Emilio Cecchi, il giornalismo culturale e la nascita dell’americanistica italiana

By retracing his writings on American literature and culture, this essay examines Emilio Cecchi’s trajectory in the Italian field as forerunner of American studies in our country. While it appears an unassailable truth that Elio Vittorini and Cesare Pavese were the heralds of the American myth in Italy – sort of new pilgrim fathers re-discovering America as anti-fascist democratic gold standard –, Cecchi, by contrast, has been mainly read as America’s most disparaging critic, the spokesman of the fascist policies of cultural protectionism. Reassessing Cecchi’s writings about American literature and culture, this essay suggests that Italian American studies emerged from a route which does not completely match the mythographic project characterizing Vittorini’s and Pavese’s ideas of America. Indeed, Cecchi’s position-takings as a reporter and cultural journalist were crucial in paving the way for the subsequent development of an Italian school of Americanists.