Alberto Magnelli – Aldo Palazzeschi. Carteggio [1914-1971]

During the event, Elisabetta Berti, journalist; Eva Francioli, curator of the Museo Novecento; Ilaria Macera, editor of the volume.

The volume traces the relationship between Alberto Magnelli and Aldo Palazzeschi through the intense exchange of letters between the two authors throughout their long lives. About 88 letters dated between 1914 and 1971, kept by Palazzeschi and mostly written by Magnelli, allow us to reconstruct the memory of the relationship between the two authors, among the most famous protagonists of the twentieth century.
Both Florentines, Palazzeschi and Magnelli have known each other since childhood. In 1914 they went together to Paris, where they had the opportunity to participate in the golden age of a “noble understanding” between French and Italian artists who crowded the cafés of Montparnasse in those days.
After returning to Florence, the letters retrace the events of the two, through the vicissitudes of their different careers and different biographies – Magnelli has been in Paris since 1931, Palazzeschi is divided between Florence, Venice and Rome – painting in the background the cultural and intellectual world that surrounds them. Despite the distance, the relationship is also kept alive thanks to some collaborations, as in the case of the Scherzi di Gioventù (1956), which contains a portrait of the poet painted by Magnelli in 1928, or the publication in the «Immagini e testi» series of the M ‘arte Editions of a collection of poems by Palazzeschi illustrated by two linocuts by the painter, under a single title, The Walk (1971).

In the cover: Fotografia di un uomo che osserva il ritratto fatto da Alberto Magnelli a Aldo Palazzeschi. Sul retro della fotografia è scritto: «Il ritratto di / Aldo Palazzeschi / fu fatto da me / a Firenze nel / 1928 / Magnelli» (Fondo Palazzeschi).