Natalino Sapegno

Natalino Sapegno (10 November 1901 - 11 April 1990) was a literary critic and Italian academician. He came to prominence as a leading scholar of fourteenth century Italian literature.

Biography Provenance and early years Sapegno was born in Aosta, which was the (overwhelmingly French-speaking) city from where his mother's family came. He spent his first sixteen years growing up in Turin, where his father was employed as a senior official with the government tax office. In 1917, along with his older sister Giuliana, he was entrusted, for a year, to the care of his maternal grandparents in Aosta.

Student years During 1918 he transferred to the University of Turin. He was initially uncertain whether to enrol in the Mathematics Faculty or in the Humanities ("facoltà di lettere") faculty: in the end he opted for the latter.

While he was still at university Sapegno's father died young, in 1919. By the time he died Giuseppe Maria Sapegno had risen to become head of the Turin Tax Office (" segretario capo dell’Intendenza di Finanza di Torino"), and the sudden loss of his salary left the family in financial difficulties. Nevertheless, Natalino Sapegno continued to attend the university. On 10 July 1922 he graduated with a doctorate. His dissertation was supervised by Vittorio Cian and concerned the vernacular work of the Franciscan Umbrian friar Jacopone da Todi. Later he was able, in two successive months, to base two articles published in literary journals on his doctoral work. The text was later revised and published in book form in 1926. In addition, between September 1925 and December 1936 he taught at the Vincenzo Monti Technical College. It was while working as a teacher in Emilia-Romagna that he came to know Berta Ghedini, who was also working as a teacher in the city. The two of them married in July 1929. The marriage, which was childless, ended with the early death of Berta in 1937. Despite being among his first books published, it remains probably the best known of his books.

In 1936 he participated in the nationwide competition organised by the University of Messina to fa the vacancy that had arisen at the for an extraordinary professorship in Italian literature. There were no fewer than 29 candidates for evaluation by the ad hoc appointments commission, of whom no fewer than 13 were already well established in their university careers. The appointments commission included Senate President Federzoni, indicating the political importance attaching to the job. Natalino Sapegno was one of three candidates shortlisted for an interview session in Palermo. The upshot of this was that he was offered and accepted the extraordinary professorship, based not at Messina but along the coast at the University of Palermo.

Later years In the aftermath of two decades of fascism incorporating half a decade of destructive war, a readjustment of Sapegno's philosophical underpinnings could not be avoided. Many anti-fascist intellectuals of his generation faced some of the same dilemmas. The uncompromisingly idealistic liberal anti-fascist philosophy of Croce would always remain as his starting point; but he also came increasingly under the influence of Gramsci, whereby in his own writings he moved towards a singular fusion of Historicism and Marxism which, in terms of traditional Anglo-American thought patterns, defies easy pigeon-holing.

In 1954 he was elected to the Accademia dei Lincei as a corresponding member. He became a full national member ("Soci nazionali") in 1966. Between 1986 and 1990, along with his other engagements, Sapegno served as president of the Viareggio [literary] Prize.

Natalino Sapegno died in Rome on 11 April 1990. His physical remains were removed for burial to Aosta, identified by surviving family members as his home city, however.