(Florence, 1878 – there, 1940), poet and playwright, journalist and writer, taught for more than 30 years at the Florentine Technical Institute Galilei. A friend of Enrico Corradini, he founded the nationalist movement with him and took an active part in Florentine cultural life, frequenting salons, circles and the world of local critics, which was crucial to his education. In 1905 he began an assiduous and constant collaboration with the liberal-progressive newspaper “Fieramosca,” which ended only with the newspaper’s demise in 1913. In theater, his main interest, he debuted with a play “La vittoria dei vinti” (1908), which was followed by “La levata del sole” (1920), “L’elastico” (1920), later reworked under the new title “La novella della luce.” “Marta” (1924) and in his mature years a tragedy “Catilina” (1936), his only work published in his lifetime by Vallecchi, the first of a trilogy dedicated to the greatness of Rome, only partially completed by the later “Canossa.” “Hannibal,” in fact, the last drama in the trilogy, remains at the planning stage. Vast is his production, which, next to his theatrical writings, includes numerous poetic pages, art prose, essays of a philosophical-religious nature, thoughts and reflections that, in the aftermath of his death, were to be published by Sansoni in the ten volumes of his opera omnia. Of the overall publishing project, the following came out: in 1943, volume VII, the tragedy “Canossa,” with an introduction by Papini, and volume VIII, “The Narrator Perhaps of Himself,” which alongside the short story that titles the volume, includes other writings in prose and poetry; in 1944, volume IV, the tragedy “The Novella of Light,” which was followed by a long hiatus that was interrupted in 1950 with the publication of the tragedies “The Rise of the Sun,” volume II and “The Sunset of the Moon,” volume VI.
The Fund is divided into the following sections: Correspondence, which collects Tirinnanzi’s letters to his wife Maria Marchioni and correspondence addressed to the couple from various senders; these include Allodoli, Hermet, Giuliotti, Novelli, Papini, Tilgher, Tumiati, and Vallecchi; Manuscripts, which contains autographs and typescripts of Tirinnanzi’s theatrical, nonfiction and poetic works, along with reviews, articles and notes of various kinds; Press Review, in which articles by and about Tirinnanzi, published particularly in the “Fieramosca,” have converged; Library, which includes Tirinnanzi’s published works, some Sansoni catalogs and some works by writer and critic friends; Photo library, which collects portraits of the writer, his wife and friends, including a portrait of the mature Papini; Miscellaneous, into which personal documents (certificates, attestations, etc.) have flowed.
