The project intends to investigate the work and writings of important figures of twentieth-century Italian literary history: Elena Croce, Giorgio Bassani, Italo Calvino and Stanislao Nievo. Each of these figures, according to their own specific inclination, played an active and prominent role in safeguarding the national natural landscape. This activity in turn inspired the birth and development of Italian environmentalism, in terms of the organization of ecological awareness movements, environmental pedagogy through the written word, and participation in battles for the defence of the territory. The project is divided into three strands of research:

1) Elena Croce and Giorgio Bassani’s attempts to protect the environment, through their literary fiction or essays, and through the foundation of associations expressly created for this purpose, such as Italia Nostra and the Italian Environment Fund.

2) The relations between Croce, Bassani and Calvino in the name of environmentalism, in particular regarding the magazine «Botteghe Oscure».

3) Stanislao Nievo, who was a novelist and environmentalist poet, as well as an activist who worked for the defence of cultural and natural heritage. Nievo was also a co-founder of the WWF and the creator of the project "Literary Parks".

A common objective of the study is to approach the material from an interdisciplinary perspective, allowing a reconstruction of the intimate relationship between literature, ecology, and the preservation of cultural and natural heritage that characterized the birth of environmentalism in Italy.

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