Sergio Solmi
Sergio Solmi was an Italian poet, translator, and critic, born in 1900 in Modena, Italy. He grew up in Turin, influenced by his father's scholarly work and the family's extended stays in Emilia Romagna. After serving in World War I, he pursued a law degree at the Università di Torino, graduating in 1923. Solmi had a dual career, working at the Banca Commerciale in Milan while maintaining a disciplined writing practice. His literary contributions include his first poetry collection, *Fine di stagione*, and translations of notable authors such as Jean Cocteau and W. H. Auden. Throughout his life, Solmi remained an outspoken anti-Fascist and was involved in the Action party during World War II, facing imprisonment by Fascists. After the war, he returned to his literary pursuits and became a significant figure in Italian science fiction, co-editing the country's first science-fiction series from 1959 to 1983. His works reflect a deep engagement with both national and international literary traditions.
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Sergio Solmi
Poet
- Born: December 16, 1899
- Birthplace: Rieti, Italy
- Died: October 7, 1981
- Place of death: Milan, Italy
Biography
Sergio Solmi was a member of a respected family from Italy’s Modena region. The son of Edmondo and Clelia Lollis Solmi, the young Sergio spent his early years largely in Turin, although the family often lived for extended periods in elsewhere while his father, a professor of philosophy, was teaching and lecturing. Edmondo’s analytical study of Leonardo da Vinci, Leonardo, was published in 1900, the year after Sergio’s birth. The book had a notable impact on many well-known readers, including Sigmund Freud. Edmondo died in 1911, when Sergio was twelve.
During the summers, Sergio often stayed in Emilia Romagna in his maternal grandparents’ villa. Much of his later poetry was centered geographically in the two places he loved and knew best, Turin and Emilia Romagna. In 1917, when he completed his secondary- school studies, he was drafted into the Italian army as World War I raged. In officers’ training school in Parma, he met the poet Eugenio Montale, who, along with Giacomo Leopardi, was to have a great influence upon him and upon his future writing.
At war’s end, Solmi mustered out of the army and began university studies at the Università di Torino, from which he received his law degree in 1923. He subsequently married his wife, Dora, with whom he produced two children. Upon receiving his degree, he was employed by the legal department of the Banca Commerciale in Milan and eventually became its head. He spent his entire professional career as an employee of this large commercial bank.
Despite the demands his position with the bank placed upon him, Solmi was disciplined in his writing and produced work in a number of literary fields. His first book of poetry, Fine di stagione, comprises twelve lyrical poems written between 1924 and 1932. He translated the writing of such authors as Jean Cocteau, W. H. Auden, Ezra Pound, Stephen Spender, and Antonio Machado. He brought out excellent editions of the writing of Giacomo Leopardi and produced works about other authors, including Il pensiero di Alain (the thought of Alain), a book of criticism of Émile-Auguste Chartier’s work.
Benito Mussolini’s rise to power and the swift growth of a Fascist regime in Italy came at a time when Solmi immersed himself in the study of French writers, notably Jean Cocteau, André Gide, Arthur Rimbaud, and Paul Valéry. During World War II, Solmi was solidly an anti-Fascist who joined the Action party.
He was captured by the Fascists in 1944 but escaped, only to be captured again in 1945. After the war, he was set free and resumed his writing and his work at the bank. He developed a great interest in science fiction and, in collaboration with Carlo Fruttero, was editor of the first Italian science-fiction series, beginning in 1959 with Le meraviglie del possible (the wonders of the possible) and ending in 1983 with Il giardino del tempo (the garden of time).