From the journals to printing: notes on the genesis of Un viaggio in Italia by Guido Ceronetti

Abstract

Un viaggio in Italia by Guido Ceronetti in 1983 breaks new ground in the odeporic genre, both for the originality of its structure, and for the strong critical reflection on the deterioration of the country, caused by speculative construction, pollution and moral corruption. By looking for 'another' Italy, one humble, secret, and different from the great cities of art, Ceronetti analyzes himself and the omnipresent struggle between Good and Evil. The present article aims to highlight these characteristics through a study of the genesis of the work, comparing the first unpublished drafts of the travel notebooks –kept at the Biblioteca Cantonale in Lugano– to the printed text of the Einaudi edition.

Keywords

• Travel notebook
• textual genesis
• introspective investigation
• ecology
• symbolic dualism