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A Philosopher of Nonviolence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
Extract
We are at the moment experiencing renewed interest in the life and work of Aldo Capitini, the Italian philosopher of nonviolence, who was born in Perugia in 1899 and died there in 1968. Conferences, publications, and meetings are drawing the Italian public's attention to his pure lifestyle, deeply marked first by the courageous choice to oppose fascism, then by the long period during which he was marginalized by the university world and official culture; but attention has also been drawn to his numerous writings (from his Elementi di una esperienza religiosa, published in 1937 at the height of the fascist regime, with the help of Benedetto Croce, to Religione aperta, one of the last books to be placed on the Index by the Catholic Church, and finally the essay Attraverso due terzi del secolo, which appeared posthumously in Guido Calogero's journal La Cultura), and to his tireless activity as the driving force behind movements and initiatives (it was Capitini, amongst others, who organised the first peace march from Perugia to Assisi in 1961).
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Notes
1. In Aldo Capitini (1994), Scritti filosofici e religiosi (Perugia: Protagon). The extracts reproduced here can be found on pages 73-5; 81-3; 91-3; 93-6; 97-8; 105-09.
2. Dante, Purgatorio, Canto 16, 1.88-9 (in the original, 'I'anima semplicetta che sa nulla': ‘the simple soul, which knows nothing’) (N.d.l.R.).
3. Giacomo Leopardi, Alla sua donna, ‘simile a quella che nel cielo india' (N.d.I.R.).
4. Dante, Paradiso, Canto XV, 1.69, ‘in the guise of the brightening horizon (in the original, 'per guisa d'orizzonte che rischiari') (N.d.I.R.).
5. In Aldo Capitini (1962), La nonviolenza (Milan: Edizioni di Comunità) pp. 15-17.
6. In the original, storicisti, derived from storicismo, ‘historicism' (N.d.I.R.).
7. An allusion to Francis Bacon, Temporis Partus Masculus, 1602 (N.d.l.R.).
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