37 Facts About Antonio Baldini

Antonio Baldini was an Italian journalist, literary critic and writer.

Antonio Baldini's mother, born Sofia Alkaique, came from Livorno, possibly having been born into an immigrant family.

Antonio Baldini attended a number of schools in Rome, including the prestigious Ennio Quirino Visconti Liceo Ginnasio.

Antonio Baldini then enrolled to study literature at the Sapienza University of Rome, although he would not complete his studies there and graduate until 1916.

Antonio Baldini's first published work appeared in 1912 in another literary journal, "Lirica", founded earlier that same year by Arturo Onofri and Umberto Fracchia.

In 1915 Antonio Baldini became a regular contributor to the Italian right-of-centre irridentist newspaper L'Idea Nazionale which had recently switched from weekly to daily publication.

Antonio Baldini's articles appeared on the third page, which by tradition in Italian newspapers was less political than the outer pages and a more focused on literature and other arts-related topics.

Antonio Baldini's contributions consisted of a series of "passeggiate" or "vedute romane".

Antonio Baldini was a member of the editorial board of the Rome-based magazine La Ronda between 1919 and 1922.

Antonio Baldini's involvement earned him a Silver Medal for Military Valor.

Antonio Baldini was then sent back to Rome to recover.

Towards the end of 1916 Antonio Baldini returned to the frontline.

Antonio Baldini's contributions appeared, as before, in the Rome-based L'Idea Nazionale, and now in L'Illustrazione Italiana, a weekly illustrated magazine produced in Milan.

Antonio Baldini teamed up in 1919 with a number of other journalist-critics, most of whom had been his university contemporaries, to found a new monthly literary review magazine, La Ronda, which was published in Rome between 1919 and 1923.

Antonio Baldini's co-founders included Emilio Cecchi, Vincenzo Cardarelli, Riccardo Bacchelli and Bruno Barilli.

Antonio Baldini continued, in addition, to work with L'Illustrazione Italiana, contributing more "vedute e chronache romane".

Antonio Baldini's contributions appeared, as they had before Italy became engaged in the war-time fighting, in L'Idea Nazionale, consisting of reviews, critical profiles and literary moralisings in varying proportions, but always crisp and razor sharp in their syntax and arguments.

Between 1920 and 1922 Antonio Baldini was abroad for much of the time, employed as private secretary to General De Marinis, who had been sent to command the Inter-allied governance and plebiscite commission in Upper Silesia.

Antonio Baldini's duties did not preclude continuing with his contributions to the Italian press, and the entire experience was a source of inspiration and insight for future writings.

Antonio Baldini had been recruited by managing editor Luigi Albertini, under whose direction Corriere della Sera had already become Italy's most widely read newspaper.

Antonio Baldini's writing passed the so-called Elzeviro test, at once erudite, sharply to the point, rich and free in its use of vocabulary, at once elegant and derogatory, and yet never deviating very far from a conversational genre.

Much of the inspiration for Antonio Baldini's writing was drawn from his own imagination, often operating in tandem with his much vaunted "love for Rome".

Antonio Baldini took themes from things he had seen and remembered during his travels, both in obscure recesses of Italy and abroad.

Antonio Baldini found and shared food for thought in the marginalia of news stories and unexpected local customs, such as those referenced in a series of articles appeared between 1926 and 1929 in "La Tribuna-L'Idea nazionale" using the pseudonym "Melafumo".

Antonio Baldini was appointed by Luigi Federzoni, the publication's long-standing director between 1931 and 1943.

Antonio Baldini sustained the magazine's apolitical stance, to the point that when, following the fall of fascism in 1943, Federzoni was obliged to step aside from the magazine's directorship, Antonio Baldini briefly took his place.

Two years later, in 1939, Antonio Baldini was nominated for and accepted membership in the Royal Academy.

Antonio Baldini resumed his close collaboration with Corriere della Sera, notably with his "Tastiera" column, which alternated between the erudite and the whimsical.

Antonio Baldini resurrected "Melafumo", using his alter ego to reprise a series of commentaries and confessions for radio audiences, switching back and forth between melancholy memories and contemporary ironies.

Meanwhile, during 1950 Antonio Baldini was appointed president of the team responsible for organising the 6th "Rome Quadriennale", to be held between December 1951 and March 1952 at the Exhibitions Palace in central Rome.

Antonio Baldini won the Feltrinelli Literature Prize, worth at that time 5 million lire, in 1957.

Antonio Baldini had been diagnosed with serious heart disease during or before 1952.

Antonio Baldini nevertheless undertook several apparently work related foreign visits during his final years, visiting Greece in 1956, Spain in 1958 and England in 1961.

Antonio Baldini made his debut as a writer of short stories in 1914 with "Pazienze e impazienze del Maestro Pastoso", which was a slim compilation of stories he had already published individually in appropriate literary journals.

Almost certainly some of the "Vedute di Roma" were written earlier, and they display much of the same joyous idiosyncrasy for which Antonio Baldini would become known.

Antonio Baldini sees the protagonist as a character drawn straight out of the Commedia dell'arte, but then filtered through Baldini's linguistic pastiche, redolent of the author's ancestral provenance in Romagna to the north, and of his Roman upbringing.

Qualities conspicuous in what might be termed Antonio Baldini's travel writing have drawn plenty of comment over the years, mostly positive and enthusiastic.