It is estimated that approximately four billion letters were exchanged between soldiers and their families and friends during the Great War on the North-Eastern Italian front (1915-1918). Part of this correspondence consisted of letters by Italian prisoners of war which had been subjected to Austrian censorship. A significant portion of this corpus, produced by correspondents from all walks of life, was examined by a wartime Austrian censor who was to become a leading scholar in Romance studies – Leo Spitzer (Vienna, 1886 – Forte dei Marmi, 1960). In the works he published on the subject, Spitzer offered a vivid recollection of the circumstances that had led him to analyse that extensive material, where he was able to find evidence of the human being’s inventive approach to language and expression.
Carlo Caruso is Professor of Italian Literature and Philology at the University of Siena (Italy). He is the author of Adonis: The Myth of the Dying God in the Italian Renaissance (2013), the editor of The Life of Texts: Evidence in Textual Production, Transmission and Reception (2018), and the co-editor of Italy and the Classical Tradition: Language, Thought and Poetry 1300–1600 (2009) and La filologia in Italia nel Rinascimento (2018). He has also published critical editions of Paolo Rolli, Libretti per musica (1993); Paolo Giovio, Ritratti (1999); and Diomede Borghese, Orazioni accademiche (2009).
The lecture will be held in Italian and will start at 11 am. It will be followed by a lunch for the students of Italian at ILOS (12:30). Anyone who is interested is welcome to attend the event.