Vittorio Sereni’s unpublished 1934 manuscript uncovered in Milan archive

An archive in the San Ciriaco house at Valpolicella has yielded a typed manuscript containing eighteen poems written by Italian poet Vittorio Sereni in 1934, when he was just over twenty and had recently moved to Milan. The collection, dedicated to his friend and mentor Piero Gazzola, includes poems drawn largely from Sereni’s early “green notebooks” and ends with the “Cantilena of December,” dated December 1933 and set in Milan. The verses portray the modern city with images of asphalt, aircraft, telegraphs and saxophones, foreshadowing themes that would dominate his later work. Sereni later became literary director of Mondadori, and the discovery offers a rare glimpse of his youthful poetic voice and the close friendship that shaped his development.