Alessandra Venturi

Italo Calvino, born in Cuba in 1923 to Italian agronomist parents who were botanists and university professors, spent his formative years in Sanremo, Italy. His upbringing was marked by a secular, freethinking environment, influenced by his parents' republican, anarchist, and Marxist leanings, and a strong emphasis on civic duty and science. Despite a comfortable middle-class life, Calvino struggled to connect with his parents' openness to laborers and found communication difficult with his father. His early education was in non-Catholic schools, fostering a sense of tolerance for differing beliefs.

Calvino's early life was shaped by the natural world of his father's experimental farm, which inspired his later fiction. He developed a passion for storytelling from a young age, contrasting with his family's scientific focus. The rise of Fascism and World War II deeply impacted him; he refused military service, went into hiding, and eventually joined the Italian Resistance as a communist partisan. His parents faced hardship as hostages due to his actions. After the war, Calvino settled in Turin, pursued arts, joined the Communist Party, and began his literary career with support from Elio Vittorini, while also working for the Einaudi publishing house.

Calvino's parents, Mario and Eva Mameli Calvino, were intellectuals with strong, diverse political beliefs, including anarchism, socialism, republicanism, and Marxism. They were also freethinkers who rejected religious dogma, instilling in their children a secular education focused on civic duty and science. This environment fostered Calvino's tolerance for different viewpoints, particularly in matters of religion, stemming from his own experiences of being pressured for his non-conformist beliefs. His early education in English and Protestant schools, followed by a classical lyceum, exposed him to various cultural and intellectual currents. His friendship with Eugenio Scalfari during his youth was pivotal, contributing to his political awakening and the co-founding of a university movement. The political landscape of Italy, marked by Fascism and later the post-war communist movement, significantly shaped his worldview and literary engagement.

Calvino's literary journey began amidst a family that prioritized science, leading him to feel like an outsider. His early fascination with adventure stories, American movies, and drawing contrasted with his parents' scientific pursuits. The natural environment of his childhood home in Sanremo, with its experimental farm and surrounding forests, provided a rich source of imagery and inspiration for his early fiction. Despite initial ambitions in theatre, the realities of war and his political convictions led him towards prose. His post-war immersion in the literary world, particularly through Elio Vittorini and the Einaudi publishing house, allowed him to explore themes related to war, social struggle, and the human condition. His academic work, including a Master's thesis on Joseph Conrad, further honed his literary sensibilities, preparing him for a prolific writing career.

“his father "had been in his youth an anarchist, a follower of Kropotkin and then a Socialist Reformist"”

“very different in personality from one another”

“belligerently nationalist”

“ill at ease”

“Talking to each other was difficult. Both verbose by nature, possessed of an ocean of words, in each other's presence we became mute, would walk in silence side by side along the road to San Giovanni.”