Leo Longanesi

Leopoldo "Leo" Longanesi (30 August 1905 – 27 September 1957) was an Italian journalist, publicist, screenplayer, playwright, writer, and publisher.

Longanesi is mostly known in his country for his satirical works on Italian society and people.

In 1911, when Leo was six, the Longanesi family moved to Bologna, where, in keeping with the family's affluence, Leo attended the most prestigious school and learned French at Galvani High School.

The following year, Longanesi purchased the publishing house from Malaparte and later acquired the magazine La Voce, which was founded by conservative journalist Giuseppe Prezzolini in 1919.

In 1920, Leo wrote his first printed sheet, Il Marchese, at the age of 15.

He then wrote in the monthly magazines of Zibaldone dei giovani (1921), Il Toro (1923), and Il Dominio (1924), his youth and writing style catching attention.

After high school, Longanesi earned a bachelor's degree in law at the University of Bologna.

After university, Longanesi developed his social circles by joining the city's worldly elite, literary cafés, and nighthawk pubs.

He became friends with leading intellectuals like Galvano Della Volpe, Giorgio Morandi and Vincenzo Cardarelli, and with young rising politicians like Leandro Arpinati, Dino Grandi and Italo Balbo.

During this time, Longanesi developed his interest in politics and began collaborating with L'Assalto, a Fascist newspaper in Bologna, in 1924.

In the same year, he met Mino Maccari, a famous painter, who introduced him to Rome's socialite circles.

With Maccari and popular writer Curzio Malaparte, Longanesi began a cultural movement called Strapaese (literally "great country"), which believed Italian Fascism to be the bearer of rural traditions and patriotic virtues.

Living between Rome and Bologna, Longanesi worked with the magazine Il Selvaggio from 1925 to 1929, and created a weekly magazine L'Italiano from 1926 to 1942, headquartered first in Bologna and then in Rome, with Maccari, American playwright Henry Furst, and writer Giovanni Comisso, former legionnaire of Fiume with Gabriele D'Annunzio.

At this time, Benito Mussolini was establishing his police state, banning opposition parties, and imposing a cult of personality based on his figure (the Duce) and the National Fascist Party, the only legal party.

Longanesi and his collaborators grew close to the new regime, and started a cultural debate on the relationship between arts and fascism.

In 1926, Longanesi wrote his first great work, the "Vade-mecum of the perfect Fascist".

The book expresses, with the motto "Mussolini ha sempre ragione", a mix of adoration and caricature of Mussolini's dictatorship.

During Mussolini's dictatorship (from 1926 to 1943), Longanesi was both loyal and critical to Fascism, and was ironic about the Battle for Grain (marshes' recovery policy), the mystification of the Ancient Rome, and imperialist dreams of Africa.

Between 1927 and 1950, he published several magazines, including L'Italiano (1926), Omnibus (1937), and Il Borghese (1950), the last of which is a cultural and satirical weekly paper with conservative orientation.

Longanesi described himself as a "cultural anarchist", and he headed a popular right-wing group, which embraced conservatism, agrarian virtues, anti-democracy, and nostalgic post-fascism after World War II.

Longanesi was an elegant and refined cartoonist who wrote several books of memoirs, characterised by a ruthless streak and Italian fascist nostalgic accents (In piedi e seduti, Una vita, and Ci salveranno le vecchie zie?).

Born in Bagnacavallo, Leo was the son of Paolo Longanesi, director of a gunpowder factory in Lugo, and Angela Marangoni, who came from a local, wealthy landowner family.

In 1927, Longanesi created his first publishing house L'Italiano Editions (property of L'Italiano magazine), and published works of Fascist writers who were critical of the regime, such as Malaparte, Riccardo Bacchelli, Vincenzo Cardarelli, and Antonio Baldini, and Telesio Interlandi, who later became a major supporter of the racial laws (1938) against the Jews.

In 1929, Longanesi ran as a candidate for the general election (which presented only the Fascist Party), but was not elected.

In July that year, Longanesi was hired to direct L'Assalto, which he managed until he resigned in 1931.

His dismissal was because of a strong and irreverent piece on Senator Giuseppe Tanari, financer of the squadrismo (literally "squadronism"), a radical tendency inside Fascism, members of which attacked, assaulted, and sometimes killed political dissidents.

Longanesi was prompted to write the article by an incident in May 1931, when he attended a performance of conductor Arturo Toscanini at the Bologna Communal Theatre, also attended by Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law, and Arpinati, Longanesi's old friend.

At the end of the piece, Ciano and Arpinati called on Toscanini to play Giovinezza, a popular song among the Fascists.

When Toscanini refused the request, Ciano and Arpinati left the theatre disappointed, and radical Fascists assaulted Toscanini afterwards for his dissent.

Longanesi was erroneously believed to be the first one to slap him, as there was an article against the conductor's refusal the following day.

In May 1932, Longanesi moved with his parents and grandparents to Rome and bought an elegant house in Corso Vittorio Emanuele II.

He also moved L'Italiano and Il Selvaggio to the capital.

Both magazines were in decline and Longanesi directed them almost alone.

Despite his criticisms, Longanesi was chosen by the regime to organize a literary exhibition on Mussolini for the 10th anniversary of the March on Rome, which opened on 28 October 1932.

After the start of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in 1935, Longanesi became the chief of propaganda.

Longanesi requested to direct a big newspaper in return for his services to Fascism, but was refused by the regime, which feared that new magazines and papers, especially under direction of critics of the dictatorship, would undermine the Fascists' strict control over the press.

However, Longanesi's connection with Mussolini's son Vittorio allowed him to work for Cinema, a magazine of film criticism, in September 1936.

He was fired a month later for an unpleasant photographic piece on the regime.

On 3 April 1937, Longanesi created a new magazine, Omnibus, an illustrated news magazine on literature and arts, later described as the "father of Italian magazines", especially for his use of photographs and images.

He also founded the eponymous publishing house in Milan in 1946 and was a mentor-like figure for Indro Montanelli (a journalist and historian, and the founder of Il Giornale, one of Italy's biggest newspapers).