ICI London and the Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian Library present “The Cephalonia Massacre – eighty years on” with Luigi Ballerini (author of Cefalonia 1943-2001, a “poem including history”, quoting Ezra Pound) and Professor Pierpaolo Antonello (Cambridge University). Moderated by Dr Lorenzo Mannelli (Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian Library).
The massacre of the Acqui Division, also known as the Cephalonia Massacre, is one of the darkest and most tragic events, in terms of loss of life, that followed the Italian armistice during the second world war.
The German Army, trying to the disarm the Italian 33rd Infantry Division Acqui on the Greek island of Cephalonia, engaged in a long battle. The Italians resisted, but had to surrender eventually, after running out of ammunition. 1.315 Italians were killed in the battle and 5.155 were executed by the German Army. Furthermore, 3.000 Italian POW (Prisoners of War) that had survived the battle and were being transported to concentration camps on German ships, drowned when the ships were sunk by the Allies.
Contextualizing these historical events, Ballerini’s Cephalonia is a two-voice monologue featuring Ettore B, an Italian soldier fallen in combat, or perhaps executed, and Hans D. a German businessman: a victim and an indirect executioner, poetically resurrected to challenge the pseudo-cathartic and merely perfunctory narrative repeated by the guardians of the political rules. Written in unrhymed free verse between 2001 and 2003, the poem was first published by Mondadori in 2005. On the occasion of the tragedy’s 70th anniversary, a second edition was published in 2013 by Marsilio Editori. Translated into Spanish and English and Spanish, Cephalonia is now being translated intro Russian.
Free admission. Book HERE
Luigi Ballerini (born 1940, Milan) is an Italian essayst, translator. and an award winning poet. He has taught Italian Literature at New York Universiy, The University of California Los Angeles and Yale University. His collected poetry (1972-2016) edited by Beppe Cavatorta was published by Mondadori in 2015. His latest books include, Apollo figlio di Apelle (essays on contemporary sculpture, Marsiio, 2016) ), Divieto di Sosta (a collection of poems Aragno 2019, Spanish edition, El sastre de Apollinaire, 2023) . Il remo di Ulisse, a collection of essays on Ballerini’s poetry and poetics, edited by Ugo Perolino was published by Marsilio in 2022.
Pierpaolo Antonello is Professor of Modern Italian Literature and Culture at the Faculty of Modern & Medieval Languages & Linguistics at Cambridge University. He specialises in 20th century Italian literature, culture, and intellectual history. He wrote extensively on the relationship between literature and science, Futurism and the Avant-Garde, Italo Calvino, Italian cinema, Italian philosophy, and Postmodern Italian culture. He also published on French philosophy and epistemology (René Girard, Guy Debord, Michel Serres). He is the co-editor of the series “Italian Modernities” for Peter Lang, Oxford, and he is a member of the advisory board of ‘Imitatio: Integrating the Human Sciences’.
Lorenzo Mannelli MD PhD is a Trustee of the Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian Library, an organic collection of Italian texts translated into English. Its role is to make available a series of one hundred works by Italian authors who have made significant literary, philosophical, juridical, and historical contributions to the world of international culture.