Angiolo Orvieto, Jewish Italian Poet, Holocaust survivor, Autograph on his poetry book: Il vento di Sion, 1928, in ...

Angiolo Orvieto, Jewish Italian Poet, Holocaust survivor, Autograph on his poetry book: Il vento di Sion, 1928, in Italian
Angiolo Orvieto, Jewish Italian Poet, Holocaust survivor, Autograph on his poetry book: Il vento di Sion (The wind of Zion), 1928, in Italian
Il vento di Siòn. Canzoniere d'un ebreo fiorentino del cinquecento.
Casa editrice “Israel” Firenze, 1928..202 pp., soft cover, 20.5 x 14.5 cm.
Condition: some wear, staining to cocer, shabby edges with small tears; spine discolored, damaged to top and bottom; binding started getting loose;
Foxing stains to edges and some pages.
Weight: 220 gr.
Angiolo Orvieto (Florence, 18 June 1869 – Florence, 4 December 1967) was an Italian poet, founder and first director in 1896 of the magazine Il Marzocco, president between 1914 and '19 of the "Leonardo Da Vinci Society", and founder in 1950, with Giorgio La Pira and Arrigo Levasti, of the "Jewish-Christian Friendship of Florence".
Angiolo Orvieto was born in Florence on 18 June 1869 into a Jewish family, with deep ties to the events of the Italian Risorgimento. The Florentine father, Leone Orvieto, is the owner of the "bank" of the same name; of his mother from Mantua, Amalia Cantoni, are brothers the Lombard writer Alberto Cantoni and the Garibaldian Luigi Cantoni, who volunteered in Trentino with Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1866.
At first Angiolo studied privately, with his brother Adolfo Orvieto, under the guidance of David Castelli. He then attended the Dante Gymnasium High School, and finally the Institute of Higher Studies. In 1887 he stayed in Berlin, where he came into contact with the culture beyond the Alps. Having returned to Florence, he founded his first magazine, Vita Nuova, in 1889, where he published his first poetic works, then collected in volume in 1893 under the title The Mystic Spouse. Pascolian's first Myricae also appeared on the pages of the Florentine magazine in 1890. The friendship and collaboration with Giovanni Pascoli will accompany Angiolo for years to come.
After a brief period in 1893 at La Nazione literarya, Orvieto founded and directed a new magazine Il Marzocco in 1896, destined for rapid development in the following years and decades under the direction of Enrico Corradini and then of his brother Adolfo Orvieto, until its closure in 1932.
In 1898-99, Angiolo left Florence to embark on a trip around the world, which took him to visit the Americas, the Far East and the Middle East. Returning to Florence, he married the writer Laura Cantoni Orvieto in 1899. Having left the experience of Il Marzocco behind, he was involved in the foundation in 1902 and in the activities of the Leonardo Da Vinci Society, of which he assumed the presidency between 1914 and 1919. For the composer Giacomo Orefice, he wrote the librettos of two operas ( Chopin, Moses) and other compositions which were performed with unequal or alternating successes between 1901 and 1907. In 1908 he promoted with Girolamo Vitelli the establishment of the "Italian Society for the Research of Greek and Latin Papyri in Egypt". In 1911 he implemented the project to reopen the Roman Theater of Fiesole to shows, becoming President of the "Committee of the Roman Theater of Fiesole" in 1913. He is also a member, councilor and treasurer (1925-37) of the Italian Dante Society, which he personally finances the restoration of its headquarters at the Palazzo dell'Arte della Lana in Florence.
After a long period of poetic silence, he published Primavere delle bagpipe in 1925 and in 1928 the collection Il vento di Sion, the latter a prophetic work in many ways in which the protagonist is a Florentine Jew of the 16th century, Dattilo, who sees dark times and discriminatory measures towards one's own people are gathering on the horizon.
The fascist racial laws of 1938 were a trauma for an intellectual who had been so actively involved in Italian cultural life. The poetic collection: The songs of the excluded was born from the experience of discrimination.
During the German occupation in the winter of '43-44, Angiolo Orvieto and his wife Laura Orvieto found refuge in Borgo San Lorenzo in the Franciscan shelter of S. Carlo, managed by Father Massimo da Porretta. It therefore seemed natural for Angiolo to join Arrigo Levasti and Giorgio La Pira in 1950 in founding the Jewish-Christian Friendship of Florence, the first Jewish-Christian dialogue association in Italy and one of the oldest at a European level. The Association, open from the beginning to lay people, Jews and Christians of all denominations, was inspired by the appeal of the French Jewish historian Jules Isaac and by the experiences of help to the Florentine Jews during the Holocaust by priests and righteous people among the nations like Don Leto Casini and Father Cipriano Ricotti.
Angiolo Orvieto died in Florence in December 1967.
His papers, with extensive correspondence, are kept in Florence, at the Gabinetto Vieusseux.