Italo Calvino

On 19 September 1985, Italo Calvino, one of the greatest Italian writers of the 20^th century, a partisan who fought with the Resistance and a prominent intellectual in the second post-war period, passed away in Siena. His vast literary output encompasses several genres, from fairy tale collections to neo-realist and surrealist fiction, often questioning contemporary society and politics. His article about Carnival entitled “Il mondo alla rovescia” (“The upside-down world”) was published in the Pirelli Rivista magazine in 1970. His novels include Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno (The path to the nest of spiders), Il visconte dimezzato (The cloven viscount), Le città invisibili (Invisible cities) and Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore (If on a winter's night a traveller).