Paola Masino

Paola Masino (20 May 1908 – 27 July 1989) was an Italian writer, translator and librettist.

Tomb of Paola Masino.

Paola Masino
Born	20 May 1908 Pisa
Died	27 July 1989 (aged 81) Rome

Biography

Paola Masino was born as the second child of Enrico Masino and the aristocrat Luisa Sforza, who moved to Rome a few years after her birth.^[1] Paola Masino lived in a family environment that had a passion for literature and music. She was introduced by her father, from a very young age, to reading the classics and listening to her favourites Beethoven, Mozart and Wagner. In 1924 she wrote a drama, Le tre Marie, which she introduced to Pirandello, encouraged by her father, receiving vague signs of encouragement.

In March 1927 she met Massimo Bontempelli, who was separated from his wife and thirty years older than her, with whom she began a relationship, opposed by her family, and a literary collaboration: Paola collaborated with the magazine 900, directed by Bontempelli, and together they wrote the drama, never published, Il naufragio del Titanic.

Having moved to Florence in 1929 and then to Paris with Bontempelli, she worked as an editorial secretary for " L'Europe Nouvelle " and at the Bureau International de Coopération Intellectuelle , frequenting Italian and foreign intellectuals and artists who were present in France at that time, such as Il'ja Ehrenburg, Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Paul Valéry, Max Jacob, André Maurois, André Gide, Emil Ludwig, Giorgio de Chirico, Alberto Savinio, Luigi Pirandello, Guido Peyron, Filippo de Pisis, Nino Bertoletti [it], Pasquarosa Marcelli Bertoletti, Giovanni Comisso, Adriana Pincherle, Onofrio Martinelli [it], Arturo Loria; she also met and became friends with Joséphine Baker, the Russian painter Polia Chentoff, of whom she spoke extensively in the volume "Album di abiti" and with Kiki de Montparnasse. In Paris, on May 29, 1930, de Pisis painted her portrait, one of the very few reserved by the painter for female figures. Returning to Rome in 1931 , she published the stories Decadenza della morte and the novel Monte Ignoso , with which she obtained recognition at the Viareggio Prize.^[2]

Commemorative plaque of Massimo Bontempelli and Paola Masino.

This was followed in 1933 by the novel Periferia , written in the style of magical realism, which won the second prize at the "Viareggio"^[2] but was not liked by the fascist censors, who found it to be a criticism of the regime. Bontempelli, an Italian academic since 1931, also began to distance himself from fascism until his open criticisms led to his expulsion from the Italian Fascist Party and in 1939 a sort of exile in Venice, where Masino followed him, going to live in Palazzo Contarini delle Figure. Here, in early 1940, he completed the new novel Nascita e morte della massaia which appeared in installments in the weekly "Tempo": this too was unwelcome to the Regime, and its publication was prevented, which only took place in 1945.

With the fall of Mussolini in July 1943, Paola and Massimo Bontempelli returned to Rome, where at the end of the year they learned of the death sentence decreed by the new regime of Salò for Bontempelli and of the exile for Paola: they hid in the house of friends until the liberation of Rome, in June 1944. Together with Alberto Moravia, Alberto Savinio and Guido Piovene they founded the weekly «Città» then moved to Milan and became closer to the Communist Party: dealing with political and social issues, Paola collaborated with the magazines Spazio [it], Epoca, 1945, Crimen, Foemina, Mercurio, Noi donne and Vie Nuove. She followed the reconstituted Venice Film Festival as a correspondent and was part of the jury in the 1949 edition, while in 1947 a collection of her poems was published .

In 1950 Paola and Massimo Bontempelli left Venice and returned permanently to Rome: Paola collaborated with Rai, composed opera librettos, devoted herself to translations, continued to write the Appunti notebooks and, after Bontempelli's death in 1960 , she worked on Massimo's writings for a two-volume edition of his works. She also kept a diary, translated Balzac, Valery Larbaud, Jean Cocteau, Hector Malot, JA Barbey d'Aurevilly, Geneviève Tabouis, Madame de La Fayette and Stendhal and composed a long autobiography entitled "Album di abiti", which she inserted into the Appunti notebooks that she had been writing. Her last work is the poem Ninna nanna , published in 1966 by the magazine « La Battana »: then, there is silence and Paola Masino dies, forgotten, on 27 July 1989. The volumes "Colloquio di notte" were published posthumously in 1994, which collects the stories published in magazines in the 30s and 40s, as well as three unpublished stories, "Io, Massimo e gli altri-autobiografia di una figlie del secolo" in 1995, "Cinquale ritrovato" in 2004, which collects three previously published stories and in 2015 the volume "Album di abiti". In 2001 the Arnoldo and Alberto Mondadori Foundation published an important biographical catalogue, on the occasion of a large Exhibition and a Conference on Paola, inaugurated by the President of the Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi at the Casa delle Letterature in Rome. On July 16, 2010, the Municipality of Rome placed a commemorative plaque on the house at Viale Liegi 6, Rome, where Paola Masino lived until her death. She is buried in Rome in the Cimitero Flaminio.

Works

Novels and Memoirs

• Monte Ignoso, Bompiani, Milan, 1931; il Melangolo, Genoa, 1994, afterword by Mauro Bersani; Francesco Rossi, Carrara, 2004; German translation of "Monte Ignoso " by Dora Mitzky, Berlin-Wien-Leipzig, Paul Zsolnay Verlag, 1933;

• Periferia, Bompiani, Milan, 1933; Oedipus editore, Salerno, 2016, introduction and edited by Marinella Mascia Galateria; German translation by Richard Hoffmann, " Spiele am Abgrund (Games on the Abyss )", Berlin-Wien-Leipzig, Paul Zsolnay Verlag, 1935;

• Nascita e morte della massaia, Bompiani, Milan, 1945; Bompiani, Milan, 1970, introduction by Cesare Garboli; la Tartaruga, Milan, 1982, introduction by Silvia Giacomoni, Isbn, Milan, 2009, with an essay by Marina Zancan; Feltrinelli, 2019, preface by Nadia Fusini, note to the text and biographical note by Elisa Gambaro German translation by Maja Pflug, "", Frauenbuchverlag, Munich, 1983; English translation and introduction by Marella Feltrin Morris, " Birth and Death of the Housewife ", Albany, New York, State University of New York Press (SUNY), 2009; French translation by Marilène Raiola, preface by Marinella Mascia Galateria, appendix by Marilène Raiola, "La Massaia, Naissance et mort de la fée du foyer", Editions de la Martinière, Paris, 2018; Spanish translation by Pepa Linares, introduction by Marinella Mascia Galateria, "Nacimiento y muerte del ama de casa", AlianzaLIt Edition, Madrid 2019; Portuguese translation, introduction by Nadia Fusini, afterword by Francesca Cricelli, "Nascimento e morte da dona de casa";

• Io, Massimo e gli altri. Autobiografia di una figlia del secolo, edited by Maria Vittoria Vittori, Rusconi Editore, Milan, 1995;
• Album di vestiti, introduction and edited by Marinella Mascia Galateria, Elliot, Rome, 2015.

Stories and novellas

• Decadenza della morte [it], presentation by Massimo Bontempelli, Alberto Stock, Rome, 1931;
• Racconto grosso e altri [it], Bompiani, Milan, 1941; Rina Edizioni, 2021, with a preface by Marinella Mascia Galateria;
• Dialoghi della vita armonica [it], Editoriale Domus, Milan, 1942;
• Colloquio di notte [it], preface by Maria Rosa Cutrufelli, introduction and edited by Maria Vittoria Vittori, Edizioni La luna, Palermo, 1994;
• Cinquale ritrovato [it], edited by Corrado Giunti, afterword by Marinella Mascia Galateria, Francesco Rossi Editore, Carrara, 2004;
• Anniversario, edited by and with an afterword by Marinella Mascia Galateria, Elliot, Rome, 1916;

Poetry

• Poesie, Bompiani, Milan, 1947;

Opera librettos

• Viaggio d'Europa, from the story of the same name by Massimo Bontempelli , music by Vittorio Rieti. First performance: Auditorium della Rai in Rome, 9 April 1955.
• Vivì (with Bindo Missiroli), lyrical drama in 3 acts and 6 scenes, music by Franco Mannino, De Santis, Rome 1956; Curci, Milan, 1962. First performance: Teatro San Carlo in Naples, 28 March 1957.
• Luisella, drama in 4 acts based on the story of the same name by Thomas Mann, music by Franco Mannino, Ricordi, Milan, 1969. First performance: Teatro Massimo in Palermo, 28 February 1969.
• La Madrina, from the story of the same name by Oscar Vadislas de Lubicz Milosz, music by Cesare Brero. First performance: Auditorium della Rai in Rome, 19 July 1973.
• Il ritratto di Dorian Gray, (with Beppe de Tomasi [it]), drama in two acts and 8 scenes from the novel of the same name by Oscar Wilde, music by Franco Mannino, Curci, Milan, 1974. First performance: Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania, 12 January 1982.

Theater

• (with Massimo Bontempelli) The sinking of the Titanic, drama written between 1928 and 1929;

Translations from French

• Geneviève Tabouis, Sibari, The Greeks in Italy, Sansoni Publisher, Florence, 1958;
• Valery Larbaud, AOBarnabooth: his complete works: The poor shirtmaker, Poems, Diary, Bompiani, Milan, 1969; Publisher L'editore, 1990;
• Honoré de Balzac, The Girl with the Golden Eyes, Einaudi, Turin, 1977;
• (with Massimo Bontempelli) Stendhal, Memories of Egotism, Mina di Vanghel, Vanina Vanini , Curcio, Rome, 1978;
• JA Barbey d'Aurevilly, Il Cavaliere des Touches, Armando Curcio Editore, Rome, 1979;
• Hector Malot, Without Family, Giunti Marzocco Editore, Florence, 1979;
• (with Gesualdo Bufalino), Madame de La Fayette, Jealous Love. Three Stories , Sellerio, Palermo, 1980.

Curated by

• Massimo Bontempelli, Stories and Novels , 2 volumes edited by Paola Masino, Mondadori, Milan 1961

RAI Radio Programs

• Writers at the microphone , Paola Masino , meetings with the character, Tuesday 27 February 1951 , red network 22, 25