Danilo Montaldi

Danilo Montaldi (1 July 1929 – 27 April 1975) was an Italian writer, intellectual and Marxist activist, who participated in the Autonomist Marxism movement.

Biography Montaldi was born in Cremona in 1929. His father, Nino Montaldi, was a working-class anarchist who was jailed for two years during the fascist regime. Following the overthrow of fascism, Montaldi was briefly a member of the Italian Communist Party, but left owing to their reformism and dogmatism. During the 1950s, Montaldi developed links with a diverse range of individuals and organisations involved in far-left politics, such as Socialisme ou Barbarie (Socialism or Barbarity) in France and others in Germany, England and the United States.

While continuing his collaboration with publishers such as Feltrinelli, Einaudi, Rizzoli, Mondadori and Il Saggiatore, over the next decade, he focused primarily on his own research and publications, moving away also from political activism, until his premature death in in 1975, in circumstances that have never been fully clarified.

Works Milano, Corea: Inchiesta sugli immigrati, (Milan, Korea: An Investigation into Immigration), Feltrinelli, 1960, (reprinted as an expanded edition by Feltrinelli in 1975 and by Donzelli in 2010) Autobiografie della leggera, (Autobiographies of the Leggera), Einaudi, 1961, (2nd edition by Einaudi in 1974, then reprinted by Bompiani in 1998, 2012 and 2018) Militanti politici di base, (Autobiographies of political militants), Einaudi, 1971, (reprinted by CremonaBooks in 2025) Korsch e i comunisti italiani, (Korsch and Italian Communism), Samonà e Savelli, 1975 Saggio sulla politica comunista in Italia – 1919-1970, (Essay on the communist politics in Italy – 1919–1970), Quaderni Piacentini, 1976, (reprinted by Colibrì Edizioni in 2016) Renzo Botti. I disegni della raccolta Montaldi, (Writings on the painter Renzo Botti), Anali della Biblioteca Statale di Cremona, 1989 Bisogna Sognare. Scritti 1952 - 1975, (Uncollected Writings, Articles and Essays), Colibrì Edizioni/ Centro Luca Rossi, 1994 Lettere 1963 - 1975. Danilo Montaldi e Giuseppe Guerreschi, (The collected letters between Montaldi and the painter Guerreschi), Edizioni Linograf, Anali della Biblioteca Statale di Cremona, 2000