Amsterdam – Among Italian writers, Marino Moretti uniquely captured the daily life and peculiar customs of early 20th-century Dutch society. Yet his 1932 book, Fantasie olandesi, remained largely unknown in Italy and entirely undiscovered in the Netherlands.
The recent discovery of letters in Zeist—from Moretti to the aristocratic and eccentric Tuddie von Schmidt auf Altenstadt, alongside his correspondence with Italianist Enrico Morpurgo in Amsterdam—has shed light on why Fantasie olandesi remained in obscurity.
On Wednesday, November 5, at 7:30 p.m., the Italian Cultural Institute in Amsterdam will host a discussion on the newly published volume Marino Moretti: Letters to Friends in the Netherlands (1927–1948), curated by Dina Aristodemo. Together with philologist and literary historian Renzo Cremante, Aristodemo—who taught Italian literature at Utrecht and Amsterdam—will explore the fortuitous discovery of these letters and their significance in understanding the origins and limited circulation of Moretti’s original work.