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PoetryThe Poetry of Guido GuinizelliRimeGuido Guinizelli · 1270Bolognese love poems of the thirteenth century, including a canzone that makes nobility a matter of the heart.Literature
PoetryComplete PoemsRimeGuido Cavalcanti · 1300Love as a dark power that ruins the mind, spoken in the language of the philosophers.Literature
PoetryThe Divine ComedyLa Divina CommediaDante Alighieri · 1321A poem in one hundred cantos in which a living man travels through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, guided by Virgil and then by Beatrice.Literature
Short storiesThe DecameronIl DecameronBoccaccio · 1353One hundred tales told over ten days by ten young Florentines who have taken refuge in the countryside during the plague.Literature
PoetryThe CanzoniereIl CanzonierePetrarch · 1374A collection of love poems in the vernacular, composed over forty years around the figure of Laura.Literature
Short storiesTales from SacchettiIl TrecentonovelleFranco Sacchetti · 1397A collection of Florentine short stories from the late fourteenth century, without a frame, in which the narrator is often a witness.Literature
Short storiesIl NovelliereGiovanni Sercambi · 1399not translated into EnglishA Decameron on the road: people of Lucca flee the plague and tell each other stories on the roads of Italy.Literature
EpicMorgante: The Epic Adventures of Orlando and His Giant FriendMorganteLuigi Pulci · 1483A chivalric and parodic epic in ottava rima, in which one of Charlemagne's paladins travels with a converted giant.Literature
EpicOrlando in LoveOrlando innamoratoMatteo Maria Boiardo · 1483A chivalric epic in which Charlemagne's paladins abandon war to pursue a princess from the East.LiteraturePublic domain
PoetryArcadia and Piscatorial EcloguesArcadiaJacopo Sannazaro · 1502A Neapolitan pastoral work, in prose and verse, in which the narrator shares the life of the shepherds of Arcadia.LiteraturePublic domain
EssayThe Book of the CourtierIl CortegianoBaldassare Castiglione · 1528A Renaissance dialogue in which courtiers at Urbino seek to define the accomplished man of the court.LiteraturePublic domain
EpicOrlando FuriosoOrlando furiosoLudovico Ariosto · 1532A chivalric epic in which Charlemagne's war against the Saracens mingles with love affairs and enchantments.LiteraturePublic domain
EssayThe Letters of Pietro AretinoLetterePietro Aretino · 1537Correspondence of a Renaissance writer who made his letters an instrument of power over the great.LiteraturePublic domain
Short storiesThe Novels of Matteo BandelloNovelleMatteo Bandello · 1554A vast collection of Italian Renaissance tales, without a frame story, each one offered to a contemporary.LiteraturePublic domain
EpicJerusalem DeliveredLa Gerusalemme liberataTorquato Tasso · 1581An epic of the First Crusade in which holy war is mingled with enchantments and love affairs.Literature
TaleThe Tale of TalesLo cunto de li cuntiGiambattista Basile · 1636A curse cast by an old woman sets ten storytellers to work for five days.Literature
TheatreThe Servant of Two MastersIl servitore di due padroniCarlo Goldoni · 1753A Venetian comedy in which a servant serves two masters at once, at the cost of a cascade of misunderstandings.LiteraturePublic domain
PoetryThe DayIl giornoGiuseppe Parini · 1763A satirical poem that describes, hour by hour and in the tone of the epic, the idle day of a young nobleman.LiteraturePublic domain
TheatreSaulVittorio Alfieri · 1785A biblical tragedy in which the first king of Israel, jealous of David, is torn between tenderness and fury.LiteraturePublic domain
PoetrySepulchresDei SepolcriUgo Foscolo · 1807A meditation in verse, prompted by a decree on burials, on what the dead leave to those who remain.LiteraturePublic domain
PoetryLa Ninetta del VerzeeCarlo Porta · 1814not translated into EnglishA narrative in verse, in Milanese dialect, about a street girl betrayed by her lover.LiteraturePublic domain
NarrativeHistory of My LifeHistoire de ma vieGiacomo Casanova · 1822Memoirs of a Venetian adventurer of the eighteenth century, written in French at the end of his life.Literature
EssayMoral FablesOperette moraliGiacomo Leopardi · 1827Philosophical dialogues and tales in prose, between irony and melancholy, on the human condition.LiteraturePublic domain
NovelThe BetrothedI promessi sposiAlessandro Manzoni · 1840A historical novel in which two Lombard betrothed, separated by a lord, live through the misfortunes of their century.LiteraturePublic domain
PoetrySt. AmbroseSant'AmbrogioGiuseppe Giusti · 1846A Risorgimento poem in which a Tuscan patriot, among the occupier's soldiers, is seized by music.LiteraturePublic domain
PoetrySonnetsSonetti romaneschiGiuseppe Gioachino Belli · 1849The Rome of the popes seen from below and spoken in the speech of the streets.Literature
NovelConfessions of an ItalianLe confessioni d'un italianoIppolito Nievo · 1867Imaginary memoirs of an old man whose life merges with the history of Italy.Literature
TheatreMefistofeleArrigo Boito · 1868Opera drawn from Goethe's Faust, for which the composer wrote both the libretto and the score himself.LiteraturePublic domain
PoetryThe Barbarian OdesOdi barbareGiosuè Carducci · 1877Italian odes written in the metres of the Ancients, between Antiquity and the present time.LiteraturePublic domain
NovelThe House by the Medlar TreeI MalavogliaGiovanni Verga · 1881Novel of a family of Sicilian fishermen gradually brought down by misfortune and debt.LiteraturePublic domain
NovelThe Adventures of PinocchioLe avventure di PinocchioCarlo Collodi · 1883A puppet carved from a log comes to life, and refuses everything people want to make of it.Literature
PoetryTamarisksMyricaeGiovanni Pascoli · 1891First collection by a poet who brought the humble things of everyday life into Italian poetry.LiteraturePublic domain
NovelThe Maidens of the RocksLe vergini delle rocceGabriele d'Annunzio · 1895Decadent novel in which an aristocrat seeks, among three sisters, the mother of a superman to come.LiteraturePublic domain
NovelThe Little World of the PastPiccolo mondo anticoAntonio Fogazzaro · 1895A novel of the Risorgimento in which a young liberal couple confronts a grandmother loyal to the occupier.LiteraturePublic domain
NovelElias PortoluGrazia Deledda · 1903A Sardinian novel in which a former prisoner secretly loves his own brother's betrothed.LiteraturePublic domain
PoetryPianissimoCamillo Sbarbaro · 1914not translated into EnglishA collection in a low voice about a man who walks through the city feeling nothing any more.Literature
CinemaCabiriaGiovanni Pastrone · 1914A little Sicilian girl who falls into the hands of pirates, in the time when Rome and Carthage are at war.Cinema
PoetryThe Buried HarbourIl Porto SepoltoGiuseppe Ungaretti · 1916Trench poems, dated and located, reduced to a few words per line.Literature
PoetrySongbookIl CanzoniereUmberto Saba · 1921A collection spanning a poet's life, constantly revised, in which Trieste holds pride of place.Literature
NovelZeno's ConscienceLa coscienza di ZenoItalo Svevo · 1923Novel set in Trieste in which a man tells his life to his psychoanalyst while lying to himself on every page.LiteraturePublic domain
TheatreSix Characters in Search of an AuthorSei personaggi in cerca d'autoreLuigi Pirandello · 1925A play in which characters abandoned by their author demand that a company of actors perform their story.LiteraturePublic domain
PoetryCuttlefish BonesOssi di seppiaEugenio Montale · 1925The first collection of a poet who speaks, on a coast of stone and light, of what escapes words.Literature
NovelThe Time of IndifferenceGli indifferentiAlberto Moravia · 1929First novel about a bourgeois family that falls apart without putting up any resistance, in the time of Fascism.Literature
NovelFontamaraIgnazio Silone · 1933Novel about a village in the Abruzzo whose peasants have their water stolen from them under Fascism.Literature
Cinema1860Alessandro Blasetti · 1934A Sicilian peasant crosses Italy to hasten the arrival of Garibaldi.Cinema
NarrativeAmerica primo amoreMario Soldati · 1935not translated into EnglishAccount of a young Italian who discovers New York and dreams, for a time, of becoming American.Literature
NovelThe Mill on the PoIl mulino del PoRiccardo Bacchelli · 1938A hundred years of Italian life seen from a floating mill on the Po, at the level of the humble.Literature
NovelThe StrongholdIl deserto dei TartariDino Buzzati · 1940A novel of waiting: an officer watches for years, in a remote fortress, for an announced invasion.Literature
NovelConversations in SicilyConversazione in SiciliaElio Vittorini · 1941A novel about a return to the native land, between fable and conversation, under Fascism.Literature
PoetryEd è subito seraSalvatore Quasimodo · 1942not translated into EnglishA collection of hermetic poems placed under the sign of solitude and the brevity of life.Literature
CinemaObsessionOssessioneLuchino Visconti · 1943An unemployed man, on the roads of northern Italy, falls in love with the wife of the man who hires him.Cinema
NarrativeChrist Stopped at EboliCristo si è fermato a EboliCarlo Levi · 1945An account of internal exile among the peasants of Lucania, under Fascism, by a doctor who painted.Literature
CinemaRome, Open CityRoma città apertaRoberto Rossellini · 1945In occupied Rome, a hunted resistance fighter, a parish priest and a neighbour shelter one another.Cinema
NarrativeIf This Is a ManSe questo è un uomoPrimo Levi · 1947Testimony of a young Italian chemist deported to Auschwitz, written on his return in an analytical tone.Literature
NovelA Tale of Poor LoversCronache di poveri amantiVasco Pratolini · 1947A novel of a poor street in Florence under nascent fascism, whose inhabitants together form the hero.Literature
CinemaTo Live in PeaceVivere in paceLuigi Zampa · 1947A village peasant hides two American escapees during the German occupation.Cinema
NarrativeVilla TarantolaVincenzo Cardarelli · 1948not translated into EnglishProse memoirs of a self-taught man, from his native town in Etruria to the newspapers of Rome.Literature
CinemaBicycle ThievesLadri di bicicletteVittorio De Sica · 1948In postwar Rome, a father loses the bicycle on which his new job depends.Cinema
NovelThe Moon and the BonfiresLa luna e i falòCesare Pavese · 1950A novel of an emigrant's return to the Piedmontese hills of his childhood, in the aftermath of the war.Literature
DiaryQuasi una vitaCorrado Alvaro · 1950not translated into EnglishNotebooks of a Calabrian writer over two decades, between portraits, travels and life under fascism.Literature
Short storiesThe Faithful LoverL'amante fedeleMassimo Bontempelli · 1953Stories from the war years in which the strange surfaces in everyday life, without anyone being surprised by it.Literature
NarrativeThe Sergeant in the SnowIl sergente nella neveMario Rigoni Stern · 1953The retreat of the Alpini on the Russian front, told from the ranks by a non-commissioned officer who lived through it.Literature
PoetryThe Dawn Is Always NewÈ fatto giornoRocco Scotellaro · 1954Poems of the peasant South, written by a young socialist mayor of Lucania and published after his death.Literature
NovelBoys AliveRagazzi di vitaPier Paolo Pasolini · 1955The boys of the Rome suburbs after the war, caught in their own language.Literature
PoetryAn Orchid Shining in the HandParole del tempoLorenzo Calogero · 1956A voice from Calabria, hermetic and solitary, whom almost no one read in his lifetime.Literature
NovelThe Baron in the TreesIl barone rampanteItalo Calvino · 1957A boy climbs into an oak tree to escape a dinner, and spends the rest of his life there.Literature
Short storiesValentinoNatalia Ginzburg · 1957A whole family put at the service of one son, and the daughter who watches it happen.Literature
CinemaI vampiriRiccardo Freda · 1957In the Paris of the 1950s, a journalist tracks a killer whom the press calls the vampire.Cinema
NovelThe LeopardIl GattopardoGiuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa · 1958A Sicilian prince watches his house and his class come apart at the very moment Italy is being made.Literature
PoetrySummer Is Not AllPoesia ed erroreFranco Fortini · 1959Twenty years of verse gathered in a single book, from the war years to the years of the Cold War.Literature
NovelCaccia all'uomoRoberto Roversi · 1959not translated into EnglishCalabrian banditry of two centuries ago, in which the experience of a very recent war passes obliquely.Literature
NovelBebo's GirlLa ragazza di BubeCarlo Cassola · 1960The Tuscan post-war years seen by a teenage girl whom a former partisan comes to fetch.Literature
CinemaEverybody Go HomeTutti a casaLuigi Comencini · 1960In the wake of the 1943 armistice, soldiers without orders cross Italy to get home.Cinema
CinemaBlack SundayLa maschera del demonioMario Bava · 1960Two centuries after her execution, a witch is brought back to life by accident, deep in a crypt.Cinema
CinemaGirl with a SuitcaseLa ragazza con la valigiaValerio Zurlini · 1961A singer abandoned by a seducer finds unexpected support in his younger brother.Cinema
CinemaDivorce Italian StyleDivorzio all'italianaPietro Germi · 1961In an Italy without divorce, a Sicilian baron counts on the leniency granted to crimes of honour.Cinema
CinemaA Difficult LifeUna vita difficileDino Risi · 1961Twenty years of Italian history lived by a former partisan torn between his ideas and poverty.Cinema
NovelThe Garden of the Finzi-ContinisIl giardino dei Finzi-ContiniGiorgio Bassani · 1962A walled park in Ferrara, where a few young people play tennis while they are excluded from everything else.Literature
PoetryNel magmaMario Luzi · 1963not translated into EnglishA collection in which poetry becomes dialogue, dispute and theatre, far from hermeticism.Literature
NovelThe Experience of PainLa cognizione del doloreCarlo Emilio Gadda · 1963Unfinished novel of a son in conflict with his mother, in a South America that is the Brianza.Literature
CinemaThe OrganizerI compagniMario Monicelli · 1963In a Turin textile mill, around 1900, exhausted workers learn how to strike.Cinema
Cinema8½Federico Fellini · 1963A filmmaker with no inspiration loses himself among his memories, his dreams and the people around him.Cinema
CinemaHands over the CityLe mani sulla cittàFrancesco Rosi · 1963A building collapses in Naples, and the inquiry leads all the way up to the benches of the city council.Cinema
NovelL'ombra delle collineGiovanni Arpino · 1964not translated into EnglishA man returns to the village of his thirteenth year, where during the war he did something he has never spoken of.Literature
CinemaA Fistful of DollarsPer un pugno di dollariSergio Leone · 1964A nameless gunman arrives in a town torn between two clans and sets them against each other.Cinema
CinemaAttack and RetreatItaliani brava genteGiuseppe de Santis · 1964The Russian campaign as lived by the soldiers of an Italian regiment, between the German ally and the population.Cinema
NovelThe World MachineLa macchina mondialePaolo Volponi · 1965A self-taught peasant holds that man is a machine made by others, and sets out to build its successor.Literature
NovelLa quinta stagioneFulvio Tomizza · 1965not translated into EnglishThe war seen by a child from an Istrian village, between two languages and two camps.Literature
CinemaFists in the PocketI pugni in tascaMarco Bellocchio · 1965In a provincial villa, a young man is stifled between a blind mother and a sick set of siblings.Cinema
CinemaBlow-UpMichelangelo Antonioni · 1966A photographer enlarges the pictures he took in a London garden and believes he can see in them the trace of a crime.Cinema
CinemaThe Battle of AlgiersLa battaglia di AlgeriGillo Pontecorvo · 1966A city war retold from the side of those who fought it, and without a single piece of archive footage.Cinema
NovelIl giuoco dell'ocaEdoardo Sanguineti · 1967not translated into EnglishA board game regarded as a book, in which the description of the pictures replaces the story.Literature
PoetryThe Collected Poems of Lucio PiccoloPlumeliaLucio Piccolo · 1967A Sicilian world of gardens and light, caught on the brink of its disappearance.Literature
NovelJohnny the PartisanIl partigiano JohnnyBeppe Fenoglio · 1968The partisan war in the Langhe, fought by a boy who thinks in English.Literature
CinemaRomeo and JulietFranco Zeffirelli · 1968Two teenagers from feuding families, in Verona, fall in love and marry in secret.Cinema
CinemaTeoremaPier Paolo Pasolini · 1968A nameless visitor settles in with a bourgeois Milanese family, and each of them gives himself to him.Cinema
PoetryWithin the Sweet Noise of LifeTutte le poesieSandro Penna · 1970Short poems of desire and light, in the streets and stations of Rome.Literature
CinemaCome Have Coffee with UsVenga a prendere il caffè da noiAlberto Lattuada · 1970A methodical civil servant enters, through a calculated marriage, a house of three heiress sisters.Cinema
CinemaLast Tango in ParisUltimo tango a ParigiBernardo Bertolucci · 1972Two strangers meet in an empty apartment, forbidding themselves to know who they are.Cinema
CinemaBody of LoveCorpo d'amoreFabio Carpi · 1972A father and a son who do not speak to each other take in a stranger washed up on the beach.Cinema
CinemaDon't Torture a DucklingNon si sevizia un paperinoLucio Fulci · 1972Children die in a village in the South, and fear points in turn to new culprits.Cinema
Short storiesThe Wine-Dark SeaIl mare colore del vinoLeonardo Sciascia · 1973Thirteen Sicilian stories in which what matters is rarely said aloud.Literature
CinemaLa Grande BouffeMarco Ferreri · 1973Four men of standing shut themselves away among friends to feast without restraint, in a bourgeois house in Paris.Cinema
NovelHistory: A NovelLa StoriaElsa Morante · 1974A woman and two children in wartime Rome, with each part recalling what History is doing in the meantime.Literature
CinemaThe Night PorterIl portiere di notteLiliana Cavani · 1974In a Vienna hotel, a former SS man and a former deportee recognise each other, twelve years after the war.Cinema
CinemaSwept AwayTravolti da un insolito destino nell'azzurro mare d'agostoLina Wertmüller · 1974A haughty bourgeois woman and a communist sailor are stranded together on a desert island.Cinema
CinemaBread and ChocolatePane e cioccolataFranco Brusati · 1974An Italian emigrant loses his papers in Switzerland and clings to the country that no longer wants him.Cinema
CinemaThe SuspectIl sospettoFrancesco Maselli · 1975In Fascist Italy, an underground militant must find the traitor among his own.Cinema
CinemaUgly, Dirty and BadBrutti, sporchi e cattiviEttore Scola · 1976On the margins of Rome, a whole clan lives under the same roof and fights over the head of the family's hoard.Cinema
CinemaTodo modoElio Petri · 1976During an epidemic, the leaders of the ruling party shut themselves away underground for a spiritual retreat.Cinema
CinemaPadre PadronePadre padronePaolo and Vittorio Taviani · 1977A Sardinian boy taken out of school by his father grows up a shepherd, in the solitude of the pastures.Cinema
CinemaSuspiriaDario Argento · 1977An American student arrives at a German ballet school where fear sets in from the very first evening.Cinema
CinemaThe Tree of Wooden ClogsL'albero degli zoccoliErmanno Olmi · 1978On a Lombard farm of long ago, four families live off land that is not theirs.Cinema
CinemaCafé ExpressNanni Loy · 1980A clandestine coffee seller makes his way through a night train in the South, among accomplices and pursuers.Cinema
NovelThe Name of the RoseIl nome della rosaUmberto Eco · 1980Seven days in a medieval abbey, where the monks die one after another.Literature
PoetryVariable StarStella variabileVittorio Sereni · 1981The last poems of a poet who takes stock of his memory, of the war and of its dead.Literature
PoetryThe BedroomLa camera da lettoAttilio Bertolucci · 1984Family chronicle in verse, in which the ordinary life of a house takes on the scale of an epic.Literature
CinemaThe Mass Is EndedLa messa è finitaNanni Moretti · 1985A priest who has returned to the town of his childhood fails to help any of his loved ones.Cinema
CinemaSecrets SecretsSegreti segretiGiuseppe Bertolucci · 1985A young terrorist of the years of lead, and the women around her who know nothing.Cinema
CinemaCinema ParadisoNuovo Cinema ParadisoGiuseppe Tornatore · 1988A filmmaker looks back on his Sicilian childhood, spent with the projectionist of the village cinema.Cinema