Mezzo cielo: Il giornale della lega delle donne comuniste italiane. Anno I, Nos. 1-2; Anno II, No. 1

(Women’s Liberation) (Communism) Lega delle donne comuniste italiane. Mezzo cielo: Il giornale della lega delle donne comuniste italiane. Anno I, Nos. 1-2; Anno II, No. 1. Milano: Lega delle donne comuniste italiane, 1973-1975. Three of six numbers, issued irregularly from late 1973-1975 (calling itself a trimestral). Sizes vary, tabloid to 4to. Illus throughout, incl b/w repros from photographs of events etc., also some comics, and original graphics. Stapled color pictorial wrappers. Inaugural issue with heavy center crease, rubbed. No. 2 (March 1974) closed tear on front cover.

Three issues (the first two together with the final number) of a well designed magazine professing women’s liberation through class struggle and labor emancipation. Articles on contemporary social issues and national events and strikes, in addition to reporting on “women’s issues” including health care, childcare, and education.

No OCLC holdings in North America, a few scattered issues in Europe, a single presumed complete run at IISH.

$425

La Navassa: Organo di sfottimento dei dep centrati a Tagliolo. Anno I, Nos. 1; 3-6.

(Clandestine Press) (Antifascism) (Satire) La Navassa: Organo di sfottimento dei dep centrati a Tagliolo. Anno I, N. 1 and N. 3-6. Tagliolo, Italy: 1944-1945. 5 of 6 issues, each approx. 40 x 32.5 cm, 6-8 pp., mimeograph from type- and manuscript, printed recto only, each folio folded once and stapled along open edge, leaving inner pages blank; original artwork and hand coloring on nos. 5 and 6. Chronology of nos. 4 and 5 reversed (addressed by editor in issue no. 4). Relatively heavy paper presumably drawn from diminished wartime stocks, perhaps intended for commercial use, now somewhat toned with fraying/chipping at edges, central creases.

Nearly complete run of an antifascist satirical published clandestinely during the final six months of the Italian Resistance in the Piedmont region, part of the German-occupied Italian Social Republic. Printed in the Tagliolo-Monferrato comune, known for its wines, the title is derived from a word in the local dialect for a wooden tub used for collecting and pressing grapes. In the first issue, the pseudonymous editors described their intention to use the paper as a “crucible” to release a “juice rich in spirit and good humor.”

Satirical poems, fiction, theater scripts, comics, and columns discuss local politics and village news while referencing the occupation and the economic hardships of war; many absurdist entries on art, women’s fashion, drinking, and licentious themes of village life. Reports on partisan actions in the area, including a Nazi ambush near Genoa. The final issue (No. 6: May 1, 1945) was dedicated to the liberation of Italy, the execution of Mussolini, and the denunciation of regional fascists. Overall a relatively ambitious production considering contemporary material shortages, the penalties for printing outside of the official Salo Republic propaganda system, and the problems of audience and distribution.

We speculate that the publication may have been produced by tenant winegrowers in Tagliolo, since there are frequent criticisms of the castle and the “commander” of the winery. These laborers ask for parity in treatment with their colleagues in nearby wine zones, including Campo Ligure. The editors’ antifascist sentiment is characteristic of the general population’s participation in the resistance near the end of the war, when communities and individuals responded to highly localized events and conditions in the Salo Republic rather than to specific political philosophies of the partigiani. Although military actions and martyrs of the resistance are discussed, its satirical tone represents the broader purpose of antifascist underground media in WWII: building solidarity and lifting spirits.

Italian WWII clandestine materials are underpresented in major institutional collections of underground and illegal press activities. Not recorded in OCLC member holdings or in specific research holdings related to the resistance in Italy, for example the Bibliographic Research Center at Torino University, the Italian Catalog of Periodicals, the ICCU/OPAC, and the Piedmontese Institute for the History of the Resistance.

$4500

Primo Congresso Nazionale, 26 27 Aprile 1919. Donne di Roma [...]

(Women’s Organizations) (WWI) (Mothers and Widows) Associazione Nazionale Fra Le Madri e Le Vedove Dei Caduti. Primo Congresso Nazionale, 26 27 Aprile 1919. Donne di Roma,—. Roma: Tip. Italiana di Pubblicità, 1919. Broadside, printed recto only, 98 x 67 cm, fragile at creases.

Early political organizing by Italian women in an impassioned announcement for the first congress of mothers and widows of the fallen soldiers of WWI. The gathering was not only to acknowledge the great personal losses of these women, but to form a “definitive structure” with which they hoped to address urgent civic and economic problems faced by those who had “given their blood and their love for the greatness of the sacred family … Italy!” The poster calls for “better state measures.”

Very little is written about this organization in the pre-fascist period, but the association continues to organize in the 1920s.

Not in OCLC.

$450

L’Opera Nazionale Maternità ed Infanzia nel suo costante lavoro per la difesa [...]

(Women and Children) (Fascist Demographics) (Eugenics) Opera Nazionale per la Protezione della Maternità ed Infanzia, Federazione Provinciale di Lucca. L’Opera Nazionale Maternità ed Infanzia nel suo costante lavoro per la difesa ed il miglioramento della razza …. Lucca: Tip. Francesconi e Simonetti, 1933 [XI]. Broadside, printed recto only, 100 x 69.5 cm, a few small losses to edges, a few offset roller marks on right edge.

An impressive example from a public campaign in support of Mussolini’s “Battle for Births,” one of the pillars of his vision for Italian economic supremacy. His regime supported the demographic policy with financial incentives, including tax breaks and direct grants, like those described here, for large families and married couples. Conversely, Italians could be penalized for not having sufficient children–the ideal number was more than 5–or remaining unmarried. As signaled in this example by the proposed goal of “improving of the breed,” Italian pronatalist policies under Mussolini can be traced to the eugenics movement.

No other examples found in market or institutional holdings.

$450

Donne piemontesi nella lotta di liberazione 99 partigiane cadute, 185 deportate, 38 cadute civili

Gobetti, Ada, Intro. Donne piemontesi nella lotta di liberazione 99 partigiane cadute, 185 deportate, 38 cadute civili. Turin, Italy: Torino Commissione femminile dell’ A.N.P.I. provinciale di Torino, nd. [ca. 1945]. 24 cm, 103 pp.; many b/w portraits, wrappers darkened and a bit worn, small ink numeric notation on front cover.

Haunting commemoration of women partisans in the Italian Resistance, with portraits, personal testimony, extensive biographical details, information about individual service and military action, and battle recollections. Includes many reproductions of letters and clandestine flyers and newsletters by the women’s resistance groups Gruppi di defesa della donne and La Difesa della Lavoratrice, as well as the Corpo Volontari della Liberta. The list of deported women is mostly Jewish, and includes girls as young as 9.

OCLC lists North American holdings at Harvard, NYPL, and Princeton.

$350

La Dattilografa: Canzone a ballo

(Women; Typists) (Operetta) Rocchi-Burlamacchi, G. La Dattilografa: Canzone a ballo. Florence: Mignani, 1939 [XVII].

Sheet music, 27 x 18.2 cm, [4] pp.; pictorial color self-wrapper. Cover sl. toned, very good.

A bit of social satire from fascist Italy in this suggestive song (for dancing!) about typists and their machines.

Not found in OCLC.

SOLD

Skema. Mensile fotografico d’attualità. (All published).

Skema. Mensile fotografico d’attualità. Anno I, No. 1 (November 1969) through Anno VI, No. 12 (December 1974) (all published). Bologna: [ALFA Farmaceutici], 1969-1974.

Comprising a complete run of a rare Italian photographic serial with poster-sized color inserts designed and distributed in association with ALFA Farmaceutici. Monographic issues cover social, cultural, or political themes relevant to this tumultuous period in world history; each introduced by famous Italian public intellectuals, journalists, politicians, scientists, artists, and writers. Including Umberto Eco, Federico Fellini, Gianni Agnelli, and Gillo Dorfles.

Skema was a forum for unmediated photographic storytelling loosely modeled on the anti-realist movement Gruppo 63. In the first issue the editors state “ideas will be directly and freely provided by images: a medium that suffers from fewer alterations.” Echoing some of the experimentalist manifestos of Il Verri, Skema’s editors criticized the perceived transparency of language, freeing meaning to be made instead in the mind of the “viewer.” “Words will remain at the bottom,” with captions and textual interpretation only where world events “most deeply dug a furrow, or a wound, on the crust of common beliefs.”

The eye-catching covers, unusual photographic spreads, and striking color inserts were the responsibility of designer Marco Caroli. Together with editor Franco Vanni, they created a unique visual language juxtaposing international photojournalism, modern infographics, and quotable short form essays in a section called “di parere.”

Topical issues included protest movements, drugs, feminism, avantgarde theater, and Vietnam. But many were also dedicated to scientific and economic aspects of the difficult period that followed Italy’s “economic miracle”: hunger, prisons, agriculture, space, housing, the elderly, divorce, computers, mafia, circus, ecology, China, Latin America, propaganda, anthropology, and a few on single artists or philosophers: Irinia Ionesco, Ghitta Carell, Pablo Picasso, Diderot, and Galileo; among the photojournalism are press photos of installation art, Pop, and assemblage by artists including Wolf Vostell, Andy Warhol, and Ed Kienholz.

The scarcity of complete runs and bibliographic study has led to confusion about Skema’s origins. It is not, as it is often described, a progressive publication with independent social criticism. Instead, it is a deft work of appropriation: produced by Alfa as a promotional tool for its medical and biotech clientele. Skema’s inventive design and forward-looking reporting were a creative and subtle advertisement that was discontinued when production became too expensive. We speculate that Skema was the brainchild of Alfa’s founder, Marino Golinelli, listed in early issues as a member of the editorial board. Later Golinelli became an important collector of contemporary art and a celebrated philanthropist supporting projects in education, arts, and the sciences.

These experimental artistic attitudes were brought to bear on the cataclysmic socio-economic changes affecting lived realities in Italy and abroad. In the case of Skema, they reflect an increased demand for cultural consumption from a new Italian middle class, and the growing sophistication of bourgeois taste.

Scarce. OCLC finds one complete run at the University of Rome. A few scattered issues recorded in British, European, and North American holdings (UCSD and UCLA).

$4500

62 numbers in 58 fascicules, plus two supplements (to Anno III, no. 2 and Anno V, no. 10), Issues range from 60-74 pp., early issues almost exclusively illustrated, reproducing b/w photographs from Italian and international press agencies, including ANSA, Farabola, Publifoto, Keystone, Liverani, Lehtikuva, UPI, and AP among many. Later issues with up to 20 pp. of text on orange newsprint. About 30 issues with color inserts or advertisements offered as a “manifesto” or “regalo una stampa a colori,” some in poster format (unfolded: 22 ½ x 15 ¾ in.), others small bound-in half-page pamphlets, or full-page vintage Fiat ads. Some toning as expected, illustrated wrappers somewhat rubbed, scattered creasing and rounding at corners. Many stamped internally “Omaggi ALFA Farmaceutici [...]” Small loss to front wrap of Anno. I, No. 1. Lacking five inserts or advertisements as follows: Anno II, Nos. 4 and 13; Anno III, No. 7; Anno IV, No. 3; and Anno V, no. 12.

Prima che sia troppo tardi…

Unione Donne Italiane. Prima che sia troppo tardi ... Florence: A.G.A.F., n.d. [ca. 1950]. 16.8 x 12.2 cm, 19 pp.; three b/w full-page illus., one half-page, newsprint toned; in stapled stiff card pictorial wrappers, sl. foxed, cover illus. with photomontage, rear wrapper with advertisement for the UDI’s weekly Noi Donne.

Otherwise unrecorded anti-nuclear, anti-war booklet by the national Italian feminist union, Unione Donne Italiane. UDI emerged from the women’s resistance movement during WWII; the text enumerates the enormous losses suffered across the world during the war focusing particularly on wounded and orphaned children, whom they organized to support in the late 1940s. The rest of the text is dedicated to the atrocities at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and advocates against nuclear arms.

Rare documentation of the early solidarity platform of the UDI.

SOLD

La Lotta Contro La Prostitutzione

Pannain, Remo. La Lotta Contro La Prostitutzione. Benevenuto: Borelli, n.d., ca. 1929. 8vo, 28 pp.; a few pencil marks in margin; in printed stapled wrapper.

Unusual legal treatise published in Southern Italy about the struggle there against prostitution.

No North American holdings recorded in OCLC.

$95

Five Illustrated Booklets Documenting the Fall and Death of Benito Mussolini and Clara Petacci

Five Illustrated Booklets Documenting the Fall of Benito Mussolini and Clara Petacci.

-Fugalli, Giovanni. The insurrection of Milan from 25 to 29 April 1945. Documentary. 16 photographic illustrations. [Milan, Italy]: Np, [1945]. 8vo, 16 pp.; forecorner bent. No North American holdings, OCLC. -The End of the Tyrants in Piazza Loreto. [Genoa, Italy]: Np, [1945]. 8vo, 14 pp.; illustrated wraps separated, loss at head, fair. not found in OCLC.

- Dongo! For the first time in the world; an impressive photographic documentation on the end of Mussolini and the hierarchs in Dongo. [Milan, Italy]: [New editions A.], [1951]. 8vo, 32 pp.; profuse b / w illus., reproducing photographs of the assassination, etc. Color illus. stapled wrappers, worn, splitting at spine, fair. Two copies.

- “The Retreat of Death”: Claretta Petacci. [Bologna, Italy]: Np, [1945]. 8vo, [15] pp.; toned, chipped edges, in illus. wrapper, soiled. This impression not in OCLC, a similar booklet, printed in Rome, held by Duke. OCLC finds one North American holding, NYPL.

-Murra, G., and C. Persia. The truth about the twelve days of Mussolina in Ponza. Bologna, Italy: Np, nd, ca. 1945. 8vo, 16 pp.; good, closed tear wrapper front fore-edge. 2 OCLC holdings: Duke, NYPL.

$150

Attenzione! Si avvicinano i “liberatori” anglo-assassini…

(Propaganda - Fascist) Attenzione! Si avvicinano i “liberatori” anglo-assassini… [Milan?], nd., ca. 1943. Poster printed in black and red, approx. 22-¾ x 19-¼ in.; toned, creases from vertical and horizontal folds, splitting at center; edges a bit worn, some foxing verso.

Poster warning inhabitants in German-controlled northern Italy of the dangers of the advancing Allied forces. “Reds,” “Jews,” and “hyenas of the air,” are coming for Italian women and children, converting them to their side with sweets and cigarettes.

OCLC locates one holding, at the Hoover.

$225

Elezioni Politiche 1913. Noi Anarchici.

(Anarchism) Elezioni Politiche 1913. Noi Anarchici … Broadside, 13 x 18-½ in.; creased, bottom edge roughly trimmed, typographic irregularities. Np, nd [1912-1913].

Anarchist broadside protesting the quasi-universal male suffrage granted to Italian men over 30 by the “moderately progressive” government of Giovanni Giolitti in 1912. The enfranchisement extended the vote to the very poor and illiterate, with the dramatic impact of trebling the electorate (from 3 to almost 9 million voters) in advance of the 1913 elections. The far left parties (Estrema) did not support the franchise; here anarchists protest it as a bourgeois “swindle,” keeping intact economic tyranny and solidifying the power of the political elite.

Italian anarchists were influenced by Mikhail Bakunin, who wrote “the whole system of representative government is an immense fraud resting on this fiction [of political liberty in the popular vote] ... Political power means domination.” (In fact, the “democratized” 1913 elections resulted in no representative gains by the revolutionary or working class parties of Estrema.)

$175

Collection of Documents Regarding Post-Liberation Italian Governance and Elections

[Partito Liberale Italiano; Democrazia Cristiana; et al.]. Collection of Italian Political Pamphlets, Leaflets, and Documents Regarding Post-Liberation Governance, Elections, and the First Italian Republic, ca. 1945-1946.

Comprised of: three mimeographed documents issued in December 1945 in reference to a proclamation by Prime Minister Alcide de Gasperi shortly after his election, one the proclamation, and two from members of the Allied Commission; three Democrazia Cristiana leaflets, ca. 1945, one printed the day of Mussolini’s death; eight issues (with five duplicates) of the Quadrini del Partito Liberale, by Luigi Einaudi, Paolo Serini, Benedetto Croce, and Marcello Soleri, and others, some reissued by the PLI Sezione Piemontese, with two PLI leaflets, one printing the lyrics to the patriotic anthem “Arise Piedmonte.” Turin. Most 1945, a few 1943-1948.

Quadrini del Partito Liberale not found in OCLC.

$350

Grand Torneo Internazionale di Lotte Feminili al Salone Margherita

(Women) (Sport) Grand Torneo Internazionale di Lotte Feminili al Salone Margherita. Rome, 1912. Concertina booklet, closed: 5-½ x 3-⅜ in., illus. with ten portraits of the fighters, from England, Europe, Russia, and the US; some usual wear, esp. at folds.

Promotional booklet for a women’s wrestling tournament held an evening variety show at a well-known Roman theater. Photographs of each contestant are reproduced with captions identifying their last name, nationality, and weight. The earnest, athletic presentation of the “national champions” in this booklet was unusual for a sport regarded largely as entertainment. This style of presentation may have been related to contemporary interest in the international competition of the V Summer Olympiad, which opened the same month

We could not locate any other record of the tournament or the participants. Women’s wrestling was not included as an Olympic sport until 2004.

$900

Rosalba Carriera per l’inaugurazione delle sale degli autoritratti nella R. Galleria degli Uffizi

Malamani, Vittorio. Rosalba Carriera per l’inaugurazione delle sale degli autoritratti nella R. Galleria degli Uffizi. Rome: Ministero dell’Istruzione Pubblica, 1899. First separate edition. Large 4to, 125 pp.; with illus. facsimile reproductions of Carriera’s letters and 9 plates, most reproducing engravings made after her paintings and pastels, some in color, bound together at rear, contents very good with occasional small marks, pages untrimmed; orig. paper wrpprs. present but separated with significant chipping at edges of both covers, spine lacking. Manuscript presentation inscription on half-title from the author to Riccardo Artoni(?). Together with 3 b/w prints of Carriera’s L’Innocenza (1705; a.k.a. La Giovinetta della Colomba) by Ed. Alinari. Carriera submitted L’Innocenza to the Accademia di San Luca and on the basis of its quality was the first woman admitted to Rome’s all-male academy.

This extract is seemingly the first major monographic work devoted to Rosalba Carriera (1675-1757), and the missing “first edition” to Vittorio Malamani’s later Carriera catalogue (Bergamo: Istituto Italiano d’Arti Grafiche Editore, 1910). Originally published in Le Gallerie nazionali italiane: notizie e documenti 4 (1896-1897), pp. 27-149, it is the first application of modern art historical methods to Carriera’s artwork and career.

On the occasion of the opening of the Uffizi’s new self-portrait gallery, Malamani set out to correct a problem that Carriera’s biographers still encounter: little is known of her early training and her established biography is dependent on both short sentimental elegies published decades after her death and transcriptions of her journals and letters heavily edited by friends, family, and prejudiced translators.

Rare. The 1899 first edition listed by OCLC at only two European institutions, all other holdings are the second edition.

$550

Album of late 19th Century Albumen or Gelatin-Silver Prints of Gubbio and Perugia

Album of late 19th Century Albumen or Gelatin-Silver Prints of Gubbio and Perugia. [Italy, ca. 1880].

Oblong 4to (8 3/8 x 12 in.) containing [12] heavy card leaves with 22 mounted prints: 13 of which approx. 7 x 9 in. and larger, the rest approx. 6 1/2 x 4 1/2 in.; professional views of artistic or architectural monuments (10), some signed in negative by [Fratelli] Alinari and [James] Anderson, together with amateur views (12); leaves sl. warped through center, a few prints a bit toned or faded but retaining contrast and detail, cloth with gilt title “Roma,” boards worn and corners bumped, printed binder’s ticket: “Encuadernacion, R. Dietsch, Moneda 877.”

Curious photo album, titled “Roma” and bound in Santiago de Chile, but containing images almost entirely from Perugia (with the exception of a view of the Pantheon and a composite image of classical sculpture). The binder, Ricardo Dietsch, was known as “La Alemena,” and was active in Santiago de Chile from at least 1894 until the mid-1920s.

The amateur photography is particularly striking, with many of the major sites of Gubbio, Italy visible in unexpected street scenes. These include city residents participating in the spring folk festival Corsa [or Festa] de Ceri, in which teams race through the city carrying heavy wooden statues of local patron saints. Still others depict busy street scenes; an arresting image of women kneeling in the snow; and soldiers and peasants as they lounge on the walls of the city’s famous Roman theater or walk past its Romanesque palazzos and churches.

$275