ABSTRACT
Remorse is a key word in Calvino's autobiographical writings, but remorse stemmed not just from his neorealist distortion of his fellow-partisans but also from his sense of having abandoned his father's rural ideals. The first two critical monographs on Italo Calvino were published within a year of each other, between 1967 and 1968. Both Germana Pescio Bottinoand John Woodhouse in preparing their volumes had written to author requesting biographical information. The publication in 2000 of over 1,000 of Calvino's letters, along with the 300 or so published in 1991, allows a more accurate assessment of status of these and other more fictionalised autobiographical writings. The final fictional portraits of Calvino's father before his death occur in II visconte dimezzato. Calvino's gradually expanding verbal homages to his father seemed to have culminated in the final page of 'Le notti delPUNPA', but were counterbalanced by the less serious, caricature figure of Cosimo's father in II barone rampante.
