Giuseppe Lombardo Radice and the National Association for the Interests of the Italian Mezzogiorno (1910–1938)

Lombardo Radice played a key role in the National Association for the Interests of the Italian Mezzogiorno (ANIMI), as may be seen from the interesting and partly unpublished documentation kept in the archives of the Association, which makes it possible to reconstruct his strong commitment and significant presence even in the remotest places and communities where these important projects were implemented. The Processi Verbali (minutes of meetings) and Relazioni (reports) that reveal the debate within the Association, the letters between its members, the Italian and foreign press articles that recorded Lombardo Radice’s human and cultural side in the months following his untimely death and the tribute in which Isnardi sought to list the stages of his life all combine to give us a complete portrait of his personality and his commitment to the struggle against illiteracy and in support of the social and cultural emancipation of the Italian Mezzogiorno.