Orphan's mother died in childbirth and his father drowned hive, Metellus Salani is raised by a farming family of Rincine in Mugello, which was given to nurse. His childhood flowing altogether happy, until the farm family where he grew up was forced to emigrate to Belgium. For Metellus opens the unwelcome prospect of living in dependence on the factor. Rebel spirit he, alone, flees to Florence "where he was born and he did not know" . Metellus has fifteen years, although it shows more. Arrived in Florence, and experiences a sudden surge of momentary hostility workmates. At the same time, however, also knows the generosity. It is one of them, Betto, in fact, being hosted in their own homes. Betto is an anarchist who has studied and knows how to speak. "He was the father to Metellus Metellus did not know" . Betto taught him to read and write, and pushes the young Salani to seek a real job, learn a trade. Metellus choose to do the mason. One night, however, Betto disappears forever, and he did not know anything. Meanwhile, from fellow workers, Salani, nicknamed "Cipressino" has its own policy initiatives. They hear, for the first time, of anarchist thinkers, "of socialism, equality, work that was paid in accordance with the sweat" . Experiences even in prison.
Metellus Twenty years is a different man from what would have become had he remained a farm laborer in the farm Rincine. City life has opened my mind and has strengthened the heart and character. He began drawing "that starts from the worker and leads to the bricklayer, the mason, the primomuratore" . He lives alone, likes to work as he likes girls. Love is initiated by Viola, a widow thirty independent temperament and customs free. Following several short-lived adventures, until leaves for military service in Naples, an experience that stops the evolution of man. Discharged from military service, Metellus struggling to find a new job. Construction is in crisis. Involved in riots, the young person is arrested again. But, ironically, thanks to the prison meets the love of his life. E 'Ersilia, daughter of Quintus Pallesi, a colleague who died falling from a scaffold. Ersilia has a strong temperament, tenacious, faithful, comes from San Frediano, the most popular neighborhood and blood of Florence. From their union was born one son, Libero. Meanwhile Metellus was sent into internal exile. We are now at the dawn of the twentieth century. Workers begin to become aware of their rights, to unite, to organize unions, to strike. It turns on the class struggle between workers and employers, including employers and employees. A bloody fight, which leaves on the ground also died. Metellus, in Florence, became a star, experimenting on your skin existential insecurity, hunger, misery and despair caused by the prolonged strike days, the responsibility of making decisions in the collective interest, even military repression who is not aligned with the bosses and even jail time.
Released in 1955, Metellus inaugurates the narrative project titled Italian history, the writer Vasco Pratolini Florence (Florence, 1913 - Rome, 1991) completed with the publication of two other novels: The Scialo (1960) and Allegory and Derision (1966). With Metellus again Pratolini celebrates the people of Florence and its virtues of simplicity, courage, humanity and resourcefulness. A novel ensemble that bears witness, through the vicissitudes of existential hero, the harshness of life for workers from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the political organization of workers' solidarity, the strength that comes from knowing the Fourth State to be united. It is, however Pratolini an artist, a writer, the great historical fresco mixes with the private lives of the characters, as indeed happens in our lives.
The author
Vasco Pratolini ( Florence, October 19 1913 - Rome, January 12 1991). Pratolini held various jobs, including printer, salesman, bartender, and was a self-taught. Law and initial Dante Alessandro Manzoni, then Jack London, Charles Dickens , Mario Pratesi, Federigo Tozzi, and grows in an environment influenced by the Florentine literary magazine Solaria and movements francesizzanti Catholics. Thanks to Elio Vittorini makes contact with the literary world and 1935 to 1938 becomes editor, along with Romano Bilenchi and Elio Vittorini of the political magazine Bargello, by which focuses and perfects his "proletarian consciousness" and class, and public his first literary works in 1937 on Literature. During the college years is like writing to all GUF and participates in Littoriali of culture and art. founded in 1938 by Alfonso Gatto magazine Campo di Marte , distributed by the publisher Vallecchi , in which the two editors try to settle their private and literary sensibilities with those of public and political life. Also actively participates in the resistance . After the war in December 1948 , he moved to Naples , where he lived until 1951 ; teaches Institute of Art F. Palisades and meanwhile writes Chronicle of Poor Lovers (1947 ) A Hero of Our Time (1949 ) Girls of San Frediano (1949). During those same years he worked as a journalist and collaborated on the screenplay of some famous film : Paisa of Roberto Rossellini , Rocco and His Brothers Luchino Visconti of , The four days of Naples of Nanni Loy. Vasco Pratolini is an author who has attempted to translate the atmosphere at a distinct neo-realist poetry. He is one of the initiators of the "new realism", the current of which were the leading exponents Alberto Moravia, Italo Calvino , Elio Vittorini and Cesare Pavese with the "magical realism".
Title: Metellus
Author: Vasco Pratolini
Publisher: Mondadori
Collection: Oscar modern writers
Publication: 1998 (the first in 1955)
ISBN: 8804455530
Pages: 384
Price: € 9.50 
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