Hence, the archaeological remains and monuments were landmarks deserving attention and study. The requests for money from Orsi were received with favour by Zanotti Bianco, who became more and more convinced that knowledge of the glorious ancient and Byzantine past would restore the scattered identity of a region regarded as backward by the rest of Italy. 10 Archives animi, Fondo Umberto Zanotti Bianco, Sezione B Serie 5 Società Magna Grecia, Unità Archivi (.)Ħ Soon after their first meeting, they started a correspondence and Orsi asked if Zanotti Bianco could help to find money for the restoration of Byzantine churches in Calabria 9.Zanotti Bianco, Carteggio 1906-1918, ed. The first adult literacy campaigns were also soon started. He worked with great passion, constantly travelling in Calabria, founding infant and elementary schools and libraries. He spent most of his time in Reggio Calabria, where animi opened an office in 1911, living off a small allowance from his father. Very soon Zanotti Bianco was working fulltime for the Association while also studying law in Rome. Senator Leopoldo Franchetti, for example, willingly agreed to act as president of animi. It is obvious from the outset that Zanotti Bianco, despite his young age, had great organisational abilities and that he was very talented in mobilising others for his ideals. During that same stay, Zanotti Bianco met Giuseppina Le Maire, who he would work with on many social and cultural projects until her death in 1937. The three of them knew each other in the circle of admirers around Fogazzaro and had been close friends since 1908, especially after their travel together in Calabria 6. As a result, in 1910, Umberto Zanotti Bianco founded, together with Giovanni Malvezzi and Tommaso Gallarati Scotti, the Associazione Nazionale per gli Interessi del Mezzogiorno d’Italia (the National Association for the Interests of the Mezzogiorno in Italy, animi ) 5. Action, in the Mazzinian sense, was not seen as a choice, but as a duty. For Zanotti Bianco, who was raised with the intellectual legacy of Giuseppe Mazzini, the enormous social problems of Southern Italy were a serious obstacle for a truly united Italy. It was obvious that the misery he saw was not only the outcome of a natural disaster, but to a large extent the result of structural neglect. Zanotti Bianco was shocked by the poverty that he found on his first stay in Southern Italy.
He was encouraged to do so by one of his schoolteachers in Turin, Padre Semeria, and by Antonio Fogazzaro, a well-known writer who inspired Zanotti Bianco a great deal.
After the devastating earthquake that struck large parts of Sicily and Calabria in December 1908, young Zanotti Bianco travelled to Calabria early in 1909. His aristocratic and his international family background would turn out to be of vital importance in his later life. The aristocratic Zanotti Bianco family was financially well off: Umberto was never on anyone’s payroll. 6 M. R ossi Doria, “Il Meridionalista”, p. 9-10.ģ Umberto Zanotti Bianco was born in 1889 on the island of Crete as the son of an Italian father, a diplomat, and a Scottish mother 4.Zanotti Bianco, L’Associazione Nazionale per gli Interessi del Mezzogiorno d’Italia nei suoi pri (.) Torraca, “Profilo di Umberto Zanotti Bianco”, Nuova Antalogia 85 (1953), p. 78-87 (reprinted (.) At the same time, the antifascist position of some of its leading members, Zanotti Bianco in primis, seems to have been one of the main reasons for the suppression of the Società by the fascist government. The regime’s inconsistent treatment of the Società Magna Grecia provided room for Zanotti Bianco, the director, and many of his friends, who were in part antifascist. As I have argued elsewhere, this reaction was various and incoherent, seeming to reflect the troubles the regime had in ways to evaluate the Greek past of Italy 3. Finally, the way the fascist regime reacted to the Società Magna Grecia, ultimately dissolved in 1935, is discussed briefly. A sketch of the network of individuals behind the Società is necessary as well. Their objectives are explored, followed by a description of the way the Società organized its projects. Some overlap between this article and the present one has been i (.)Ģ This contribution starts with a brief portrayal of the “founding fathers” of the Società Magna Grecia, Umberto Zanotti Bianco and Paolo Orsi.