The Conservatory of Santa Teresa E-Book

Romano Bilenchi

• Herausgeber: Firenze University Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

This volume is the first translation of Romano Bilenchi’s 1940 masterpiece to appear in English. This is surprising since The Conservatory of Santa Teresa is much more than an invaluable historical document of life in provincial Tuscany around the time of the First World War. It is truly one of the most important works of fiction published in Italy under Fascism. In telling of the pre-adolescent Sergio’s encounter with the larger world of sex, politics, and the violence and cruelty of adult life, Bilenchi succeeds in representing a universal paradigm, that of the clash of innocence with experience. But what makes Sergio’s trajectory unique is that he goes through it in the company of three extraordinary women who are at once femmes fatales and benevolent guides: his mother, his aunt, and his tutor, all almost unbearably beautiful, as least in Sergio’s eyes. These women, plus the dazzling landscape of the Sienese countryside as captured by Bilenchi, make Sergio’s journey an enviable even if sometimes painful and bewildering experience.Romano Bilenchi (1909-1989) was a journalist, writer, and political militant in Florence and elsewhere in Tuscany. A ‘left-wing Fascist’ in his youth, he became an active participant in the anti-Fascist Resistance in the late 1930s, shortly after completing the first edition of this novel.Charles Klopp is Professor Emeritus of Italian at The Ohio State University and the author of many books and essays on Italian literature and culture. Melinda Nelson is an Assistant Provost at the same institution.

Leseprobe

STUDI E SAGGI

– 143 –

Studi di italianistica moderna e contemporanea nel mondo anglofono

Studies in Modern and Contemporary Italianistica in the Anglophone World

Comitato scientifico / Editorial Board

Joseph Francese, Direttore / Editor-in-chief (Michigan State University)

Norma Bouchard (University of Connecticut at Storrs)

Joseph A. Buttigieg (University of Notre Dame)

Michael Caesar (University of Birmingham)

Derek Duncan (University of Bristol)

Stephen Gundle (University of Warwick)

Marcia Landy (University of Pittsburgh)

Silvestra Mariniello (Université de Montréal)

Annamaria Pagliaro (Monash University)

Lucia Re (University of California at Los Angeles)

Silvia Ross (University College Cork)

Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg (Brown University)

Titoli pubblicati / Published Titles

Francese J., Leonardo Sciascia e la funzione sociale degli intellettuali

Rosengarten F., Through Partisan Eyes.. My Friendships, Literary Education, and Political Encounters in Italy (1956-2013). With Sidelights on My Experiences in the United States, France, and the Soviet Union

Ferrara M.E., Il realismo teatrale nella narrativa del Novecento: Vittorini, Pasolini, Calvino

Francese J., Vincenzo Consolo: gli anni de «l’Unità» (1992-2012), ovvero la poetica della colpa-espiazione

Bilenchi R., The Conservatory of Santa Teresa

Romano Bilenchi

The Conservatory of Santa Teresa

Translated by Charles Klopp and Melinda Nelson

Introduction by Charles Klopp

Firenze University Press

2015

The Conservatory of Santa Teresa / Romano Bilenchi ; translated by Charles Klopp and Melinda Nelson ; introduction by Charles Klopp. – Firenze : Firenze University Press, 2015.

(Studi e saggi: 143)

http://digital.casalini.it/9788866558248

ISBN 978-88-6655-823-1 (print)

ISBN 978-88-6655-824-8 (online PDF)

ISBN 978-88-6655-825-5 (online EPUB)

Progetto grafico di Alberto Pizarro Fernández, Pagina Maestra snc

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Peer Review Process

All publications are submitted to an external refereeing process under the responsibility of the FUP Editorial Board and the Scientific Committees of the individual series. The works published in the FUP catalogue are evaluated and approved by the Editorial Board of the publishing house. For a more detailed description of the refereeing process we refer to the official documents published in the online catalogue of the FUP (http://www.fupress.com).

Firenze University Press Editorial Board

G. Nigro (Co-ordinator), M.T. Bartoli, M. Boddi, R. Casalbuoni, C. Ciappei, R. Del Punta, A. Dolfi, V. Fargion, S. Ferrone, M. Garzaniti, P. Guarnieri, A. Mariani, M. Marini, A. Novelli, M. Verga, A. Zorzi.

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© Romano Bilenchi Estate. All rights reserved handled by Agenzia Letteraria Internazionale, Milan, Italy. Conservatorio di Santa Teresa is published in Italy by RCS Libri s.p.a, Milano.

2015 Firenze University Press

Università degli Studi di Firenze

Firenze University Press

Borgo Albizi, 28, 50122 Firenze, Italy

www.fupress.com

Printed in Italy

Summary

Introduction

Charles Klopp

THE CONSERVATORY OF SANTA TERESA

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Introduction

Charles Klopp

Romano Bilenchi’sConservatorio di Santa Teresaisone of a handful of novels from the Fascist period in Italy still of interest today for reasons that go beyond the historical. Like Alberto Moravia’s 1929Gli indifferenti(The Indifferent Ones, 1932) and Elio Vittorini’s 1941Conversazione in Sicilia(Conversations in Sicily, 2000),Bilenchi’s novel deals with issues of self-discovery and the struggle to attain emotional and ethical maturity that, while exacerbated by the oppressive atmosphere of Mussolini’s totalitarian regime, are recognizable today as inevitable stages in human development. Although poetry, especially that which concentrated on the inner life of the poet, was able to survive and even flourish during Fascism, times were much harderfor the novel with its inevitable concern for social issues. For this reason, novels of lasting artistic value written during Fascism’s twenty-years in Italy can be counted on the fingers of one or perhaps two hands. Bilenchi’s masterpiece is unarguably among them. The portrait it provides of its protagonist Sergio’s late childhood and early adolescence and its unique portrayals of the beautiful, idiosyncratic, unpredictable, and tender women who enthrall him –principal among these Sergio’s aunt and his mother – make Bilenchi’s work both unique and universal. Its enduring value lies not only in what his novel has to say about nascent Fascism in the Tuscan provinces around the time of the First World War. It is equally important for its beguilingportrait of a pre-adolescent young man and its portrayals of three remarkable women, each of whom manages to combine images of the irresistible and entrancingfemme fatalewith those of the supportive and loving mother.

The Author

Romano Bilenchi was born in 1909 in Colle Val d’Elsa, a small town near both Siena and Florence. In addition to being an agricultural center, Colle is also known for its light industry, much of which in earlier years was powered by the Elsa River in whose valley the lower part of the city lies. Bilenchi’s father, Tarquinio, owned a mill for pressing olive pits and other agricultural products, an establishment that had been in operation since the early eighteenth century and employed around eighty workers when Romano was growing up. Despite his social position as a mill owner, Tarquinio, who died in 1915 when Romano was six years old, was a Socialist. Thus he resembles Bruno, Sergio’s father in thisnovel, who is also a Socialist and is viewed for this reason with suspicion by his economic peers.

Bilenchi began his formal education in Colle, where he was attracted to literature at an early age. In addition to reading contemporary Italian and French authors, he also studied the writings of the fourteenth-century Tuscan mystics, including those of Saint Catherine of Siena. He then went to Florence to attend a Liceo Scientifico, or a high school specializing in the sciences. After two years, however,he contracted tuberculosis of the spine, also known as Pott’s Disease. He was sent for treatment to Cortina, a town in the Alps, where he remained confined to bed for the next three years.