The Andrea Caffi Collection

Andrea Caffi, an outstanding, militant intellectual (though hardly known) was reluctant to undertake any academic or editorial commitments during his life. Instead, he was primarily a collaborator on several journals as well as a great writer of letters – letters to friends spanning different continents in the first half of the twentieth century. His adventurous and precarious life, which encompassed the storms of two world wars and of European fascism, did not allow him to keep an archive of his writings in one place. Rather, they were dispersed repeatedly. The existing collection of writings (letters, notebooks and typed essays) this then becomes even more significant.

Passed from Caffi to Chiaromonte, and then from Chiaromonte to Bianco, today these documents have become a part of the patrimony and heritage of the Alfred Lewin Foundation. The most important correspondence includes letters with Antonio Banfi; the unedited letters (fifty nine in total) with Mario Levi, the brother of Natalia Ginzburg, dating from the time of the Spanish civil war; and letters with Nicola Tucci from New York. There is also a small collection of letters, in Russian, with dissident friends, all of whom had escaped from Russia and with whom Caffi had maintained contact throughout his life.

The Library and Foundation intend to publish the correspondence with Levi, as well as the letters with Russian dissidents. The latter task, however, will be very difficult to accomplish, as it involves transcription and translation from Russian. In fact, both Chiaromonte and Bianco had dedicated great efforts to achieving this task, without completing it.

In the photo: Andrea Caffi (left) with Nicola Chiaromonte

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