His figure as an intellectual has often divided due to his controversial and inconsistent positions, but his cultural contribution in the 1900s is undeniable. Here is the story of Giovanni Papini, founder of some of the most important literary magazines in Italian history.
Who was Giovanni Papini
Giovanni Papini (Florence, January 9, 1881 – Florence, July 8, 1956) was an Italian writer. It grows in one family with complex dynamics composed of his father, completely atheist and anticlerical, and his Catholic mother who baptized him in secret. However, his mother recognized him only later and for this reason Giovanni lived with a different surname in the Istituto degli Innocenti for several months of his life. With the marriage of his parents he is recognized as Papini and his brothers are born from the consolidated love of the two.
In addition to a not easy beginning, he also experiences childhood and adolescence with extreme difficulty, spending a good part of his time just reading books. He began elementary school and then continued with great love until he attended the Scuola Normale, where he finally graduated.
After completing his schooling, he became a teacher of Italian at the English Institute of Florence and then became a librarian.
The beginning of Giovanni Papini’s literary activity
In the meantime he founded the “Leonardo” magazine together with Giuseppe Prezzolini and other artists with the desire to create a project in contrast with what was the philosophical and literary positivism of the time. Here the author signs himself with the name of “Gianfalco” dedicating part of his time to the discovery of the current of Pragmatism. He dwells a lot on philosophy also through the essay “The twilight of the philosophers” in which he criticizes some key figures such as Nietzsche, Kant and others.
Over time he moves away from Leonardo to start a new project, always alongside Prezzolini, named after him “The voice”. This will become one of the most important magazines of the century in the field of culture. Later he founded with Giovanni Amendola “L’anima” continually evoking philosophical themes such as mysticism, nihilism and atheism.
Giovanni Papini and the advent of the two world wars
With the beginning of 1913 he decided to start a new project with the name “Lacerba”, a magazine born in Florence that follows the principles of futurism presented by him as follows:
it is a war against academia, against the university, against schooling, against official culture, it is the liberation of the spirit from old ties, from overused forms … it is frenzied love of Italy and of the greatness of Italy … it is boundless hatred against mediocrity, imbecility, cowardice, the love of the status quo and the quiet life, of transactions and accommodation …
Through the magazine he expresses his consent on the intervention of Italy during the First World War, in which he cannot participate due to a strong myopia. While remaining in Italy he abandons the Lacerba project and only later realizes that he was wrong to support the interventionists given the large number of deaths. He tells of this moment of change of opinion through the work “The second birth”.
The First World War also leads him to live great inconveniences also from the point of view of spirituality. In this period he approaches the Christian religion which he tells in “History of Christ”, which has become a huge success even outside Italy. His conversion and later his support for fascism will lead him to difficult understanding and support only on the part of traditionalists.
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