GIANFRANCO CONTINI ALFREDO SCHIAFFINI CARTEGGIO (1935-1971)

The exchange of letters between Gianfranco Contini and Alfredo Schiaffini is quite peculiar, even if compared with the many ones Contini had with Carlo Emilio Gadda, Eugenio Montale, Emilio Cecchi, Aldo Capitini, Luigi Russo, Giorgio Pasquali, Giuseppe De Luca and others, already published. It is the most considerable for its length and for the incredible number of letters: it lasts from 1935 to 1971 and involves two “colleagues”. Contini addresses his first letter to Schiaffinin on February 18th, 1935: he is only 23 y.o., he has just taken his degree in Romance Philology and obtained a scholarship to specialize with Joseph Bedier in Paris. Schiaffini is a 40 y. o. well known professor at Genova University, who lectures at Pisa Scuola Normale Superiore. Their complicity is immediate; they love each other and won’t interrupt their friendly relation up to Schiaffini’s death in 1971. Contini is soon going to become the undisputed ‘star’ of Italian Philology, revered and feared by friends and colleagues, author of admirable essays which turn his teaching upside down; the reference point of many contemporary writers (Montale, Gadda and Pasolini are only the best known). Schiaffini supports and backs up at once “critica delle varianti”, born under the impulse of Contini and in dispute with Benedetto Croce: this is one of the less known aspects these letters have drawn the attention on. In 1935 war is on. University libraries don’t buy foreign reviews and Contini sends Schiaffini otherwise unobtainable off prints he buys at Droz. During the war both Contini and Schiaffini lose books, papers and letters. Reconstruction sees them again side by side, engaged with different roles in a programme of rebuilding the national literary history planned by Riccardo Ricciardi. Since 1949 Schiaffini has been called by Mattioli, together with Piero Pancrazi, in the executive staff of “La letteratura italiana”. The aim is to establish a “canon” of the Italian Literature in 75 volumes for the ruling class of the future. Schiaffini writes about his new job to his dear friend Contini – even before its officialization, and gives him the task to edit the two volumes on Poeti del Duecento. These will be ready in 1961 and will change the way of publishing the texts of the origins of our lietrature. Soon after Schiaffini promotes “Documenti di filologia”: once again Contini is at his side to share the management. Forty years of Italian History – not only from an academic point of view, are reflected in the letters of two scholars who laid the foundations of the philological discipline in Italy.