NeArcLit

The project is funded by PRIN 2022 and is led by Professor Vincenzo Caputo, as PI and coordinator of the research unit of University of Naples Federico II; the other research unit is at the University of Naples L’Orientale (Professor Laura Cannavacciuolo). The primary aim of the project is to focus attention on the huge cultural heritage that is today located in a multitude of public bodies and private archives, which are not connected to each other, and to facilitate and make possible their preservation, inventorying, use and study. Attention will be focused on some specific archives, which have already been carefully studied in previous years by the researchers of the respective units of this project, and which now require a comprehensive and exhaustive work of inventory and cataloguing: the Fondo Annibale Ruccello, soon to be acquired by the University “Federico II” of Naples, the Fondo Domenico Rea (1921-1994), the Fondo Michele Prisco (1920-2003) and the Fondo Mario Guida (publishing house founded in 1968). A secondary aim is to widen the research perspective to the world of the cultural industry that accompanies and makes possible literary production and communication, and in particular to the publishing world, which in Naples in the twentieth century showed a remarkable liveliness, until now not adequately studied or recognised. In this case, we are talking about real “business archives”, rich in unpublished documents on relations with writers and the dynamics of book production and circulation in Southern Italy. Among the archives taken into consideration are the “Fondo Alberto Marotta” (publishing house founded in 1959), the “Fondo Fausto Fiorentino” (publishing house founded in 1936 -1974) and the “Fondo Tullio Pironti” (publishing house founded in 1972).