ABSTRACT
The La garibalditia and Le citta del mondo were part of an ambitious project, a vast fictional landscape of Elio Vittorini's home island. Started in the 1950s, the project lost its momentum when Vittorini started to shift his intellectual interests from the archaic, agrarian culture of Sicily to the new frontiers of industrialized cities. In his letters written during the winter 1949-50, the scattered references to La garibaldina give the impression of an enthusiastic Vittorini, eager to develop his latest fictional project. The fictional exploration of Vittorini's native Sicily was burdened by an ambitious narrative project. Vittorini mainly worked on this novel during a long summer stay in the fishing village of Populonia, in Central Italy, hence the reference to Populonia in the critics' accepted title of the manuscript. A more appropriate title would perhaps have been 'the manuscript of Milan' since the narrative is entirely infused with the urban atmosphere of Vittorini's chosen town of residence.
