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This article was prompted by two collections of correspondence: that between Gianfranco Contini and Antonio Pizzuto (published and studied by Gualberto Alvino), and that between Contini and Guglielmo Alberti (studied and in part published by Domenico Scarpa). The first novel of Pizzuto to be read by Contini was Ravenna (1962). It had been recommended to him by Cesare Brandi. The Sicilian writer had been a cult author for several years for a small number of readers. Contini’s response was enthusiastic, and from then on he applied his authority as literary critic to the championing of the novelist’s publications. He believed Pizzuto to be the greatest Italian writer after Carlo Emilio Gadda; in his opinion, Pizzuto put into practice with great imagination what Marinetti had fancifully preached: the prose of his late work seems to move away from the Indo-European languages to approximate to Chinese and Tibetan forms. However the prestige of Contini’s criticism was not sufficient to provoke an acceptance by general consensus of what in time seemed to be an overestimation of Pizzuto’s work. The friendship between Contini and Alberti began in 1943 at Freiburg in Switzerland. Contini was teaching at the University and the antifascist Alberti had fled there from Italy after the formation of the ‘Repubblica Sociale’ of Salò. The years of their closest friendship coincided with those of the scholar’s greatest political engagement: he was an “azionista”, a federalist, and a participant in the ephemeral, but memorable, events of the ‘Repubblica dell’Ossola’ and in those of the immediate postwar period. His political commitment began to wane after the disbanding of the ‘Partito d’Azione’.
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