Umberto Eco was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel The Name of the Rose, a historical mystery combining semiotics in fiction with biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory, as well as Foucault's Pendulum, his 1988 novel which touches on similar themes.
Giovanni Luigi "Gianni" Brera was an Italian sports journalist and novelist.
Gian Luigi "Gianni" Morandi is an Italian pop singer, actor and entertainer.
Sandro Veronesi is an Italian novelist, essayist, and journalist. After earning a degree in architecture at the University of Florence, he opted for a writing career in his mid to late twenties. Veronesi published his first book at the age of 25, a collection of poetry that has remained his only venture into verse writing. He has since published five novels, three books of essays, one theatrical piece, numerous introductions to novels and collections of essays, interviews, screenplays, and television programs.
Commedia all'italiana, or Italian-style comedy, is an Italian film genre born in Italy in the 1950s and developed in the 1960s and 1970s. It is widely considered to have started with Mario Monicelli's Big Deal on Madonna Street in 1958, and derives its name from the title of Pietro Germi's Divorce Italian Style (1961). According to most of the critics, La Terrazza (1980) by Ettore Scola is the last work considered part of the commedia all'italiana.
Roberto Pazzi was an Italian novelist and poet. His works have been translated into twenty-six languages. He was widely recognized in Italian literary circles for his poetry and novels. His Debut novel, Cercando l'Imperatore in 1985, received a number of international awards and started a prolific career of historical and contemporary novels.
Pier Vittorio Tondelli was an Italian writer who wrote a small but influential body of work. He was born in Correggio, a small town in the Emilia-Romagna region in Italy and died in nearby Reggio Emilia because of AIDS. Tondelli enjoyed modest success as a writer but often encountered trouble with censors for his use of homosexual themes in his works. Tondelli was buried in a small cemetery in the hamlet of Canolo, just outside Correggio.
Vittorio Umberto Antonio Maria Sgarbi is an Italian art critic, art historian, writer, politician, cultural commentator, and television personality. He is president of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto. Appointed curator of the Italian Pavilion at the 2011 Venice Biennale, Sgarbi is also a columnist for il Giornale and works as an art critic for the Panorama news magazine.
Fabrizio Gatti is an Italian investigative journalist and author. He is also Editorial editor, Insight, at the Italian daily Today.it. Between 1987 and 2022 Gatti wrote for the Italian weekly l'Espresso, the daily "Corriere della Sera" and before "il Giornale" and "il Cittadino". His reportages and undercover investigations have been translated all over the world.
Giorgio Prodi was an Italian medical scientist, oncologist and semiotician.
Il costume di casa was originally an essay written by the Italian semiotician Umberto Eco, about "America's obsession with simulacra and counterfeit reality." It was later incorporated as the centrepiece of the anthology bearing the same name, a collection of articles and essays about Italian ideologies. The anthology contains a selection of essays taken from two Italian books by Eco: Il costume di casa and Sette anni di desiderio (1983). It was translated into English in 1986 as Faith in Fakes and later updated as Travels in Hyperreality in 1995.
Baldini + Castoldi, formerly known as Baldini Castoldi Dalai Editore until 2018, is an Italian publishing house founded in 1897 as Baldini & Castoldi. It changed its name to Dalai Editore in 2011, and Baldini & Castoldi became a series of Dalai Editore. The company has published several successful authors and is located under the arcades of Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan.
Silvia Ballestra is an Italian writer. In 2006 she won the Rapallo Carige Prize.
Anne Milano Appel is an American translator of Italian literature and language teacher.
Renaissance is a political party in Italy. Its leader is Vittorio Sgarbi, an Italian art critic, art historian, politician, cultural commentator and television personality. Sgarbi was formerly a member of the Italian Liberal Party, which was elected in Parliament in 1992, and after its dissolution in 1994 joined in Forza Italia, continuing to be MP until 2006.
Massimo Gramellini is an Italian writer and journalist working at Corriere della Sera.
Maria Idolina Landolfi was an Italian novelist, poet and literary critic. She was daughter of the writer Tommaso Landolfi and the principal curator of his works.
The Communist Combatant Units was an Italian terrorist group committed to far left. It was formed in 1976 between Lazio, Tuscany and Lombardy after a split of the Communist Armed Formations and the joining of veterans from experiences among the extra-parliamentary left. Its members were mostly students, professionals and employees while the acknowledged leaders were Paolo Bonano, Stefano Neri and Romano Bandoli.
Vittorio Calcina was the first Italian filmmaker in history.
Antonio Binarelli was an Italian magician. He was awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in the 5th class Knight. Binarelli died on 12 July 2022 of an illness at a hospital in Rome, at the age of 81.
