(Florence, 1881- ivi,1956), writer and great cultural promoter, is a protagonist and animator of early 20th-century Florentine culture. In 1903 he founded with Giuseppe Prezzolini the magazine “Il Leonardo,” in the same year he was editor of Enrico Corradini’s “Il Regno” and was one of the most active contributors to “La Voce,” which he directed in 1912. In 1911 he founded with Giovanni Amendola the magazine “L’Anima” and in 1913 with Ardendo Soffici “Lacerba.” His output is vast, ranging from novel, to poetry, to nonfiction, declining in the most varied registers, lyrical, psychological, mystical, satirical. Only a few of his works are mentioned here: “The Daily Tragic” (1903), “The Twilight of Philosophers” (1907), “One Hundred Pages of Poetry” (1915), “A Finite Man” (1913), “Story of Christ” (1921), “Distant Past”(1948).
The Giovanni Papini Archive is divided into the following sections.
The Correspondence section, consisting of the more than 30,000 letters addressed to Papini by the more than 3,000 correspondents with whom he had correspondence. Just to name a few in the national sphere, Croce, Soffici, Prezzolini, Ungaretti, Amendola, Marinetti, Bargellini, De Luca, Giuliotti, Missiroli, Vallecchi, Palazzeschi, Assagioli, Vailati, Gallarati Scotti; in the European sphere, Bergson, Apollinaire, Gide, Eliade, H. James, W. James, Schiller and numerous others.
The Manuscripts section, consisting of about 3,200 folders arranged in 66 boxes collecting autograph manuscript and typewritten material; ranging from numerous drafts of the works to scattered notes and sheets documenting projects, sketches and early works. The work of computerized sorting and cataloging is underway on this very large material.
The section Photo library,consisting of iconographic documentation of half a century of twentieth-century history with numerous portraits of the most influential representatives of Italian and international culture of those years – Bargellini, Prezzolini, Soffici, Cardarelli, Carrà, De Robertis, Palazzeschi, Bergson, Boutroux, Daubler – and many group photos, of family members, acquaintances and friends. There is a paper card inventory of this material, compiled according to the alphabetical order of the characters.
The Press Review Section, which preserves journalistic articles by and about G.Papini from 1897 to 1930.
The Miscellaneous Section, which collects iconographic material such as sketches for the frontispieces and covers of some of Papini’s works and the “Leonardo,” a 1914 issue of the magazine “Pravda,” a Jan. 1, 1914 copy of “Lacerba,” and some engravings by Durer, Soffici, Spadini and Martini that were attached to issues of the “Leonardo.”
