«Ore serene» e «torbide vicende». Le lettere di Giuseppe Tucci a Giovanni Gentile

The book traces the connection between two leading figures in 20th-century Italian culture: Giuseppe Tucci (1894–1984) and Giovanni Gentile (1875–1944). Through the 63 letters from the former and the 4 from the philosopher that have survived, we witness the emergence on the cultural scene of the future Tibetologist, still a student in uniform when he sought contact with that dominant figure of the intellectual scene: an ambitious young man, eager to enter the field and establish himself in the world of scholarship, and a mentor who systematically cultivated relationships with young people. The time span of the correspondence extends from the war to 1944: it is the period of the establishment of a mentor-disciple relationship and an alliance within the organizational structures and trajectories of Fascist Italy, from its origins to Gentile’s assassination. Italy and India, and Tibet, and Japan: this is the backdrop of a national-fascist brand of ‘thought and action,’ a political-cultural expansionism that led to the shared conception of the IsMEO, the Institute that collects and expands upon the studies and travels of the great explorer of worlds—geographical, religious, cultural—now recognized as an international authority, and which also sees in Gentile a necessary figure to be regarded with the highest esteem and even affection. The final letters take on further interest in how the two correspondents view and experience—in concordant discourse—the end of a regime in which they believed and in which they were protagonists.