{"id":755,"date":"2018-02-01T09:10:38","date_gmt":"2018-02-01T09:10:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/internal-pcons-be-fondazione-fr-dev-elb-1449244171.eu-west-1.elb.amazonaws.com\/?p=755"},"modified":"2024-01-12T07:57:05","modified_gmt":"2024-01-12T07:57:05","slug":"vittorio-sereni-an-inter-fan-poet-in-the-pirelli-press-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rivistapirelli.org\/en\/vittorio-sereni-an-inter-fan-poet-in-the-pirelli-press-office\/","title":{"rendered":"Vittorio Sereni, an Inter-Fan Poet in the Pirelli Press Office"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[78,51,79,26],"class_list":["post-755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cultura-e-letteratura-en","tag-culture-and-literature","tag-sport-en","tag-sports"],"acf":{"riassunto":"","composizione_articolo":[{"acf_fc_layout":"composizione_articolo_testo","composizione_articolo_testo_testo":"

In its April 1952 issue, Pirelli<\/em> magazine published an article on \u201cLombard houses<\/a>\u201d: a reflection on the vernacular architecture that dotted the Po Valley landscape with farmsteads and livestock buildings, creating a sort of \u201cgeography of the spirit\u201d<\/strong>. The dry, evocative prose bears the signature of a poet from Luino, Vittorio Sereni<\/strong>: this was his first contribution to the magazine published by Pirelli and directed by Arturo Tofanelli and Leonardo Sinisgalli. Not yet forty, Sereni was already a well-established author. In 1941<\/strong>, before being called up to the front, he published Frontiera<\/em><\/strong>, a collection of poems, and in 1947 came his Diario di Algeria<\/em><\/strong>, about his experience as a prisoner of war in northern Africa from 1943 to 1945. In 1952, Sereni was teaching Italian and Latin at the Liceo Classico Carducci in Milan, living with his wife Maria Luisa and his two daughters, Maria Teresa and Silvia.<\/p>\n

He was one of the \u201cgreat names\u201d of Pirelli<\/em> magazine<\/strong> which, ever since it first came out in 1948, published works by great writers and contemporary intellectuals: Ungaretti-Quasimodo-Montale<\/strong>, the \u201chermetical threesome\u201d<\/strong>, in 1949, Riccardo Bacchelli<\/strong> in 1950, and Piero Chiara<\/strong> and Michele Prisco<\/strong> in 1952. The director himself, Leonardo Sinisgalli<\/strong>, was nicknamed the \u201cengineer poet\u201d<\/strong>. It was Sinisgalli\u2019s name that Sereni wrote in the \u201creferences\u201d section on the application form for a job at Pirelli SpA, which he submitted on 16 August 1952. The two of them had known each other since university: these \u201ctravelling-companion poets\u201d were joined by Alfonso Gatto, Carlo Betocchi, Giancarlo Vigorelli and none other than the great Salvatore Quasimodo<\/strong> himself, who had already had the chance to praise the young Sereni on his thesis on Guido Gozzano. Pirelli and its magazine were destined to be the place where Sereni and Sinisgalli would meet again. The job application was successful and Sereni entered the \u201cServizio Propaganda\u201d<\/strong>, now the Communication Department. Its undisputed head was Arrigo Castellani<\/strong>, who had the foresight to set up an office devoted to relations with the Press, and Sereni, who had already worked with magazines like Corrente<\/em> and Rassegna d\u2019Italia<\/em>, was put in charge of it. It would be Castellani himself, just before his annual contract expired, who wrote to Human Resources: \u201cWe are absolutely satisfied with the work carried out by Dottor Sereni and, indeed, we believe he should in time be made an executive.\u201d The contract was open-ended: the personal file of Dott. Prof. Vittorio Sereni, now in the Pirelli Historical Archive, bears registration number 4062, centralised accountancy office 0400, \u201cDirezione Propaganda\u201d.<\/p>\n

During his six years as a Pirelli employee \u2013 he left in 1958 for Mondadori<\/strong> \u2013 Sereni gradually wrote less for Pirelli <\/em>magazine. Just a few articles, but weighty ones. One of them, already in issue no. 6, signed V.S., is a \u201cSecret assessment of a year of advertising<\/a>\u201d after \u201chis\u201d Servizio Propaganda had won the Palma d\u2019Oro della Pubblicit\u00e0 award<\/strong>, thanks to Bruno Munari\u2019s Coria soles<\/strong>, Ezio Bonini\u2019s Stelvio tyre<\/strong>, and Bramante Buffoni\u2019s hot water bottle<\/strong>. Another of Sereni\u2019s Pirelli<\/em> articles, entitled \u201cA fifty-year-long P<\/a><\/strong>\u201d, became a milestone in the history of the magazine, with a legendary account of the birth of the Pirelli logo in New York.<\/p>\n

Sereni continued working with the magazine even after he left the company: in 1963 came his clearly autobiographical story \u201cThe capture<\/a><\/strong>\u201d, which played on the moral conflict between victors and vanquished during the landing of the Allies in Sicily. In 1964, Sereni went from being an external contributor to the magazine to running a literary section called \u201cNei libri e fuori<\/a>\u201d. This introduced the Italian public to Primo Levi<\/strong>\u2019s La Tregua<\/em>, and to Mary McCarthy and Massimo Bontempelli, to Henry Miller<\/strong>\u2019s The Colossus of Maroussi <\/em>and to the poems of Georgios Seferis, through to Hemingway<\/strong>\u2019s posthumous A Moveable Feast<\/em>, reviewed in the no. 4 issue of 1964.<\/p>\n

Then came \u201cThe blue-black phantom<\/a><\/strong>\u201d in no. 5-6 of 1964<\/strong>: \u201cSo here I\u2019m supposed to be taking the side of Inter, or rather justifying the blue-black shade of part of my thoughts and feelings\u201d. The intellectual gave way to the fan inside him, mourning the loss of the legendary footballer Giuseppe Meazza<\/strong>, called Peppino, the \u201cblue-black phantom\u201d. And where there\u2019s a phantom, there\u2019s a mystery. The original article was published with an abstract drawing by Alberto Sughi<\/strong>. A drawing by Riccardo Manzi<\/a><\/strong>, which has recently been purchased by the Pirelli Foundation<\/strong>, dates from the same year, 1964. It shows a football player wearing a blue-black jersey with a note written by a Pirellian: \u201cNose too big!\u201d. Might this have been an illustration for Sereni\u2019s article? We cannot be sure, but we can date with absolute certainty Vittorio Sereni\u2019s last contribution to Pirelli<\/em> magazine: an article entitled \u201cTwo Venetian voices<\/a>\u201d in no. 5\/6 of 1970.<\/p>\n

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