Italian Communist Germanist who deciphered the Weimar manuscripts for the critical Nietzsche edition and called The Will to Power a forgery
Born at Lucca in 1928, he was taught by Giorgio Colli at high school. After the fall of fascism he became an Italian Communist Party activist, translating German writings such as Franz Mehring's, and in 1953 he witnessed the East Berlin uprising. After the crushing of Hungary in 1956 he turned away from orthodox Marxism but remained a party member for life. In 1961 he examined Nietzsche's manuscripts in Weimar in East Germany and began a new critical edition with Colli; his party membership helped him reach the East German archive. Moving to Weimar in 1965, he deciphered Nietzsche's late handwriting, which no one since Peter Gast had properly read, and denounced The Will to Power as a forgery. He co-founded Nietzsche-Studien and died in Florence in 1986.
Activities and affiliations
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1950–1957
Communist Party of Italy / Italian Communist Party (PCdI/PCI)Functionary and translator in Italian Communist cultural organisations
Ideology and propaganda -
1958–1986
Scholarship and theory
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–1986
Communist Party of Italy / Italian Communist Party (PCdI/PCI)
Social movements and organizing -
–1986
Italy state institutionsProfessor of German at Urbino, Florence and Pisa
Education
Career Timeline
- 1945–1949Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, under Cantimori
- 1950–1957Worked with the Communist Edizioni Rinascita; ran the Rinascita bookshop in Rome
- 1953Witnessed the 17 June uprising in East Berlin
- 1957Met Colli again
- 1958Moved to Florence to work on Colli’s series of classics
- 1961Examined Nietzsche’s manuscripts in Weimar
- 1965Moved to Weimar
- 1967De Gruyter’s Kritische Gesamtausgabe begins
- 1972Co-founded Nietzsche-Studien
- 1980Kritische Studienausgabe
- 1985Friedrich Gundolf Prize