Un'enciclopedia illustrata. Sciascia e i ritratti di scrittori

Abstract

The paper aims to investigate, through the happy intuition of Sciascia's alphabetical order, the function carried out in his work by models, explicit or implicit sources and real tutelary deities. From Alfieri's A to Zola's Z it is easy to retrace the rich gallery of portraits of writers - housed on the first floor of the Sciascia Foundation - which constitutes a tribute to literature, Italian and foreign, from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, and together a review of the most important painters and engravers who entertained with the author deep ties of friendship, but above all they have intertwined in their work literature and art. In this visual story, a sort of illustrated encyclopedia, Sciascia writes his autobiography, his künstlerroman, marked not only by the triumph of writing, with its emblematic objects - the book, the paper, the pen, the inkwell, the pipe, the glasses – but also the graphic sign, with its transparent or encrypted symbols.