CULTURE “Honoring Giorgio Bassani Is Important for Italy and Its Culture”

By Pagine Ebraiche Staff
 
On the occasion of the centenary of the birth of author Giorgio Bassani, Italian cultural world celebrated his figure, work and legacy. “This anniversary is an important opportunity for the country, for its institutions and cultural centers, to honor a figure that is beloved all over the world,” minister of Cultural Heritage Dario Franceschini said while opening the conference devoted to Bassani at the La Sapienza University in Rome. 
 
The conference’s sessions took place both in Rome and Ferrara, the writer’s native town, last week. They covered a number of topics connected to Bassani’s work: his role in explaining Italian Fascism, his passion for theater and cinema, the new opportunities of understanding his masterpiece “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis” opened by the recovery of the original manuscript.
 
Over the course of the week, the manuscript was officially donated to Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah (MEIS) by Ferigo Foscari, grandson of Teresa Foscari, to whom Bassani gave the manuscripts as a gift, with a dedication acknowledging her role in enabling him to write the book (a detail that prompted many to suggest that she was the inspiration for the main female character of the book, Micol Finzi-Contini).
 
Moreover, the exhibit “Return to the Garden” by American artist Eric Finzi promoted by the MEIS was also inaugurated in Ferrara. Finzi, whose family is originally from Ferrara, tries to reconstruct the world of the family, and their tragic personal history. 
 
“I have always desired to come to Ferrara,” Finzi commented. “I think my father would be proud of knowing me here.”