Franco Antonicelli
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Author
- journalist
- teacher
- publisher
- anti-fascist activist
Franco Antonicelli | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 15 November 1902 |
| Died | 6 November 1974 (aged 71) Turin, Italy |
| Occupation |
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| Nationality | Italian |
| Alma mater | University of Turin |
Franco Antonicelli (15 November 1902 – 6 November 1974) was an Italian author, poet, publisher, essayist and anti-fascist activist.
Antonicelli was born in to the wealthy family of an official from Apulia. While living in Turin in 1908, he attended the classical high school Massimo d'Azeglio, where he was a student of Umberto Cosmo, and obtained his high school diploma. At the university he graduated first in literature and then, in 1931, thinking of pursuing a diplomatic career, also in law. During his studies he met many exponents of the Turin intellectuals of the time, such as Augusto Monti, Lalla Romano, Leone Ginzburg, Cesare Pavese, Norberto Bobbio, Massimo Mila and Ludovico Geymonat.[1]
On 31 May 1929 he was arrested for having signed, with other Turin intellectuals, a letter of solidarity with Benedetto Croce. After a month in prison, he was sentenced to three years of confinement but the sentence was commuted to a warning. He then worked as a substitute teacher in the Liceo d'Azeglio and was also Gianni Agnelli's private tutor. From 1932 he was director of the Biblioteca Europea dei libri series of the Frassinelli publisher. By his choice, works by Herman Melville and Franz Kafka, Eugene O'Neill and James Joyce, as well as Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse, entered Italy for the first time.[1]
Resistance
His association the Turin group of Justice and Freedom (Giustizia e Libertà) gathered in the editorial staff of the magazine Cultura published by Einaudi and which included, among others, Carlo Levi and Cesare Pavese, caused his arrest in May 1935 which occurred following a denunciation by the writer Pitigrilli. On 15 July Antonicelli was sentenced to three years of confinement to be served in Agropoli. During his confinement he married Renata, daughter of the notary Annibale Germano, in whose villa in Sordevolo he often stayed and met his friends. He was freed in March 1936.[2]
In 1942 he founded the Francesco De Silva publishing house and committed himself, urged by Croce, to the reorganization of the Liberal Party (PLI). Immediately after 8 September he moved to Rome where on 6 November he was arrested by the Germans and imprisoned in Regina Coeli. In February 1944 he was transferred to the Castelfranco Emilia prison and was released on 18 April.[2] Returning to Turin, he joined, as a representative of the Liberal Party, the National Liberation Committee of Piedmont, of which he assumed the presidency in 1945, directing an edition of the clandestine Risorgimento Liberale and collaborating on the Risorgimento and Il Patriota newspapers (both publications of the liberal partisan groups operating in Piedmont).[1]
