts of Giacomo Leopardi. It mean realities. Picchi registers, with ways absolutely horrible, when one views with Carlo Bernardini, on the from diaries and essays, confrontine turns out that everyone, from his the impassiveness of a good journal- has been led to imagine him other- theme "How scientists narrate", and friends and relatives, provincia! family to the devoted Antonio ist, and with inevitable irony, the wise through his poems" (p. 18). We with Glauco Carloni, on "Narra- readers and famous scholars, also Ranieri, quarreling with each other cultural scene in a provincial and too feel upset as we emerge from tion in a psychoanalytical dialogue", tells or lets one catch a glimpse of over relentless controversies, be- old Italy. He writes with com- this book specially if we are atten- expand the matter further. In ob- many private stories, to his readers' haved like in so far as they con- passioni but he knows the art of tive readers who are used to see serving the lack of the art of narra- amusement. However, the heart of structed ambiguous stories which bringing to light terrible details, Leopardi mainly through his "poe- tion in the scientific field, Bernar- the book is of a different nature, and were primarily autodefensive, even in the middle of well-known tized thought". dini points out the harm done to so- is serious. It is the reconstruction of whose main purpose was to justify facts. We know that Giacomo's life fl-df.) cial communication: "Thus most how, immediately after his death and remove the scandal of the ma- was passed in conditions of poverty (translation by Donata Origo) DEI LIBRI DEL MESE

Turin). This is a curious U-turn which only a reltively restricted, ea- sers — Malipiero, Hindemith, Pou- Music and Musicians: compared to the majority of recent sy-to-control group of contributors lenc, Pizzetti, Ghedini — and of in- reference works, the New Grove not can ensure. And indeed, DEUMM terpreters — Gavazzeni, Gui, Tito excepted, in which the international does have a remarkably close-knit Gobbi, Boris Christoff, Laura Vol- make-up of the team of authors is texture. At times one could almost pi. Autres temps, autres moeurs. In Te Deumm Laudamus! presented as a guarantee of efficien- believe it to be a one-man work, the Eighties, DEUMM seems to be cy and objectivity. It is far from easy where the New Grove, in compari- saying, professional rigour and inc- by Alessandro Baricco to sit in judgment upon a decision of son, with its mosaic of contrasting reasing specialization nave won the this kind, either way. Clearly, on methodological approaches, pays a day, and the appeal of famous names ALBERTO BASSO (Editor), Dizio- sift through these pages in the hunt the one hand (quite apart from an heavy penalty in terms of balance is no longer what it was: musicology nario Enciclopedico Universale for the secret inner machinery of almost inevitable drop in overall and consistency. for the musicologists, indeed. the enterprise; and where better to standards) the "domestic" or "natio- Another general impression To turn to the list of entries, the della Musica e dei Musicisti, sec- nal" approach of DEUMM runs the tion II, vols. I & II (A-BUR and begin than at the beginning, with which emerges from the list of cont- spinai cord of any encyclopaedia, the list of contributors, which cons- risk of producing less incisive results ributors to DEUMM is that they decidine as it does what is to be pre- BUS-FOX), UTET, Turin 1985, in areas which are culturally and titutes the "identity card" of any en- are ali musicologists. Less obvious served for posterity and what is to Lit. 240.000. geographically far from the home cyclopaedia? One significant fact than it might perhaps appear, if one be consigned to oblivioni it must be base. The editors, however, seem emerges at once: some 75% of the compares it with the lists of similar said at the outset that the DEUMM willing to pay this price in return contributors are Italian (with a par- projects of the Fifties and Sixties, lexicon is of a very high level in- for that more cohesive quality where one finds names of compo- deed. If one may extrapolate and Te DEUMM laudamus! A mere ticularly massive group hailing from project statistically on tne basis of coincidence, no doubt: but the ini- these first two volumes of biogra- tials of the Italian title of this "en- phical entries, it would appear that cyclopaedic dictionary of music and the number of articles wifl probably musicians" form the acronym be very little lower than that of the DEUMM — as if in silent homage to New Grove, almost doublé that of the incontrovertible nature or its the Ricordi Enciclopedia, and a good aims and its authoritativeness. Com- 20% up on that of UTET's previous menced by UTET of Turin in 1983, musical encyclopaedia. Obviously, under the bàton of Alberto Basso, it is the composers who have the DEUMM marks a new epoch in the lion's share; but there is no lack of world of reference books for Italian musical theorists, interpreters, dan- music lovers, whether professional- cers and choreographers, writers, ly concerned or not. Before its ad- publishers, set-designers and direc- vent, the reader in search of works tors, inventors and builders of inst- of similar breadth could only turn ruments, philosophers, and so on. It to Die Musik in Geschichte und Ge- is an interesting exercise to try to eenwart or to the New Grove: the work out the editorial attitude to former elephantine, getting on in light music: one can well imagine years, and — alas — in German, the the torture of having to decide latter significantly more up-to-date, whether this or that teenage idol of functional, and complete in its cove- today merits a place in history or rage. If confined by circumstances not. In this minefield DEUMM to Italian works, the choice lay bet- seems to have opted wisely for a ween UTET's encyclopaedia La Mu- middle course between the austere sica (1968) much of whose material approach of the New Grove (which has now found its way into admits the Beatles and the Rolling DEUMM, and the Enciclopedia della Stones, but precious few others) and Musica published by Ricordi in 1963 the get-up-and-go generosity of Gar- and reissued jointly with Rizzoli in zanti's latest desk-top effort (1983) a family format some nine years la- which abounds with crooners and ter. Compared to these two compat- rock groups and positively teams riots, DEUMM, with its twelve vo- with jazz musicians. Here, the crite- lumes housing over 25,000 articles, rion seems to be to exclude passing is truly a new departure, and one fashions, however well-known, and which cannot be ignored. to admit those musicians who have DEUMM is split into two main left a real mark: yes to Joan Baez, no sections: the first, a lexicon of over to the Bee Gees (though admittedly 5,000 entries in four volumes, has this yardstick has been applied more been available for some time now. flexibly in the case of home-grown Under review here are the first two musicians). volumes of the eight-volume section Turning to the structure and devoted to individuai biographical substance of DEUMM, the architec- entries (over 20,000 of themì: 1,600 ture of the work, one can hardly pages in ali, covering the alphabet avoid making the comparison with from Els Aarne, a composer, UTET's earlier encyclopaedia of teacher, an pianist born in the Uk- music and musicians, published in raine in the years of the Russian re- the Sixties under the same general volution, to Arthur Fox Strang- editor, Alberto Basso. It is clear that ways, an English scholar who was the new enterprise has taken over music critic of The Times and The the foundations of the old: much of Obseruer, and founder-editor of the strictly biographical material, Music and Letters (and also, inciden- and most of the major articles from tali, a considerarle contributor to the third edition of Grove). It is a fascinating occupation to

most imperceptible shifts in tone ent reason) for it could just as well "hero" of Bioy Casares' novel, is el- which cause the basic euphoria of have been the arms-dealer as the derly, and feels threatened, driven Author in Search superficial to change register and drug-pusher, or even the concièrge, to his death by society's oppression take on a new, alienated, ironie, al- infuriated because "he trod on her of the old. Equally pertinent are the most surrealist look. lawn". Like Gadda, Stefano Benni "detective stories" of H. Bustos Do- of the Detective After nearly ten years of writing, puts on the cloak of the moralist, mecq, written jointly by Borges and Benni like others has felt the need to distinctly out of fashion these days, Bioy Casares. by Renato Nicolini try some new experiments, in par- to express his fidelity to a world- Ali these "influences" notwith- ticular to see what he could do with view which, clearly, is far from that standing, the fact remains that a more complex type of narrative, of Gadda, but rather similar to that Benni finds his principal sources STEFANO BENNI, Comici spa- Jack Robinson the telephone was ringing urgently, for the "Ginsberg" the long-distance test of a real novel. which was in fashion in the far-off within himself; and Benni is of ventati guerrieri, Feltrinelli, Mi- Am I wrong in feeling that behind days of 1968. course a writer who remains a news- lan 1986, 200 pp., Lit. 16.000. poem claimed that "Nicolini shoots it ali the time", and the reference to this new book Comici spaventati The impliet reference to the struc- paper writer, something which he hard drugs seemed only too clear. guerrieri the model is the extremely ture of Gadda's masterpiece is ali the himself would be the last to deny. Stefano Benni almost literally I make no apology for retailing difficult one of Carlo Emilio Gad- more interesting in that it is free of At the beginning of this novel he burst into my life in June 1979, dur- this personal anecaote because it da's Quer pasticciaccio brutto di Via ali merely imitative elements. For contrives an extraordinary im- ing the First International Poets' seems to me as economical a me- Merulana (1957)? Both are in a sense Benni's style is at the opposite pression of distance: our present is Festival at Castelporziano near thod as any of pointing out Benni's "detective novels" during whose de- end of the spectrum from that of seen as if from way into the future, Rome. He had the audacity to pub- characteristics as a writer. Above ali, velopment the traditional machin- Gadda, allusive and immaterial. by people who cali it the "age of the lish in II manifesto a parody of a his extraordinary gift for mimicry ery of the crime story — the search Benni tends to mask ali realism be- Old Man with the Coffee Machine" "mantra" by me, alleging it to be the — anything but superficial in times for the murderer — gradually loses hind the semblance of a fable. In (because that is the most ancient ar- work of no other than Alien Gins- like ours, conditioned inevitably by its hold, not so much on the reader this, I get the feeling that he is hark- tifact they have been able to dig up). berg. So credible was it that the the mass media. If language is indeed (who may stili be interested) as on ing back to certain Latin American "The countryside was very different Rome daily II messaggero reprinted becoming daily more conventional, the author himself. Again, there is writers, and perhaps in particular to from ours. In enormous conglomer- it as the authentic work of Ginsberg there can be little point in hunting no real point in knowing who killed the Adolfo Bioy Casares of Diario, ations of buildings, called cities, himself. So it carne about that my for non-existent profundities: thus Leone l'Allegro, (a "happy Jack" to which the protagonist Lucio Lu- there lived millions of people, in mother read it, and so did my Uncle the work of a writer such as Benni who got on the nerves of the bosses certola, a retired schoolteacher, ex- houses that were very tali, and ali Giorgio, and before you could say consists rather in bringing about al- by continually smiling for no appar- plicitly refers: for he too, like the exactly the same". consequent de-politicization of so- Towards a "Capitalism ciety. Ruffolo suggests a new liberal Clementi to Beethoven, for examp- socialism as an alternative to the le. In general, such material has been present cocktail of neo-monetarism taken over word for word, but not and neo-authoritarianism. Refusing invariably, and never automatically: Without Qualities" ~ to accept either that the halt in there has clearly been a great deal of growth is a passing accident, or that discreet revision, updating, and by Riccardo Bello fiore it is a symptom of a total catas- smoothing of rough edges. Certain trophic breakdown, he is equally minor entries have actually been GIORGIO RUFFOLO, La qualità clearly this ugliness is not an in- de-reification of labour. An answer, concerned to combat any future re- suppressed altogether, a sign that sociale. Le vie dello sviluppo, trinsic part of the technology itself, in other words, to the frequent cries covery which might simply ride DEUMM sees itself not only as a ra- Laterza, Roma-Bari 1985, 291 or of the materiate employed, or for a greater degree of equity and rough-shod over environmental, so- even of the manufacturers and the participation in the politicai pro- cial, and moral limitations, creating dicai extension but also as a partial pp. Lit. 24.000 criticai rethinking of the earlier consumers. He eventually concludes cess, by improving overall per- a mechanical society in which men work. Where the articles dealing that the answer must lie in the rela- formance? A "qualitative option", would of necessity adapt to their ar- with major figures have been resig- There is an American novel of the tionship between the producers of in fact, with a basis that is not just tifacts and behaviour would have to ned, the choice of the new author early Seventies in which the hero, technology and the products they rational and scientific, but also ethi- comply with the automated require- usually respects accepted internatio- Fredo, muses on the reasons for the make: in short, that those who cal. ments of the System. nal authority and reputation: thus ugliness of modem technology, for create technology feel no particular The volume falls into two parts. Capitalism, for Ruffolo, must be Bellini goes to Walter Lippmann, "pinioned" or "hobbled" to some Berg to Petruzzi, Tchaikovsky to extent so as to use technologies David Brown, and so on. Among which tend to enhance the produc- the old entries which have remained tivity of the resources exploited (re- — and they are not always as fresh cycling, long-life materiaìs, biotech- as they were — are Massimo Mila on nical processes and informatics). Bartók and De Falla, Fedele D'Ami- Production should be organized and co on Berlioz, Willi Hess on Beetho- directed by selective, as well as mac- ven, Gastone Bellotti on Chopin, roeconomic, planning, including an Alfred Durr on J.S. Bach. active policy favouring greater flexi- bility of the labour supply. Work- DEUMM's real strength lies in ing hours could well be reduced — the professionalism of the criticai not overall, but in an optional, notes to the biographies, which res- varied manner — by the creation of cue literally hundreds of individuate a "third system" of activities pro- from the snadowy limbo of bare se- ducing and using information, social quences of dates, filling out the ent- services, and so on. The book ends ries with that exhaustive detail with a discussion of the possibility which only a truly large-scale refe- of reconciling the requirements of rence work can offer. Particularly efficiency with those of equality happy are the painstaking bibliog- (there is a rigorous comparison with raphies and the catalogues of works: neo-utilitarianism and neo-contrac-- indeed, in this regard DEUMM per- tualism), and a proposai for a greater haps even beats the New Grove in diffusion of politics throughout so- precision and completeness, offering ciety: the idea is that qualitative de- a service without parallel for scho- velopment could stimulate a change lars the world over. in the human personality from One final point: style. In general, privatized conformism to socialized DEUMM's language is clear and di- individualism. rect, and eschews the superfluous. Clearly, this is a fascinatine, far- Asperities of terminology are relati- reaching and wide-ranging book, vely infrequent and almost invariab- though at times the proposals put ly inevitable; while irritating forward, however well-argued, are examples of an old-fashioned style of a somewhat generic nature (in- are to be found only in those major evitably, perhaps, given the degree articles which have been taken over of abstraction of the thesis as a lock, stock, and barrell from the ear- whole). Ruffolo makes no bones lier work. Ali the rest has an unmis- about where his heart lies: "Ideally, takable tone of modernity and effi- the reader I am addressing is of the ciency. I have, indeed, only one real Left. In the politicai party sense, of complaint: DEUMM is borìng. Not course, but also in the wider sense of always, but often. The false equa- a greater Left, scattered throughout tion between the scholarly and the institutions and society as a whole: impersonal leads the contributors to that Left which calte for material write in terms which are at times welfare, certainly, but which also bureaucratic, monotonous, and feels the need for solidarity and a aseptic: a sort of "referencese", its sort of meaningfulness" (p. 331). A syntactic structures locked onto a Left, which, as the author says, has bare minimum of basic variants. no idea where it has come from, but The changes are rarely rung, and knows where it is going. flashes of irony are conspicuous by It remains to be seen, however, their absence. Of course, it may be whether so ambitious a strategy can objected that an encyclopaedia is Tullio Pericoli: Giorgio Ruffolo possibly be viable today. Ruffolo's not a work of literature; but neith- retort — and one can see his point — er, I submit, need it resemble a is that "by dint of ritually repeat- stuffy officiai circular. ing that ideas don't count unless one has the strength to back them up, sense of identity with it. What is The first presents a synthetical ac- the Left has got stuck without any missine is Quaiity with a capital count of the reasons underlying the ideas at ali, and runs the risk of find- "Q", the absence of any separation crisis in the economy and the de- ing itself without any strength, eith- between a man and his work, the cline of the Welfare State; the sec- er" (p. 333). And yet one cannot eas- Comitato di redazione: true harmony between human ond offers Ruffolo's answers to the ily guess at the social forces which Piergiorgio Battaglia, Gian Luigi Beccaria, Riccardo Bellofiore, Giorgio Bert, values and technological require- "present discontents" (and both might put life into Ruffolo's re- Eliana Bouchard (segretaria di redazione), Loris Campetti (redattore capo), Fran- parts, indeed, are full of references co Carlini, Cesare Cases, Enrico Castelnuovo, Anna Chiarloni, Alberto Conte, ments. formist project: it thus looks like be- Lidia De Federicis, Achille Erba, Aldo Fasolo, Franco Ferraresi, Delia Frigessi, It is basically to this same knotty to earlier controversies in econ- ing just another pipe-dream (rather Claudio Gorlier, Filippo Maone (direttore responsabile), Diego Marconi, Franco problem that the author of this omics and the social sciences). The like the planning of the Sixties, Marenco, Luigi Mazza, Gian Giacomo Migone (direttore), Enrica Pagella, Cesare book addresses himself. Giorgio crisis, says Ruffolo, is itself the fruit though in a way for quite the oppo- Piandola, Dario Puccini, Tullio Regge, Marco Revelli, Gianni Rondolino, Fran- Ruffolo is well known as an econ- of prosperity: material welfare has site reason). This is not to imply co Rositi, Giuseppe Sergi, Lore Terracini, Gian Luigi Vaccarino, Anna Viacava, omist: he is ateo a leading member been achieved at the expense of that the Left has no need of refor- Dario Voltolini of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) naturai resources, and has created mism, however unworkable. What Progetto grafico: Agenzia Pirella Góttsche - Art director: Enrico Maria Radaelli and chairman of the Finance Com- demands which simply cannot ex- would really come in useful, - Ritratti: Tullio Pericoli - Ricerca iconografica: Alessio Crea - Pubblicità: Ema- mittee of the Chamber of Deputies. pect satisfaction on a global scale. though, is not so much an organic nuela Merli. In La qualità sociale the current on- Intervention of a Keynsian kind re- proposai for a "new society", as a Redazione: going situation is seen as a crisis in duces the asymmetry of power to selective group of practical pro- the detriment of the labour force Via Giolitti 40, 10123 Torino, tel. 011-835809 growth, quantitative and commer- posals attacking cruciai points in the cial. The alternative which Ruffolo ("thinking goods"), and causes the system. For an organic, global pro- Sede di Roma: proposes is a reform based on devel- system to become politicized, with ject stands a chance of becoming Via Romeo Romei 27, 00136 Roma, tei 06-351245 opment: a searching reform of capi- increasing calte for equality ali reality only if one has the reins of talism which would maintain the round. government firmly in one's hand; Editrice"L'indice: - Coop. ar.l." environmental equilibrium, reduc- This is where the difficulties of a whereas a workable cluster of pro- Registrazione Tribunale di Roma n. 369 del 17 ottobre 1984 ing the area of production of com- welfare state really begin: with an posate could stili be forced into be- modities in favour of direct human2 intolerable burden of cfemand. The ing by the opposition — or could at Preparazione: activities — the spread of cultural answer of the New Right involves least help to hold in check the cur- Photosistem, Via A. Cruto 8/16, 00146 Roma "commodities" and communica- re-establishing the primacy of mar- rent economie and social restor- tions, the freeing of time, and the ket factors, via recession and the ation. SO.GRA.RO.,Stampa Via I. Pettinengo 39, 00159 Roma Paolo Volponi Vittorio Strada Italian Literature With Parallel Text Reason's Wakes Edited by Alberto Asor Rosa Poems and Longer Poems Tradition and renewal in Russian V. The Questions «Not just a worthwhile book of verse: it literature: myths and literary figures An organic collection of essays by is also, to my mind, one of the finest from Dostoevski to Pasternak. various hands, focusing on the «originai volumes of poetry of recent years ». characteristics » of Italian literature: (Giovanni Raboni, Manfredo Tafuri genetic or hereditary aspeets, the weight « Europeo »). Venice and the Renaissance of tradition, the dominant themes, stylistic attitudes, and historical and The scientific, architectural ideological conflicts. Marcello Pera and religious life of Venice The Ambiguous Frog Volumes published so far: in the i6th century. I. The Man of Letters and his Relationship with The exemplary case of the controversy By the same author: History of Italian Institutions. about «animai electricity » between Architecture 1944-1985. II. Production and Consumption. Volta and Galvani: what decides III. Textual Questions. the destiny of two rivai theories? Manlio Brusatin IV. The Question of Interpretation. The Art of the Fantastic Vincenzo Di Benedetto Robots, monsters, magic boxes, Physicians and lllness mammoth machines: the technique and Pier Paolo Pasolini A detailed analytical overview imagery of the fantastic, from the i6th Letters 1940-1954 of the medicine of Hippocrates: to the i8th centuries. The letters offer new insights into its diagnoses, therapies, instruments the human and intellectual path pursued and ideas. Antiquity in Italian Art by this most disturbing and problematic Edited by Salvatore Settis. of Italian writers. Di Girolamo, Berardinelli, Brioschi Historians, art historians and (Available in November). Criticai Reasoning archaeologists jointly consider the Main works translated during the 1986: 'New Prospects in the Study of Literature continuing presence of antiquity in later Robert Musil Primo Levi Italian art. A criticai assessment which opens up Prosa, Erzahlungen, Glossen, Aphorismen The Vanquished and the Redeemed new perspectives of research following 1. The Use of the Classics 2. Styles and Themes Rediscovered Thomas Bernhard A new book from the author the controversy which has surrounded 3. From Tradition to Archaeology Frost of The Periodic Table. «A striking the methods of studying and teaching Hermann Broch example of the novel cum documentary literature. Die Schlafwandler essay genre about the world of the Nazi concentration camps and the human Norberto Bobbio Jean Lévi Le Grand Empéreur et ses Automates predicament as a whole» (Nicola Ideologica! Profile of Italy Tranfaglia, «la Repubblica»), Jaroslav Seifert in the 20th Century Clothed in Light The ideology of contemporary Italy: Mario Rigoni Stern Bohumil Hrabal a great history lesson, a strong plea Advert for a Fiat I no longer want to live in BorderLove for a difficult democracy. Samuel Beckett A new volume of stories by the author of Mal vu mal dit the Sergeant in the Snow. Tales of war Carlo Ginzburg and peace, of men and animals, set in Arthur Miller the mountains of north-eastern Italy. Myths EmblemsSpies The American Clock Seven essays on mythology and history: Manuel Puig witchcraft and folk piety, Aby Warburg Sangre de amor correspondido Alberto Cavallari and his followers, Titian and the The Flight of Tolstoy Joào Ubaldo Ribeiro patterns of erotic portrayal, Germanie Sergente Getulio The «moment of truth» in the life mythology and Nazism, Freud, the Walter Benjamin of Tolstoy: Cavallari's reconstruction Wolf-Man and werewolves. Passagen Werk uses an imaginative montage of documents and eye-witness accounts Roland Barthes to delve into the raison d'ètre History of Italy Lagrainde iavoix of the novelist's craft. IX. The Church and the Politicai Power Ernst H. Gombrich Ideals and Idols Edited by Giorgio Chittolini Giovanni Giudici and Giovanni Miccoli. Fernand Braudel La Méditerranée et le Monde méditerranéen à Saluto (1984-86) In this ninth supplementary volume, a complete picture of the relationship l'époque de Philippe II One of the greatest of contemporary between Church and society in Italy Jacques Le Goff Italian poets borrows the ideals and from the origins to the present day. HistoireetMémoire techniques of the Provenni troubadours Aaron Ja. Gurevic and the German Minnesinger to teli of a Peasants and Saints in the Middle Age passion of today. History of Italy Its Regions from Unification to the Present Marshall Sahlins Islandsof History Lalla Romano IV. Tuscany Northrop Frye Novel with Figures Edited by Giorgio Mori. Antonio Faeti The Great Code. The Bible and Literature A novel which grows out of the family After Piedmont, Veneto and Calabria, this is a new volume of the successful Benoit B. Maldelbrot photograph album. The pen and the Trapped With the Mouse A Reading of Mickey Mouse series that draws attention to the Les objects fractals lens, tossing images back and forth, specific features, resources, traditions Richard Krautheimer build up a lyrical and historical climate Law-abiding, square, friend of the and ways of life of each region. Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture of great intensity. powerful: just who is Mickey Mouse? The Enlightenment of Franco Venturi by Francis Haskell

L'Età dei Lumi. Studi storici sul The first item in Venturi's bib- battle between them in fairly which Brissot successfully managed Settecento europeo in onore di liography is devoted to Diderot, the straightforward terms of good and to project of himself. Dare one say Franco Venturi, 2 vols., Jovene, most open, humane, refreshing and bad. Too much sympathy for the that this "new" Brissot would at ti- Naples 1985, XXXII-1184 pp., appealing of ali the philosophes; and tormenting complexities of human mes appear to be more at home Lit. 82.000. it appeared in 1937 — at a time nature, the half-conscious seduc- among the secret revolutionary so- when the lenthening, dark, sinister tions of failure or even treachery, cieties and doublé agents so power- Franco Venturi belongs — with shadows of Franco and Stalin, Hit- would distort his view of the world. fully recorded in Franco Venturi's II Croce, Salvemini, Momigliano, and, ler and Mussolini were blocking out In ali this, his attitude differs emp- Populismo Russo? more recently, Carlo Ginzburg — the "lumières" ali over Europe and hatically from that of Robert Darn- But Venturi, author of Settecento to that relatively small, but extreme- making a mockery of everything ton, who — more than any other re- Riformatore, refuses to accept the ly heterogeneous, group of twen- that Diderot had championed. Ever cent historian — has affected the implication that there was somet- tieth-century Italian historians who since then Venturi has, to a large ex- manner in which we look at the dri- hing almost inevitable in the transi- are at least as well known outside as inside Italy; and this is reflected in wards the Revolution — of 1789 and the strikingly international flavour of 1793 alike. On the one hand the- of the two volumes of essays which re is Venturi's extraordinarily sensi- have been produced to honour his tive ear, carefully tuned to pick up seventieth birthday (On a more fri- Terrorism and Stability even the most hushed, the most con- volous note, it may even account fused, signals of enlightened thin- for the fact that a foreigner has been by Gian Giacomo Migone king, whether in Stockholm or invited to review these volumes for Naples, St. Petersburg or Lisbon. an Italian journal). Venturi is excep- On the other hand, there is Darn- the lack of a strong democratic opposition for tional also in the range of his own GIORGIO GALLI, Storia del partito armato, ton's suggestion that such thinking interests and achievements: the bib- 1968-1982, Rizzoli, Milan 1986, 356 pp., Lit. which the policy of the Italian Communist remained limited in its impact — liography of his 164 publications is 22.000. Party (Pei) was responsible, particularly in the mere shimmering froth on the surfa- a daunting as well as an inspiring do- yars of "National unity" (or "historical compro- ce of a cauldron at the bottom of cument — and only Franco Venturi Right-wing terrorism in Italy has a con- mise"), 1976 to 1979. which thwarted ambitions and the ruthless pursuit of business interests himself would be capable of doing siderarle literature devoted to it, and has gener- 2. Left-wing terrorism would never have and vendettas were turbidly reac- adequate justice to the essays whicn ated scholarly discussion of a high standard. spread as it did if it had not been manipulated have been collected here. And this is hing boiling point. In L'Età dei Lu- Where the terrorism of the left is concemed, on and practically encouraged by Italy's various mi Darnton, in a similar but much in spite of the fact that, of the two the other hand, the books published so far are police forces and more or less secret services, vast fields of historical research to less disturbing way, again draws on mostly interviews, memoirs, and biographies of and by a degree of non-opposition from that which he has made essential con- police reports in a fascinating essay tributions — nineteenth-century individuai figures in the "armed struggle". part of the establishment which had everything oin the problem of how the "man of Russia and eighteenth-century Thus Galli's new book is a welcome departure. to gain from its expansion. The "manipu- letters" was viewed in mid-eigh- Europe — only the latter is repre- Giorgio Galli is (together with Giovanni lation " was brought about mainly through sins teenth-century France. Once again, it is the "system" — the patronage sented in L'Età dei Lumi. For this Sartori) perhaps the most authoritative politicai of omission: from the outset the authorities reason an art historian, such as my- could have stamped out the phenomenon, but and protection — rather than the scientist writing in Italian today, despite the ideas which intrigue both him and self, while inevitably struck by the at a number of criticai junctures they chose not fact that he remains an outsider where the aca- the contemporary observer from absence of any study of the arts demic world is concemed. The influence on to use their considerable repressive power, either in these volumes or among whom he draws his information. practical politics ofhis definitions, such as "im- whose deployment would have been justified by Darnton's contribution is — as Venturi's own publications (and the intelligence at their disposai. this despite the fact that both his perfect dual-partyism", has been profound. one would expect — uncharacteris- father and grandfather produced Storia del partito armato marks a return 3. The effeets of terrorism on the Italian pol- tic of most of those to be found in works of great importance in the to "straight"history, and in particular to one of iticai system have almost ali been in the direc- these volumes, which tend to be history of art) can at least disguise the author's pet themes, "invisible govern- tion of enhanced stability — precisely the re- concemed with those inspiring ad- vocates of reason and freedom and his own ignorance as detachment ment". It is based on a painstaking reconstruc- verse of what is generally assumed. Indeed, the humanity who stand at the centre of and approach this Festscbrift with an tion of fifteen years of left-wing terrorism — growth of left-wing terrorism (a genuine pheno- innocent and uncommitted curios- Venturi's own interests and who not just the atrocities themselves, but also the menon, but a limited one ifleft to itself) was an combine to make the study of eigh- ity about the present state of En- repression, or rather lack of it — set firmly in essential factor in that general return to moder- lightenment historiography. teenth-century thought so hearte- the overall context of major politicai events ation which has liquidated mass protest, mor- What such a reviewer will first be ning as well as, now, so poignant. (sometimes Galli tends to underplay economie confronted with is doubt-doubt tally wounded the trade unions, and excluded Looking back from our own tin.es about the very identity of the topic and social developments.) the Pei from the parliamentary majority. of far too much treachery and far under discussion. The first three es- The conclusions may be summed up as fol- Of course, to state publicly that terrorism too little reason, the values proclai- says, by Crocker, Lough and Ver- lows: was actually assisted by the police and others, med by the philosophes and their fol- nière (an American, an Englishman 1. Left-wing terrorism was an authentic and to affirm that in the last analysis its effect lowers appear rather as did the "age of faith" to distraught Christian in- and a Frenchman), ali, in different politicai and social phenomenon, bom of an on the overall balance of power has been of a ways, raise the issue as to whether tellectuals in England, France and inadequate assimilation of an old extremist stabilizing nature, is no laughing matter. The Germany during the first half of the the "Età dei lumi" can stili be cha- and militarist tradition which is part of the conclusions of this book cry out for responsible racterised by those aspects of self- nineteenth century. The issues are Communist heritage, but above ali of the rei- and far-reaching discussion: though it is to he conscious progress and a break with stili with us, and to read about them egation to the sidelines of many thousands of the past which used to be taken as feared that few people, for reasons only too easy must be refreshing, but to single out self-evident; or rather, (for naturally young people, against the background ofan " to appreciate, will be prepared to join in the further individuai articles from ali historians agree that something fluent society". It was also hardly hindered debate. L'Età dei Lumi (which includes offe- decisive occurred in the eighteenth rings from some of the most interes- century) ali express uncertainty as ting Italian, French, English and to when this decisive something oc- American historians of our time) curred: the tone of the enquiries will would not be feasible in a rapid sur- not be unfamiliar to those who have tent, used the reception of en- ving forces of the eighteenth centu- tion from frustrated idealism to the vey such as this, which aims only to investigated the historiography of lightened ideas as a kind of thermo- ry, turning our attention away from activities of "a hack pamphleteer indicate the significance of the tribu- the Renaissance. It needs to be emp- meter to gauge the moral health of the high ideals professed by the vir- aod mouche", and he asks only "Ac- te paid to Venturi. For what does hasised that none of these three aut- Europe: the impact, for instance, of tuous (and usually well-placed) phi- cettò di servire in qualche modo la need to be said is that even to a lay- hors (and indeed none of the contri- Beccaria or of the principles of the losophes towards the dangerous cor- polizia parigina? È possibile, anche man it is clear that almost every butors to the book as a whole) is American Revolution can be found ruption of those ideals by the vi- se non certo". For Venturi the im- contributor has managed to avoid challenging the validity or desirabi- reflected not only in the policies of cious pamphleteers and porno-grap- portance of Brissot lies in the fact that besetting weakness ali too often lity of the changes brought about by the governments of Russia or the hers who were excluded from res- that "era riuscito, malgrado tutto, ad encouraged by the very concept of the Enlightenment — as has often states of Italy, but also in theoretical pectable society. In a well-known es- esprimere idee originali e significati- the Festschrift: the production of a been done by the opponents of ra- treatises and provincial newspapers say — whose very title, A Spy in ve"; but for Darnton it was Brissot's hasty piece designea to give tempo- tionalism and freedom ever since of the most obscure as well as of the Grub Street, is indicative of its con- failure, and not his success, that rary relief to a guilty conscience on the end of the eighteenth century it- most distinguished kind. Perhaps it tent — Darnton unravelled the twis- constituted his significance: "Bris- the understanding that it need not self, and as is particularly fashionab- is not surprising that arts play so in- ted activities of Jacques-Pierre Bris- sot's fellow pamphleteers in the thereafter attract serious considera- le to-day among proponents of the conspicuous a part in a vision of his- sot, who had been widely regarded 1780s probably hated the social sys- tion. L'Età dei Lumi has been well "new right"; though as Furio Diaz tory conceived in this manner, for (in the words of Daniel Mornet) as tem and made necessary compromi- edited and forms a coherent whole: emphasises in a powerful essay, the the eighteenth century itself was "the complete image of ali the aspi- ses with it as he did. They were men the high standard obviously reflects "Left" has often been no less com- often alarmed that its ideals and be- rations of a generation". Darnton — of flesh and blood who needed to the esteem rightly felt for the towe- mitted to belittling, even to deri- liefs could conflict with demands of partly stimulated surely by sensatio- support families, satisfy ambitions, ring stature of Franco Venturi who, dine, the achievements of the philo- the imagination. nal relevations concerning the con- and pursue pleasures. Their failures for so long now, has demonstrated sophes. Nonetheless, an element of Though profoundly aware of the cealed behaviour of certain appa- and frustrations in the old order his unparallelled mastery of eigh- uncertainty and of hesitation in the setbacks and failures which the pro- rently high-minded figures of our may serve as a measure of their dedi- teenth-century history. Not ali wri- own century — cunningly used the cation to the new, and the Revolu- ters will accept his view of that cen- verery terms such as "Enlightenment" pagatore of light have ali too often suffered at the hands of their ene- evidence at his disposai to show that tion may be understood, from their tury; but none can escape — or, in- makes itself felt, and this is particu- before the Revolution Brissot really point of view, as a career". deed, will want to escape — the es- larly striking because hesitation and mies — and, thus, far removed from was, as his enemies claimed, in the There could hardly be two more sential guidance which he has given doubt are not features which one as- the callow optimism which so often pay of the secret police; and yet for conflicting ways of studying those to its exploration. Of that fact these sociates with the crusading authors has, and stili sometimes does, colour Darnton this makes him more real, deep forces which (in retrospect) admirable volumes provide ampie of the eighteenth century — or with histories of the eighteenth century more alive than the noble image seemed to be driving society to- and telling proof. Franco Venturi. — Venturi has nonetheless seen the L'INDICE - HI DEI LIBRI DEL MESEBH

niale Etichetta, p. 14) is that, chiuse quali le corti rinascimentali Gli spazi del quotidiano: l'abitazione whereas Elias conceives of the com- italiane" (p. 12). Although some cir- privata; and a specific violation of The Origin of Snobbery portment of courtiers as external ac- culation of rules of comportment the etiquette of painting in eigh- tivity — i.e. as etiquette in the nar- did occur in Italy during these cen- teenth-century France that of by "Ronald Witt row sense — it must be seen as func- turies, the kind of assimilation de- Daniel Arasse's L'etiquette dello tioning within the court and closely scribed by Elias happened (as Ga- sguardo. SERGIO BERTELLI, FRANCO an understanding of their underly- relatedto court rituals (for example, briella Turnaturi's Signori si nasce e Taking the general conclusions royal coronations) and to cerimo- si diventa shows) only in the years CARDINI, ELVIRA GARBERÒ ing function in human society. Fol- on ritual, ceremony and etiquette nies like banquets and receptions of after Italian unification. ZORZI, (Eds.), Le corti italiane lowing Weber's theory of the developed in this book, Le corti ita- graduai strengthening of the state's ambassadors. Particularly in the del Rinascimento, Mondadori, Six of the eleven essays in Rituale liane del Rinascimento utilizes them claim to a monopoly on violence in period of concern for Elias, the Re- Cerimoniale Etichetta concentrate to present an integrated view of Ita- Milan 1985, 278 pp., Lit. the period from the Middle Ages to naissance and the early modem on the tie between ritual, cerimony lian court life in the period of the 75.000. early modem times, Elias sees the period when princes were con- and etiquette in Italian court life. Ranaissance and the early modem court playing a major róle in civiliz- sidered divus or Christomimetes, Cristiano Grottanelli's Cibo, Isti- area. Divided into seven essays writ- SERGIO BERTELLI and GIÙ ing the warrior. Through the re- comportment derived much of its tinti, Divieti, Elisa Acanfora's La ten by five different authors, the significance from the sacrai context LIANO CRIFÒ, (Eds.), Rituale straints of court life, the barbarian tavola, and Elvira Garberò Zorzi's volume has as its integrating theme warrior, whose instincts to violence in which it was perfomed. Given Cerimoniale e spettacolarità. Il tova- the sacrai character of court life, in cerimoniale etichetta, Bompiani, the intimate link between ritual, had been out of control, was con- gliolo sulla tavola del principe focus which gestures and comportment Milan 1985, 356 pp., Lit. strained. Those who successfully ceremony, and etiquette, the last, on table service and eating habits. 36.000. serve to enhance the hierarchical character of society and religious as- sociations with princely power. Coming from a background of In his opening essay Bertelli lays historical studies oriented around out a typology of Italian courts English and French history, Ameri- based on three models: (1) the cans approaching the field of Italian sovereign court; (2) the signorile history have to learn to think in a court whose lord, while recognizing different way. Rather than finding a superior, governs his own terri- the neat scheme of politicai develop- tory; and (3) the court of a prince or ment centered on the rise of the cardinal, which is located within the monarchy as in France, or that of domain of a sovereign or a signorial the king-in-parliament, as in Eng- ruler. Although his approach nere is land, they are confronted with the GARZANTI principally synchronic, Bertelli's ac- arduous task of following changes in count does not ignore the changes myriads of politicai centres into the occurring in the period. If the state last half of the fifteenth century and, was never identical with the court, if after that the number diminishes, Italian Authors the growing separation between the stili a disconcerting multitude re- two led eventually to a collision of main for study. Italian history is a the court with the civil society on good antidote to the teleological ap- Non Fiction which it rested. proach to history. Having dealt generically with the The authors of Le corti italiane del Francesco Alberoni Italian court in the first essay, in the Rinascimento were faced with this L'erotismo second, Da una corte all'altra — a perennial problem: to write a his- Maria Luisa Altieri Biagi real tour de force — Bertelli takes up tory of Italian court life from the one by one the major Italian courts Quattrocento to the late Seicento Linguistica essenziale in these centuries, tracing the his- which (1) would not be simply a Luigi Baccolo tory of each. His narration at the separate account of the evolution of Biografia (lei Marchese di Sade same time assumes cohesiveness each court; (2) would not be so gen- from his underlying thesis that from eralized as to reduce the experience Giacomo Debenedetti Renaissance times, Italy was moving of individuai courts to examples Quaderni di Montaigne toward unity, but at different rates, proving or illustratine abstract con- Gillo Dorfles in three broad areas: the Papal clusions; and (3) would permit — as States, the Kingdom of Naples, and fine historical writing can do — gen- Elogio della disannonia the signorial states of Northern eralizations on court life as such, Giuliano Gramigna Italy. based on the admittedly peculiar Le forme del desiderio The residence of the prince and situation prevailing in Italy. Rarely coming in autumn his courtiers forms the subject of the has a work so successfully solved Giorgio Manganelli Piero Angela third essay, Un bellissimo ordine di these problems. * Laboriose inezie servire by Franco Cardini. Begin- It must be said that the clarity of Franco Moretti Il libro sull'economia ning with a discussion of the devel- the exposition balancèd with the Romanzo di formazione Rodolfo Brancoli opment of the princely residence, wealth of illustrations, activates not I russi oggi the author defines its relationship to only an intellectual, but also an aes- Guido Morpurgo-Tagliabue the dwellings built by lesser thetic response in the reader. (In- Geologia letteraria Claudio Magris members of the ruling class, and de- deed, the word "illustration* dis- Paolo Spriano Danubio scribes the expansion of the palace torts the róle of the visual material, Marcello Morante to the countryside, made possible so vital is the relationship between Le passioni di un decennio by the construction of villas. word and picture in conveying the (1946-1956) Maledetta, Benedetta Elvira Garberò Zorzi's La scena di experience of court life). As in the Vittorio Zucconi Giorgio Soavi corte constitutes a richly woven ac- case of the ingegni developed for the Il kimono di ferro II quadro che mi manca count of court ceremonies from theatre of the court (where the funerals to the theatre and the hunt. wheels were hidden) the authors The distinction between the cat- have appropriately avoided for rea- egories of court life covered in this sons of economy and effect detailed essay and the next, Vita di cortigiano presentation of the conceptual back- by Elisa Acanfora and Marcello ground out of which their dis- Fantoni, is not, however, clear: al- cussion arises. For this background though in part concerned with the the reader should turn to a second adapted to the situation took pride taken in the form of standards of Ileana Florescu's Gli spazi del quo- behaviout t>f courts in relation to work publised almost simulta- in their new-found self-control and comportment, could be assimilated tidiano: la reggia, discusses the ar- one another, Vita di cortigiano con- neously, Rituale Cerimoniale Eti- became awake to the opportunities only by other courts. Outside that rangement and furnishing of the tains sections on behaviour at table chetta, a collection of papers from a it offered: we are dealing, as Cris- restricted circle, standards could be palace; Giuliana Chesne Dauphiné and in the villa which are intimately seminar conducted by Sergio Ber- tiano Grottanelli points out in his borrowed only with the loss of their Griffo's Le regole della moda, the im- related to Zorzi's discussion. telli centering on Norbert Elias' Cibo, Istinti, Divieti in Rituale "messaggio più profondo" (p. 15). portance of clothing at the court; The volume appropriately closes Ùber den Prozess der Zivilisation. Cerimoniale Etichetta, (pp. 31-2) Pace Elias the process of borrow- and Marcello Fantoni's Feticci di with two short pieces, Franco Soziogenetische und psychogenetische with the creation of the Freudian ing was a reciprocai one: assimila- prestigio: il dono alla corte medicea, Carini's Amici di dio, amici delle Untersuchungen, whose first edition super-ego in the individuai. Ele- tion accompanied by a similar loss the role of the gift in the internai life stelle, and Sergio Bertelli's Le con- appeared in 1939, with revised edi- ments of this civilizing process can of significance can work just as well of the court and in its relationship giure, the one dealing with the tions in 1969 and 1976. In Rituale be found early, but its serious begin- from bottom to top. with outside powers. On the other court's link with the supernatural Cerimoniale Etichetta, one sees nings are located in the fifteenth The Italian focus of the Bertelli hand, Achille Olivieri's Giuoco, ger- and the other with the ritual in- emerging from the introductory century; and by degrees the rules of équipe constrasts with Elias' dis- archie e immaginario tra quattro e volved in destroying the prince. essay and the detailed analyses of etiquette evolved by the upper class tinctly northern orientation and il- cinquecento demonstrates the bor- The authors of Le corti italiane del aspects of Elias' position, the inter- became diffused to ambitious lustrates the precocious Italian de- rowing by the court of games of Rinascimento have no intention of pretative principles which lend such members of the upper bourgeoisie. velopment of court life, which he chance developed by merchants; claiming, as does Elias, that court cohesion to Le corti italiane del With the exclusivity of their con- largely neglects. As opposed to the while Gabriella Turnaturi's Signori life is equivalent to "civilization" in Rinascimento. While the two books duct under attack, the nobility re- Spanish, English or French courts, si nasce e si diventa deals with the this period. Yet by their skilful can be read separately, together they sponded by further refining their which aimed at becoming models róle of books on manners for ambi- blending of text, pictures and com- permit a view of the archeology of own way of life, thus initiating a for an entire territory and whose tious bourgeois in post-unification mentary they have made it possible the authors' thoughts. continuous process of "raising the manners were described in countless Italy. In "Messieurs les anglais" ov- for the reader to experience the so- Although dated by its bias to- level of shame and repugnance". Eli- manuals designed for a wider audi- vero l'educazione di Marte Franco ciety they present. Both works by wards Western values, its simplified tist in approach, Elias sees the even- ence reaching beyond the court, the Cardini analyzes the changing Bertelli ana his colleagues have ap- conception of social relationship, tual civilizing of Western society as regional Italian courts of the six- forms of warfare in the light of plication far beyond the confines of and its bold use of Freudian psy- a movement from top to bottom. teenth and seventeenth centuries in- Elias' "civilizing process". The rela- Italy and the range of time they en- chology, Elias' work was pioneering A major problem with this posi- spired no such literature. Writers tionship between space and ritual in compass. in its effort to move beyond the de- tion, according to Sergio Bertelli like Castiglione and della Casa ad- private urban dwellings forms the scription of gestures and manners to and Giulia Calvi (Rituale Cerimo- dressed their treatises to "regioni topic of Vittorio Franchetti Pardo's • rlNDICF >3 ••DEI LIBRI DELMESEIB

possible objective data plus compre- is clear enough, for the marks are turies the lack of genuine Greek The Importance hensive photographic documenta- there for ali to see: presumably, originate has accustomed archaeolo- tion. If anything, what may be cal- they were transported from some gists on the one hand to study late led into question is this very rigid Greek locality in the direction of classical copies and imitations with separation of data (assembled and Rome, whose progressive Helleniz- almost painful Sehnsucht, or long- of Being Originai processed by Claudio Sabbione, the ation was accompanied by the ing, vis-à-vis the lost originai, and on director of the Museum in Reggio "transfer" of a fair number of statues the other hand to deny authenticity Calabria where the bronzes are now from the sanctuaries of Greece. to the originai should they ever by Salvatore Settis housed) and the discussion of these Alas, the available "data" teli us pre- have the luck to come face to face same data, left to archaeologists cious little else: neither the analysis with it. Thus Linnekamp and Sis- Due bronzi di Riace. Ritrova- (T. Mannoni, N. Cipriani, et al.), of from the universities; for descrip- of the casting earth, nor the compo- mond are here unwittingly playing mento, restauro, analisi ed ipotesi the potsherds found in the vicinity tion, however neutral it would wish sition of the potsherds (whose rela- the ròle of Richard Payne Knight di interpretazione, Art Bulletin (C. Panella), and the casting techni- to be, is invariably interpretative to tion to the vessel carrying the who, after the arrivai of the Elgin of the Italian Ministry for the ques employed (E. Fornigli), not to some extent, while interpretation statues is anyway far from clear) has marbles in London, scornfully as- given the objective solution one mention the photogrammetric pro- cannot exist without a description. signed them to the reign of the Em- Cultural Heritage and the En- might reasonably have hoped for. jections (by C. Sena); the most ex- To the specialist, these two volumes peror Hadrian! But among ali the vironment, Special series 3, Poli- Just as well, perhaps, rather than in- tensive contribution, however, is will be indispensable. But they will other scholars there is substantial grafico dello Stato, Rome 1985, the extremely detailed anatomical vite false hopes: the recent Modi- agreement as to the chronological 2 vols., 340 pp., 106 plates, Lit. be equally welcome to the armchair gliani episode shows how confi- description of the bronzes by archaeologist and to the art lover, successioni statue A (the helmetless 150.000. one) dates from 460-450 B.C., the From that lucky day in August other from twenty or at most thirty 1972, when two nude male bronzes years later (Paribeni's authoritative were retrieved from the Ionian Sea proposai, assigning it to the begin- at Riace, in Calabria, until the au- ning of the 4th century, is a voice tumn of 1980, when they were at crying in the wilderness). last put on show in Florence, few The dance of the attributionists people suspected much about what offers greater variety. Phidias, de- turned out to be some of the very clares Fuchs (the first to say so, fol- finest masterpieces of ancient Greek lowed by Giuliano); Miron (statue art. The Florence exhibition was a GARZANTI A) and perhaps Alcmene (B) sug- deliberately modest affair, intended gests Dontas; both P. Boi and G. basically as just one of the many ac- Hafner (the latter in Reggio Cala- tivities of the locai Soprintendenza brias's own journal Klearchos) pro- (though clearly of some importance, pose the unfortunately faded name given the beauty of the artefacts and Italian Authors of Onatas. Are both the bronzes At- the quality of the restoration work); tic, or is one (A) Attic, the other yet it somehow triggered off a sort Fiction from the Peloponnese? Or could B of nationwide fever which is stili be "eastern Greek", as Arias sug- with us. A mass phenomenon, Italo Calvino gests? Or might A not be from the which in its turn has generated a Sotto il sole giaguaro Peloponnese too (Paribeni)? Are wealth of superficial comment, to- Ferdinando Camon they heroes (from Athens, accord- gether with a mere handful of really La donna dei fili ing to Fuchs and to Giuliano, or acute observations. Enrico Palandri Tarentum, according to Hafner, or That practically nobody had seen from Achaea, as Boi suggests)? Or the two statues for some eight years Le Pietre e il Sale are they hoplitodromoi (Pavese and is perhaps naturai enough: the clea- Roberto Pazzi Di Vita)? Do they come from ning and restoration of bronzes of La principessa e il drago Athens (Dontas) or from Olimpia such dimensions is clearly no laugh- Luigi Malerba (Boi, Torelli), or Delphi? And if they are from Delphi, are they part ing matter. What is incredible — so Il pianeta azzurro much so that it was deplored publi- of the donario of the* Tarentines cly by many almost as soon as the Roberto De Monticelli (Hafner) or of that of the Athenians Florence exhibition opened its L 'educazione teatrale coming in autumn after Marathon (Fuchs, Giuliano)? doors — is that the two "heroes On other points, for example the from the sea" were put on show extensive ancient restoration work without so much as a perfunctory Poetry on statue B, these two volumes man- nod in the direction of "communi- aie to offer clear answers; but most cations". There was no advance in- Giorgio Caproni or the vital questions remain open, formation, giving experts prelimi- Il Conte di Kevenhiiller as was perhaps fatai. The final im- nary data on which to work, and of- Agostino Richelmy pression is that even after centuries of study the overall image of classi- fering the public a conceptual fra- La lettrice di Isasca mework within which to visualize cal Greek art is stili somewhat out these almost miraculous appari- Giovanni Testori of focus — and this precisely because tions. Clearly, in internai museum Diademata of the lack of originate such as the terms, the cycle had worked well Elio Fiore Riace bronzes, for so much of the criticai effort has had to be ex- enough, from the actual finding of In purissimo azzurro the bronzes to their putting on pended on copies, models, descrip- view: what failed to get off the Giancarlo Maj orino tions. On the one hand, we have the ground was the external relations Ricerche erotiche basic chronology mapped out by job. Anyone who recalls the first Vico Faggi scholars over the years; on the other week of the exhibition — when the the surprise of the new finds. Fuga dei versi coming in autumn visitor could quite easily remain Around another such discovery, less alone for hours on end with the pair popular but no less significant than of bronzes in the suggestive semi- those of Riace — a splendid bronze darkness — and then compares this portrait found off Reggio, this time with the subsequent boom, will be with the entire wreck — a new and only too well aware that the special- lively controversy has already ists proved lamentably incapable of Claudio Sabbione (clearly using as a thanks to the superb photography dently scientists and art historians started: the materials of the ship un- envisaging any such public success. basis the now remote model of and to the comparisons they invite can look for confirmation in each doubtedly place the date of the Not a few archaelogists, annoyed by Nudo nell'arte by Alessandro Della between a diversity of opinions. In- others' fields, of whose methodol- wreck between c. 400 and c. 380 the entire business, have since Seta, 1930). The literally hundreds deed, the main questions asked by ogy they may have only the barest B.C., and most scholars, including blamed the mass media. of illustrations, measurements, and the man in the Street from the very idea. both E. Voutiras and J. Frel, date These two volumes published in other data buildmp a uniquely rich beginning (given that the specialists Provenance, attribution, and date the portrait itself to c. 400, but Pari- the Serie speciale of the Ministry of overall picture. were conspicuous by their absence) must thus be left to conjecture, us- beni (who published it recently, Culture's own Bollettino d'Arte, a Part II is quite different. It gives are really the same as those posed ing the methods of the art historian. with superb photographs, in no. 24 journal which Evelina Borea and the opinions of seven specialists on here by the specialists: 1) where do The range of opinions expressed in of the Bollettino d'Arte) claims Paola Pelagatti have refurbished Greek art, four of whom are Italian the bronzes really come from? 2) these two volumes is already wide against ali the contextual evidence with great intelligence and much (P.E. Arias, A. Di Vita, A. Giuliano, when did the shipwreck off the Ita- enough, and it becomes wider stili if that stylistic criteria must take hard work, offers a belated remedy E. Paribeni), one American (B. Sis- lian coast actually occur? 3) when one adds in the views expounded in priority, and assigns it firmly to a for a typically Italian deficiency (it mondo Ridgway), one Greek (G. were the statues made? 4) who made other publications. The most solid date some hundred years later than is not easy to imagine any other Dontas), and one French (C. Rol- them? 5) who do they represent? agreement (though not without nu- the wreck. country in which works of art of ley), each of whom has followed his That the bronzes come from a ances) is on dating: with the sole ex- Interest in the finds which have such singular significance and in- own mental itinerary, reaching con- wreck off Riace would seem beyond ceptions of Linnekamp and Sis- made Reggio Calabria one of the stant public appeal could languish clusions which at times are radically doubt (the far-fetched tale that they mondo Ridgway — the latter repeat- capitate of classical sculpture is un- unpublished for years on end). Due opposed. In their brief introduction, were fished up off Pesaro and some- ing with no new arguments the likely to wane, so these two pre- bronzi di Riace is divided into two L. Vlad Borrelli and Paola Pelagatti how trailed around the heel of Italy frankly unfounded theses of her cious volumes will be indispensable main sections, followed by a useful write that there is no presumption in the nets of a boat is hardly worth Fifth Century Styles in Greek Sculp- for years to come. One last plea, bibliography and a wealth of plates here of offering anything approach- considering): one would dearly love ture, Princeton 1981 — both statues however: how long will we have to in black and white and in colour ing an editio princeps of two hitherto to know, however, where they are assigned to around the middle of wait before the Poligrafico dello (fifty-three for each of the statues). unpublished statues, however well- carne from and just where they were the 5th century B.C. or shòrtly Stato brings out a clear, straightfor- Part I offers a series of reports on known. Clearly this is a case of para- bound for, something which only after. Even Sismondo's thesis, claim- ward little guide which the tourist the story of the bronzes from their leipsis, for what we have is un- firm contextual data (the wreck it- ing the statues as classicistic throw- can buy instead of being forced to rediscovery up to the exhibition. doubtedly a classic of its kind — not self, with other, datable artefacts) backs of between the lst century resort to the abominable brochures Particularly worthy of note are the just because it is the first in the field could teli us for certain. That they B.C. and the lst century A.D., is peddled by street-hawkers outside precise analyses of the casting earths but because it has striven to offer ali were torn from their originai bases understandable in its way: for cen- the museum in Reggio? We would like to thank the following authors for having published with us: H

Natalia Aspesi •\m A-fej Corrado Augias IsiMltiìII Gaetano Azzolina iH Ambrogio • ; - - MB Gianni Baget Bozzo I ? Enrico Baj Suooo i: Anna Banti Franco Fornari Riccardo Pazzaglìa Gaspare Barbielìini Amidei Giancarlo Fusco Ugo Pirro Agata Benedetti Brunella Gasperini Manuela Pompas Giuseppe Berto Antonio Ghirelli Neri Pozza Silvio Bertoldi Elena Gianini Belotti Fulco Pratesi Enzo Bettiza Paola Giovetti Michele Prisco Alberto Bevilacqua Luca Goldoni Salvatore Quasimodo Enzo Biagi Vittorio Gorresio Lidia Ravera Luciano Bianciardi Giuliano Gramigna Antonio Repaci Romano Bilenchi Giovanni Guareschi Alberto Ronchey Giorgio Bocca Armanda Guiducci Luciano Salce Giuseppe Bonaviri Roberto Guiducci Nantas Salvataggio Ettore Bonora Paolo Isotta Giorgio Saviane Giorgio Borsa Davide Lajolo Giorgio Scerbanenco Gianni Brera Tommaso Landolfi Emanuele Severino Vittorio Buttafava Ricciotti Lazzero Enzo Siciliano Achille Campanile Elisabetta Leslie Leonelli Giorgio Soavi Mario Cancogni Germano Lombardi Mario Soldati Patrizia Carrano Giovanni Macchia Guido Sommavilla Carlo Cassola Miriam Mafai Lidia Storoni Mazzolani Carlo Castellaneta Ida Magli Stefano Terra Silvio Ceccato Nino Manfredi Giovanni Testori Rodolfo Celletti Giorgio Manganelli Alfredo Todisco Mario Cervi Cesare Marchi Fulvio Tomizza Maurizio Chierici Giuseppe Marotta Eugenio Travaini Pietro Citati Lucio Mastronardi Emilio Tuminelli Roberto D'Agostino Luigi Meneghello Raffaello Uboldi Anna Del Bo Boffino Sandra Milo Attilio Veraldi Oreste Del Buono Paolo Villaggio

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firmly centred on the specific con- Chapter EX (Godei, Church, Tur- the quantity of liquid in a container, tribution of the three major figures ing: decidibile e idecidibile) also analytical knowledge suggests the Mathematics named, and the significance of their touches on the question of the rela- laborious method of calculating the relation to Leibniz. Chapters V tionship between man and machine, volume... analogical knowledge sug- (Georg Cantor), VI (L'assioma di and the alleged limitations of formai gests that one tips the contents into With a Vengeance scelta), VE (Da Zermelo a Zermelo), svstems. Chapter X (Logica e fon- a measuring vessel! Thus those and VIE (La fondazione insiemistica) damenti della matematica) CÌSXS light students who have assimilated by Corrado Mangione ali deal with the development of set on the mutuai relationships, inter- analogical philosophy will simply theory, and are perhaps the finest connections and autonomies of solve the problem by looking up the and most enjoyable pan of the logie, the foundation of answer in the back of the textbook!" mathematics, and the philosophy of (p. 343). GABRIELE LOLLI, Le ragioni proof, which is what really makes book. I will deal briefly with VE, the difference between one epoch given its somewhat cryptic title. mathematics, and Chapter XI Christmas is some way off; but I fisiche e le dimostrazioni This refers to two articles published (Astrazioni, formule, afasie) returns can honestly think of no better gift matematiche, Il Mulino, Bologna and another". To give even a summary notion of by Zermelo, one dating from 1908, to the idea that "when one is in than this stimulating collection of 1985,364 pp., Lit. 30.000. the richness of the contents of this presenting the first axiomatization posession of a powerful instrument essays, especially perhaps for volume with any fidelity would of set theory, the other from 1930, such as mathematical logie it is a students in the mathematics or wise policy to use it, rather than The author has assemblee! in this take at least three times the space based on the idea of the cumulative philosphy faculties, and also for search for illusory short cuts" (p. volume a series of essays on ideas available to me here. For though the hierarchy of sets. Lolli attacks secondary school teachers of 314): a further confutation of tne mathematics. developed over the five-year period basic concepts and arguments are Kreisel's thesis of the "historical and from 1980 to 1985 for a considerale number of contexts and occasions: lectures, papers read at conferences and congresses, book reviews, and so forth. The result is an unusually Contributors valuable panoramic view, perhaps Whose Menta! Hygiene? unique in the literature of tne philosophy of science, at least in Ita- to This Issue ly — and even as I add this proviso, I by Luigi Tavolaccini am struck by the fact that I haven't recently come across anything MICHELE TANSELLA (Ed.), L'approccio epi- and the theoretical reflection suggested by the similar elsewhere, either. demiologico in psichiatria, Boringhieri, epidemiological approach when it becomes part It is a vigorously polemica! collec- Torino 1985, 2 54 pp.Lit. 75.000. of everyday specialistic practice (both at a indi- tion, which expounds with ex- viduai clinical level and that of a general plan- emplary clarity both the personal This book, an anthology on the utilization ning verification) are without doubt a condi- theses and theories of the author of epidemiology and the existant relationship tio-sine-qua-non for the establishment of the Alessandro Baricco: musicologist and critic, has published a number of himself, and those with which he between epidemiology and psychiatry, expresses kind of knowledgeable feedback (at present takes issue — whether he is dealing an innovation in the situation of Italian psy- philosophical essays in the Rivista di practically unheard of within the organization Estetica and in the Giornale di with models of the Lakatosian type, chiatric publications. Indeed it fills in a Urge of social-sanitary services, and particularly of metafisica. Kreisel's ideas on the philosophy of gap in our editorial scope, not only by making the psychiatric ones) which binds the interven- Riccardo Bellofiore: teaches at the mathematics, the alleged superiority 'internai" cuts within individuai themes (such tion to its verification, the everyday assistance Department of Economics, Universi- of so-called intuitive mathematics as schizophrenic syndromes, the use of psycho- over so-called formai mathematics, a to the projeets for the future, the well-being of ty of Bergamo. drugs, depressive syndromes), but also by stimu- discussion of the significance of the the individuai patient to that of the entire Giorgio Caproni: was born in axiomatic method, or an analysis of lating reflexion on the more general euristic population, not to mention the relationship be- Livorno in 1912, and moved to various theories about the "founda- (and consequently methodological) value of this tween quantity and qualità of the intervention, Genoa at the age of ten. Since 1918 he has lived and works in Rome. His tion of mathematics*. And so on. approach to psychiatry. As the editor rightly and finally the difficult relationship conceming The polemic is conducted with underlines, epidemiology does not only offer a collected poems 1932-1982, Tutte le the homogeneity (and not the identityl) of lan- poesie, were published by Garzanti of firmess, and few holds are barred; partial technical contrwution (by applying stat- guage and purposes between specialists and pub- Milan in 1983. but there is also a considerable sense istics to psychiatrical data), but it confronts the lic administrators. Cesare Cases: teaches German of style. Lolli's acquaintance with, specialist with logicai concatenation: documen- and mastery of, mathematical and A warm welcome, therefore, for this anthol- Literature at the University of tation — evaluation — ends and purposes of the ogy which both proposes stimulating reflections Turin. He has recently published a philosophical categories is truly intervention (see the good essay by Castelfran- volume of criticai essays, Il Testimone breathtaking, and he sticks closely about the above mentioned logicai and admin- chi). In the present Italian situation after the secondario (Einaudi, Turin 1985) and to his terms of reference, using a istrative "impasses", and offers stimulating ex- a monograph on Lukàcs. dose reading of pertinent historical passing of law n. 180 (promoting the need for amples of past experiences in this direction. For documents as the basis of his discus- the activation of territorial services), this is ab- Lidia De Federicis: teaches Italian in example see T. Fryer's and K. Wooffs report on a Turin secondary school and is ac- sion: indeed, it is really history — solutely basic and is also a question of mental a British service, and also the report from the hygiene (so to speak) of the services of mental tive in the publishing field, too; she above ali the recent history of SPT in Verona-Sud where the editor of this an- has published, together with Remo mathematics and logie — which acts health. Indeed the success of psychiatry — with- thology offers his services. Accordino to his affi- Ceserani, Il materiale e l'immaginario as the focal point for most of the out — mental hospitals will surely be condi- (Loescher, Turin). twelve chapters. The basically nities the individuai reader will find in this tioned by the capability to correlate therapeutic wide-ranging collection (about 20 articles) some Natalia Ginzburg: one of Italy's historical approach makes the projeets on the individuai patient to the overall best-known writers. Her novels, fleeting moments of irony ali the more precise contributions to the organization prospect of the territorial services. And at the which are published by Einaudi, more telline. Equally noteworthy is of epidemiological research (such as A. Dupont's present moment the capability of the specialists have been translated into over twen- a certain pleasing lack of academic articles on the Psychiatric Register, or that ofD. ty languages. A two-volume edition hauteur: a near-miracle in so erudite in this field to correlate the individuai thera- De Salvia on the theory and utilization of this of her collected works is in course of publication by Mondadori. and well-informed a work as this. peutic techniques with the planning and ad- kind of data), as well as some more Consoli- ministrative techniques of the entire Service What has prompted Lolli to dated and classical themes (such as emigration, Francis Haskell: is Professor of Art publish this collection? He makes (which are yet to be practically invented, apart social class... by H. Hàfner). History at the University of Oxford no bones about telline us (in the from some sporadic ambulatorial assistance) is and a fellow of Trinity College. preface) that he has "had to turn far from widespread. Thepractical instruments Among his best known publications: historian and philosopher in some- (translation by Donata Origo) Patrons and Painters (New York, thing of a hurry, such was my New Haven 1982, 2nd edition). increasing impatience with the Carla Marello: teaches General literature on the disciplines which Linguistics at the University of interested me, i.e. mathematics and Turin. logie. (...) The best one can find are crystal clear, there is such a wealth epistemological priority of the intui- idea of mathematics as merely alleged laws of development which of significant and subtle detail that tion of structures, of the informai "cumulative". Corrado Mangione: teaches Logic extrapolate from the past and thus ali the reviewer can do is give an analysis of notions on the formula- Finally (Dimostrazioni ed esperien- and History of Logic at the Universi- ty of Milan. do no more than propose a repeti- overview of the various cnapters, tion of the axioms of theories" (p. za matematica) Lolli takes as his star- tion of it" (p. 7). What history ought pausing here and there; and this, of 176), relyine on the lack of in- ting point The Mathematical Ex- fluence of the "countless pages of perience by P.J. Davis and R. Hersh Gian Giacomo Migone: editor of to be doing is "giving us a sense of course, can give no idea of the scope "L'Indice", teaches North-American being projected towards the future", and the fascinating atmosphere of 'technical work' which appeared (1981). In this last chapter, many of History at the University of Turin. thougn stili "taking the various the book as a whole. The first between the first article ana the se- the basic theories and theses of the His most important work is Gli Stati 'presents' seriously as important chapter, which gives the book its ti- cond" (p. 177). He offers in its stead book are given a second airing, in Uniti e il fascismo (Feltrinelli, Milan and indeed decisive moments for tle, is about the nature of histories a jewel of epistemological and particular the idea of the centrality 1979). those who have lived through of mathematics in the last century. historical analysis of events — a of the concept of proof, and the at- them" (p. 8). Moreover, intrigued Lolli attacks the received idea story which has already been told, tack on the alleged superiority of Renato Nicolini: former Deputy that "wherever I turned I kept com- underlying most accounts, which by Casari in 1964 and by the present "good" (i.e. intuitive) mathematics Editor of "La Formichetta"; a ing across faets and ideàs which have treat mathematics as a cumulative writer some ten years later, but over the "bad" (i.e. formai). As Lolli member of the Italian Parliament with a good sense of humour. never been told" (p. 10), Lolli deter- continuum (in contrast to the situa- which is here put under the points out scathingly, in Davis and mined "to get first-hand knowledge tion in the physical sciences: he sees microscope, revealing a quite un- Hersh (whose work, incidentally, has just appeared in Italian) the lat- Salvatore Settis: teaches History of of the historical material so as to see a true break during the nineteenth precedented wealth of connections, Classical Art and Archeology at the what has actually happened over the century with the introduction of a relationships, and false starts. The ter distinction assumes the form of a Scuola Normale in Pisa. His work last hundred years, arid to polemize genuinely new mathematics, in par- clarity and the cohesion of the ac- contrast between analytical on Giorgione, La Tempesta inter- with those philosophers, ticular pure mathematics. count are such as to make it perfect- knowledge and analogical pretata, (Einaudi, Turin 1978) has fashionable or otherwise, who rely Chapters II (Quasi alphabetum: ly accessible even to the non- knowledge (which the authors been published in German. on ready-made solutions" (p. 10). logica ed enciclopedia in G. Peano), specialist. One hardly knows which relate to heuristics). "As a Again: "The various ways of doing IH (Saccheri e le dimostrazioni "filiae to admire more: the enormous demonstration that analogical Luigi Tavolaccini: psychiatrist in the National Mental Health Service. mathematics, its various incarna- plurium demonstrationum") and IV quantity of spadework involved in knowledge does not correspond to getting so dose to the underlying the heuristic kind, and indeed is uns- tions, may be seen not just in terms (Le forme della logica: G. Vailati) Ronald Witt: teaches Renaissance of the results obtained, but in the amount to a new reading of the structure of the period, or the cientific, simply dulling the wits, History at Duke University, North research of mathematicians into the work of the Italian school of logi- almost impudent ease of presenta- one need look no further than the Carolina. centrai question of the nature of cians at the end of the last century, tion. last example proposed: to evaluate MINISTERO PER I BENI CULTURALI E AMBIENTALI Direzione Generale per gli Affari Generali Amministrativi e del Personale - Divisione Editoria

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