On Thursday 2 March at 4 p.m. the Casa delleLetterature library – which is part of the Biblioteche di Roma network of libraries – will host an event to present the initiatives for the centenary of Italo Calvino’s birth. The project is organised by Laboratorio Calvino (La Sapienza University of Rome, University of Milan and University of Milan-Bicocca, University of Oxford) and is directed by Laura Di Nicola together with Mario Barenghi, Bruno Falcetto and Martin McLaughlin, in collaboration with the Committee for the Celebration of the Centenary, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the Municipality of Rome, the Rome National Central Library and the Arnoldo and Alberto Mondadori Foundation.
The event will be attended by Miguel Gotor (Councillor for Culture of the Municipality of Rome), Tommaso Giordano (MAECI, DGDP, Office III), Stefano Campagnolo (Director of the Rome National Central Library), Marta Inversini (Director of the Arnoldo and Alberto Mondadori Foundation) and Laura Di Nicola (Director of Laboratorio Calvino – La Sapienza University of Rome).
To mark the centenary of Italo Calvino’s birth (Santiago de Las Vegas de La Habana, 15 October 1923 – Siena, 19 September 1985), the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAECI) is organising – via its embassies and consulates, and the network of Italian Cultural Institutes – a series of initiatives to celebrate the work and philosophy of the writer, one of the most widely read and studied Italian authors in the world.
The programme created by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs includes different types of initiatives: exhibitions, theatre performances, and in-depth meetings to discuss the author’s philosophy.
In particular, the programme prepared by Office III of the Directorate General for Public and Cultural Diplomacy will include the exhibition “Eccellenze italiane. Figure per Italo Calvino”(Italian Excellence. Illustrations for Italo Calvino), which is organised by Bologna Children’s Book Fair/BolognaFiere and the Emilia-Romagna Region, and curated by the Giannino Stoppani Cooperative/Academia Drosselmeier. The exhibition is an opportunity to discuss Calvino’s texts and the world of fairy tales, imagined as shared reading between adults and children. Other important events will be the exhibition “Calvino immaginario”, a project curated by COMICON and aimed at presenting original comic strips and illustrations, as well as classics from the history of comics; the exhibition “Calvino qui e altrove”, organised by the Mondadori Foundation and Laboratorio Calvino, which offers a visual itinerary of the covers of Calvino’s most famous books to reconstruct the journey of his works in the world, “qui e altrove” (here and elsewhere).
Space will also be given to meetings and lectures with Calvino scholars in collaboration with Laboratorio Calvino, a research structure dedicated to the study of Calvino that is part of the Department of Letters and Modern Cultures of La Sapienza University, and in coordination with the Universities of Milan, Milan-Bicocca and Oxford. To mark the anniversary of Calvino’s birth, Laboratorio Calvino is planning a large conference to be held in Rome on 19-21 October 2023, as well as a series of initiatives in collaboration with MAECI and other foreign universities.
Theatre performances are also planned, in cooperation with the Teatro dell’Opera opera house in Rome and the Atelier Sì theatre workshop in Bologna.
More than 30 foreign organisations have already joined the programme created by MAECI to mark the centenary of Calvino’s birth, thus confirming international interest in one of Italy’s best-loved authors, which is partly due to his cosmopolitan character.
