Lettere a un «saporoso umorista»: Nino Savarese tra prosa morale e identità siciliana

Abstract

Despite recent editorial and critical efforts, aimed at freeing the works of Nino Savarese (Enna, 1882 – Roma, 1945) from a series of reiterated and conventional formulas (fragmentist, rondist, regionalist taste), a definitive recognition of the gnoseological value of his research is lacking. The identification of some unpublished correspondence with the most illustrious intellectuals of the 20th century (Bacchelli, Bonsanti, Borgese, Cardarelli, Cecchi, Contini, Falqui, Gatto, Piovene, Rosso di San Secondo, Tozzi, Vigolo), preserved in the Municipal Library of Enna - some of which reproduced in the appendix to this contribution - allows us to illuminate his figure and opus, reconstructing some essential junctions of his artistic career and, above all, to grasp the complexity of his writing, a prose of moral invention which combines the allegories by Voltaire with Leopardi’s thought, the Sicilian myths with a metaphysical impulse.