Ministry of Culture: General Directorate of Archives acquires autograph documents of Croce and d'Annunzio

Important new acquisitions for the General Directorate of Archives of the Ministry of Culture: five lots of valuable documents related to Benedetto Croce and Gabriele d’Annunzio were acquired during the auction held in Florence on March 6.

These are an important corpus of correspondence by Benedetto Croce and Adele Rossi Croce: thirteen autograph and three typewritten letters sent to Tammaro De Marinis (1878-1969) and his wife Clelia Zucchini. The correspondence covers the period from the 1910s to the 1950s, which offers further intimate evidence of the strong association between the philosopher and De Marinis, a prestigious dealer in codices and ancient books and a refined bibliophile of the 20th century. The letters purchased by the General Directorate of Archives constitute a further significant piece in the reconstruction of Croce’s biography and enrich the copious epistolary hitherto known and edited by the Italian Institute for Historical Studies.

A nucleus of Gabriele d’Annunzio’s autographs was also acquired in the same auction. It is the text of the speech he read on May 11, 1902 at the Hotel de la Ville in Trieste, where the poet was staying with Eleonora Duse, on the occasion of a banquet organized in their honor. The text was published by Il Piccolo and the autograph given the same evening to Francesco Salata (1876-1944), to whom the other autograph letters, dated September 1-2, 1917 and August 31, 1918, are addressed. The fortunate acquisition of the correspondence made by the General Directorate of Archives contributes to shed new light on the deep friendship between Francesco Salata and d’Annunzio and significantly enriches the documentary holdings of the Central State Archives, where, alongside a conspicuous nucleus of D’Annunzio’s autographs, the papers of the high political personalities with whom Salata worked in close contact are preserved.

Pictured is the autograph speech delivered in Trieste by Gabriele d’Annunzio.

Ministry of Culture: General Directorate of Archives acquires autograph documents of Croce and d'Annunzio

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