The novel focuses on two different subjects. The first one is the personal life of the protagonist, a young man of twenty-two years old, a bourgeois Jew, who falls in love with Micòl Finzi-Contini, a Jewish girl that belongs to one of the wealthiest families in the city. The second topic is the political events that occurred between 1938 and 1939 in Ferrara, Italy, where the racial laws established in detriment of the Jews anticipated the fate of many of them in the concentration camps during the Second World War.
The Finzi-Contini were at that time a peculiar case within the Jewish Community of Italy. They had always lived in an old mansion, and flaunted their wealth as their ancestors used to. They had, as well, a peculiar behavior in several aspects. For example, Micòl and Alberto Finzi-Contini, the offspring of Professor Ermanno Finzi-Contini and Olga Herrera, had grown up practically without leaving the limits of their home, educated with private teachers. Their parents never allowed them to attend elementary school, or high school, as the children of other families did, regardless if they were Jewish or Christian. Alluding to another of this family peculiarities, in 1933 they decided to restore an old synagogue for personal use, so they stayed away from the rest of the members of their Community for many years.
The narrator, and protagonist of the story, begins his tale with a prologue in which he describes a walk to a cemetery located near Vía Aurelia, in Rome. This cemetery reminds him of the one that is in Vía Montebello, in Ferrara, where the Finzi-Contini’s pantheon was. From there on, he goes back to the first years of his childhood to detail the peculiar curiosity with which he contemplated the Finzi-Contini family. Then he takes a ten-year time gap to describe his relationship with Alberto and Micòl. The three of them were now University students. Along with the Milanese Giampiero Malnate, Alberto’s closest friend, they would spend long afternoons on the tennis court that was located in the immense Finzi-Contini’s garden.
The novel concludes with an epilogue that reveals the fate of each character a few years after the breakup of Micòl and the protagonist.
Character analysis:
Micòl Finzi-Contini
♦Nostalgia for the past, and dislike for the future
The narrator himself points out, at the end of the book, Micòl’s tendency to mock Giampiero Malnate who, as a communist, was constantly immersed in politic issues and defended, passionately, his beliefs about the future. Micòl couldn’t stop laughing when she heard him talk, and she expressed once, in verbatim words, her preference for “le vierge, le vivace et le bel aujourd’hui” [the virgin, the vivacious and the beautiful today]; that is to say, the present. But, above all things, she preferred, the “piouspast”.
There are some moments where Micòl’s thoughts show themselves in her opinions about some specific topics. For example, when during a rainy afternoon, she refugees in the garage of her house with the protagonist, she begins to tell him about Perotti’s obsession (Perotti is the driver and butler of the family) with restoring that old carriage in which Alberto and she used to go to the Public Gymnasium Lyceum, GB Guaraní, to take the final exams on the month of June. Micòl refers to Perotti’s longing as a wish that doesn’t make the slightest sense. And, at that precise moment, after making this statement, she asks the protagonist to observe that old boat in which they used to embark with her brother to sail on the Canal Pánfilo when they were both just two kids.
“But look at the canoe,” she went on, and, through the glass of the windows our breath wasjust beginning to fog up, pointed to a dim, skeletal, oblong outline up against the wall opposite the one taken up by the grapefruit shelves. “Just look at that little canoe instead, and please admire the honesty, dignity, and moral courage with which it’s managed to draw all the right conclusions from its own complete loss of function. Things die, too, you know. And so, if they too have to die, it’s so much better to let them go. That has much more style about it, apart from everything else, don’t you agree?”
(The Garden of the Finzi-Contini, by Giorgio Bassani; Atheneum, New York, year 1965; page 93).
In this quote, Micòl’s contempt for the future, and the charm she feels, in contrast, for the past as it is exteriorize. For Micòl, the incongruity in Perotti’s attitude is given not by his affection for an antique object but by the pretense of turning it into something different than what it is, into something still “current”.
In the chapter that follows this episode, we find another example of Micòl’s fondness for the past. In a telephone conversation with the narrator of the story, Micòl express outwardly her passion for collecting various types of crystal objects which she names “lacticinios”: jars, glasses, small boxes, etc; all of them of value for their antiquity. She loved them so much that she had collected twelve hundred pieces.
On the other hand, Micòl clearly expresses her devotion for the past in another conversation with the protagonist.
… in the sense that I, like her, hadn’t the instinctive taste for things that normal people had. She could see it perfectly well: for me, no less than for her, the memory of things was much more important than the possession of them, and in comparison with that memory all possession, in itself, seemed just disappointing, delusive, flat, insufficient. How well she understood me! The way I longed for the present to become the past at once, so that I could love it and gaze fondly at it any time; it wasjust exactly the way she felt. It was our vice, this: looking backwards as we went ahead. Wasn’t that so? Yes, it was-I had to admit to myself-it
(The Garden of the Finzi-Contini, by Giorgio Bassani; Atheneum, New York, year 1965; page 171 and 172).
The narrator affirms that Micòl seemed to foreshadow her dire fate; one more reason not to think about it, and take refuge in the memories that she could treasure without feeling any suffering.
♦Contradictory attitude in her personal relationships
The greatest contradiction is the bond, in itself, that Micòl has with the narrator. She states, on two occasions, that during her childhood she had felt an special affection for him. She goes even far as to declare that she, already being a woman, had always been attracted to his physique.
You are fishing for compliments, and you know it perfectly well. But I’m not going to give you the satisfaction: you don’t deserve it, and then, suppose I did try and tell you all the nice things I’ve ever thought about those famous old glaucous eyes of yours (and not only about your eyes, at that), what would be the result? You’d be the first to think me a beastly hypocrite
(The Garden of the Finzi-Contini, by Giorgio Bassani; Atheneum, New York, year 1965; page 172).
Despite this fact, Micòl ends up rejecting the narrator, and refuses to establish a courtship with him. When she makes it clear that she only wants to be his friend, their relationship becomes hopelessly cold and distant. However, Micòl is responsible for having reached an instance that she claims to have wanted to avoid. With her capricious and seductive attitudes, she conscientiously fed a feeling that later she could not correspond. That rainy afternoon in which both took refuge in the garden’s garage, and got inside the old carriage that her family used to use; that rainy afternoon, Micòl realized that she had come too far allowing a trust, and a closeness that would later make her feel awkward. Selfish and inconsiderate, after leaving abruptly for Venice to try to get away from the protagonist, she would continue in contact with him during her absence. The worst would happen upon her return when, leaving aside certain surly behaviors, she would display all her coquetry to attract him back.
““Come on now,” she whispered, “otherwise they’re quite likely” -and she laughed-“to be worried, up there.” As we went up, she was still holding my hand (she stopped on the stairs, looked carefully at my lips in the light, and concluded the examination with a casual “That’s fine!”), and never stopped talking for a moment, very volubly
(The Garden of the Finzi-Contini, by Giorgio Bassani; Atheneum, New York, year 1965; page 148).
It seems that the narrator’s carnal desires are inconvenient for her only when they do not suit into her plans.
She laughed gaily, and I laughed too, excitedly, and told her about my expulsion from the city library, with a wealth of comic detail. But when I asked her why she had stayed on in Venice for another month after getting her degree-in Venice, I added, where she said she not only disliked the place but had no friends at all, male or female-at this point she grew serious, withdrew her hand from mine, and gave me a quick sidelong glance as her only answer
(The Garden of the Finzi-Contini, by Giorgio Bassani; Atheneum, New York, year 1965; page 149).
Micòl also has a contradictory behavior towards Giampiero Malnate. Initially her opinion about him is unfavorable; she dislikes his personality and his looks. In addition, she is jealous of his bond with Alberto. However, as the novel progresses, the narrator observes how the roles are reversed and she ends up having a closer relationship with Malnate while Alberto begins to speak disparagingly of his friend. Could it be that Micòl, to her surprise, found in Giampiero’s company what she needed to give herself to an intimacy, if not as a couple, as lovers? And, if so, what has she found? Indifference, perhaps?
Alberto Finzi-Contini
♦Attachment to the material word, and feeling of abandonment
When the narrator enters Alberto’s apartment for the first time, among with several details that attract his attention are the furniture of the reception room. They are modern, unlike those of the rest of the house, and have been designed and arranged following a logical and obsessive criterion. A clear example is the music player, a Philips.
It was, he told me, a “pretty exceptional” machine, because of various changes he’d worked out and got going with the help of a really good mechanic in Milan, to do with the quality of the sound, above all. There wasn’t just a single amplifier, but four distinct ones: one for the bass sounds, one for the middle sounds, one for the high sounds, and one for the very high, so that anything coming through this very high one, even whistles, say -and he giggled-“came through” perfectly. But I mustn’t imagine they were all four of them stuck there togethcr-oh, no! Inside the radiogram there were only two: middle sounds and high. The very high amplifier he’d thought ofhiding over there by the window, and the fourth, the bass one, was right under the sofa I was sitting on: all this so as to give a certain stereophonic effect
(The Garden of the Finzi-Contini, by Giorgio Bassani; Atheneum, New York, year 1965; page 118).
Apart from the gramophone, the armchair has also been designed according to specific criteria so that the vertebrae of the spine could rest correctly on the backrest.
What we have described exhibits a feeling of loneliness that Alberto tries to hide with this strange habit; that is to say, his penchant for mathematical calculations applied to the elaboration of instruments and artifacts. In this regard, without being aware of how isolated he is from his loved ones, he tells the narrator the following words:
… he felt that life was already so muddled and dreary that there was no reason why furniture and fittings, those silent, faithful indoor companions, should be muddled and dreary as well
(The Garden of the Finzi-Contini, by Giorgio Bassani; Atheneum, New York, year 1965; page 119).
♦Reservation and modesty; possible repressed homosexuality
Alberto shows an strange behavior in his gatherings with Giampiero Malnate and the protagonist. The first thing we notice is a constant suspicion that someone could be listening to them or spying on them. When the narrator visits Alberto for the first time in his apartment, he receives him in the living room and remains for a few moments with his eyes fixed on a point that is behind his guest. Immediately afterwards, he goes to that corner and closes the door of his study that has been left half open when the protagonist entered in. Before closing the door, he peeks out into the hall to make sure no one is there. On that same occasion, the narrator notices a painting hanging from the door that leads to the bathroom in the next room. It is a male nude by De Pisis.
A few days later, Giampiero Malnate gives some details of his experiences in common with Alberto when they lived in Milan. In the Lyric theater there was a dancer named Gladys with whom Giampiero had sexual relations for some time. The aforementioned ended up angry with both of them due to Alberto’s rudeness with her.
“I never understood why Alberto pushed her off poor Gladys,” he said one evening, suddenly winking at me. And then, turning to Alberto: “Be brave now! It’s more than three years ago and we’re nearly three hundred kilometres from the scene of the crime: so why not put your cards on the table at last?”
(The Garden of the Finzi-Contini, by Giorgio Bassani; Atheneum, New York, year 1965; page 127).
Alberto, inhibited and flushed over that episode, never confessed the reason why he didn’t sleep with the dancer.
The situations and events that we have just described would not be indicators, by themselves, of an homosexual inclination in Alberto. Nonetheless, these details are related to aspects of his personality that would support this theory. Alberto shows an affectation of his manners, and an exacerbated sensitivity of his character when he has to deal with circumstances that confront him with his feelings towards women, and his desire of intimacy with man. About this last aspect, Alberto has a clear preference for his friend Giampero, and suffers intense nervous breakdowns when the latter doesn’t reciprocate his love for him. This seems obvious on two occasions. In the first one, Alberto camouflages his crying with a laughter when Malnate criticizes the lifestyle of his family. In the second one, his face turns into a pleading grimace of agony as he contemplates how the narrator attacks the latter in a violent disclaimer about his personal situation as a Jew.
Although the novel does not make any clear allusion to a repressed homosexuality in this character, nor has its author, it is quite possible that this was the case.
Giampiero Malnate
♦Communism and political fanaticism
Giampiero’s political ideals shows an extremist and inflexible position, according to which private property must be annulled, and the proletariat must become the ruling class by taking control of the means of production. With the “Manifesto of the Communist Party”, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, published in 1848, communism became a revolutionary movement contrary to the capitalist system. Communists believe that the class struggle between the bourgeoisie (the social minority that owns the exploitation resources), and the working class (the impoverished majority), can only be solved with the establishment of a new form of government that will give the power of the rich to the citizens of lower-income, thus putting an end to the division into social strata.
Malnate, regarding the upheavals that were affecting Europe, prior to the outbreak of The Second World War, argued the following:
Would I please tell him-he asked-who’d really been responsible for Franco’s revolt? Wasn’t it the French and English right wing who’d not only tolerated it at the start, but had actually bolstered and applauded it later? (…)as every right wing in every country and at any time had always done, had always regarded Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany with illconcealed friendliness (…)Now if France and England had been reduced to the point where all they could do was watch what was happening and lump it, it was perfectly plain: the full responsibility for their present impotence fell on those fine, upstanding, decorative gents in tails and top-hats-whose way of dressing, at least, responded to the nostalgia for the nineteenth century so many literary decadents went in for-who now governed them
(The Garden of the Finzi-Contini, by Giorgio Bassani; Atheneum, New York, year 1965; page 123 and 124).
Besides sympathizing with the ideas of the communist party, Malnate has also participated in clandestine meetings together with several of the workers of the factory in which he is employed. At these meetings he has met a former teacher named Clecia Trotti, one of the leaders of the socialist movement in Ferrara. The first time he saw Clecia Trotti she reminded him of Anna Turanti, whom he had known in his childhood. Back then, he frequented the house of Anna and Filippo Turanti with his father. They were both communists, and were arrested in 1898 for their political ideals. Those memories still drew a smile on Malnate’s face.
♦Conflicting bond with the protagonist
From the beginning, the bond between Giampiero Malnate and the narrator is problematic; mostly because of the passive interventions of Alberto who manages to tip the balance in favor of Giampiero in any discussion. Also, Malnate’s political ideas are opposed to those of the narrator. This makes the latter feel uncomfortable given the broad political culture of his rival; he cannot contradict his opinions. However, in the last quarter of the novel, the relationship between the two undergoes a favorable change when the narrator unexpectedly shows up one afternoon at Malnate’s house.
He shook my hand vigorously, and slapped me on the back several times, and it was very odd, as he’d always been against me ever since we first met, to find him so friendly, thoughtful, and chatty. Why on earth? I wondered, in confusion. Had he also decided to change his ways, with regard to me? Maybe. In any case now, on his own ground, he was no longer the argumentative tough I’d so often fought with under the observant eye of Alberto, and later of Micol. As soon as I saw him I knew that away from the Finzi-Continis (and to think that just recently our rows had got really hurting, we’d almost come to blows!) every reason for quarrelling was destined to melt away, like mist in sunshine
(The Garden of the Finzi-Contini, by Giorgio Bassani; Atheneum, New York, year 1965; page 188).
Overtime, night after night, having dinner in any restaurant, they develop a solid friendship; exchanging their opinions about life, leaving aside the political issues for which they had always fought. They even share their views about the Finzi-Contini. Giampiero is aware of the narrator’s infatuation with Micòl, and encourages him to try once time to establish a romantic relationship with her. However, upon returning from one of their usual walks around the city after dinner, the narrator reveals the truth about his bond with Micòl. Giampiero listens in silence, shocked; then he says goodbye and begins to ride his bike. That night marked, for the narrator, the end of his friendship with Giampero. Their last conversation also give him some clues about Micòl’s secret affairs.
Ermanno Finzi-Contini
♦Social isolation
Professor Ermanno’s grandfather, Moisè Finzi-Contini, had acquired, for an scarce sum of money, an old mansion that belonged to the Marquises of Avogli. Moisè never installed in that mansion despite the insistence of his mother-in-law. Moisè’s son, Menotti Finzi-Contini, and his spouse, Josette Artom, on the other hand, moved to that old house and live there for several years; a typical eccentricity of the wealthy class. However, Menotti Finzi-Contini, and Josette Artom, could indulge themselves without being judged with too much hardness for it as Josette was of aristocratic lineage. The situation was completely different as far as Professor Ermanno and his wife, Mrs. Olga, were concerned.
Professor Ermanno, being a man who was devote to the study of history, and Mrs. Olga, being a woman from a good family but that did not resist any comparison with Josette Artom’s family, had no excuse to act with such osteting. The death of their first son, Guido, in 1914, who was only six years old, must have been a reason to act like that. But still, that proceeding seemed exaggerated.
That confinement was incomprehensible among with the prohibition to their other children, Alberto and Micòl, to attend school. Their subsequent abandonment of Italian synagogue was also considered unnecessary. This happened in 1933 when the Duce encouraged the citizens to join the Fasccio, a nationalist political party led by Benito Mussolini. The member card was offered to Ermanno Finzi-Contini, who firmly refused it; and shortly after this event, clearly disgusted by the Duce’s decision, he requested the Jewish Community’s permission to restore an old synagogue for personal use of his family.
Five years later, when Mussolini established the racial lawys, Ermanno Finzi-Contini felt indifferent about the detriment that these caused to the Jews. The present, unlike his daughter, was not important for him, and therefore he remained apathetic about the political events that began to take place in 1938.
♦Rejection of the aspirations and achievements of his children
When the protagonist begins his research for his doctoral thesis, Ermanno Finzi-Contini offers to put at his disposal the volumes of the family library that refer to the theme he had chosen. Professor Ermanno firmly believes that the narrator has great potential as a writer. He seems to think that one day his work will be of transcendental importance for Italian literature.
It is interesting to notice that the ambitions of Alberto and Micòl are insignificant for him, although they do not differ from those of the narrator; that is, doctorate and achieve a future in the area in which they had specialized. Instead, Professor Ermanno is haunted by Micòl’s decision of graduating, for once and for all, and work as a teacher after getting her Ph.D. It would be better for her to take care only of the domestic chores. He doesn’t think different about Alberto and his determination of non-doctorat. He, at no time, seems disappointed at his son choise; quite the opposite, he feels relive. In fact, Ermanno Finzi-Contini has always thought that there is plenty of time for his children to carry out their purposes in life; especially considering the political situation that Europe was going through.
Olga Herrera
When she lost her first son, Guido, due to an infantile paralysis, she was twenty-four years old. Mrs. Olga never got over the death of her little boy.
Alberto and Micòl were born with a year apart, and shortly after Guido’s death. Due to their mother’s fear of microbes, they were deprived of attending school as the others kids. According to Micòl, that same aversion made them leave the Italian synagogue and take refuge in the small, and abandoned synagogue that Professor Ermanno had restored for them.
Olga Herrera, at almost fifty years old, appears in the novel as an aged woman, still beautiful, but dressed in mourning, and worried that fate will snatch her other children as well.
Herrera Brothers
They are the only two brothers of Mrs. Olga; Federico, a railway engineer, and Giulio, a medical thiologist. The narrator describes them as skinny, tall, bald, and with long beards. They used to show up in Ferrara, before the restoration of the small synagogue, when a religious date was commemorated; they attended the Italian Temple together with their sister, their brother-in-law, and their nephews. Like Professor Ermanno, they seem to feel a certain apathy for the present, and a clear disregard for the political events that were hitting Europe.
Perrotti
Butler, driver, gardener; those are the occupations he must fulfill at the Finzi-Contini’s mansion. He resides in a country house within the garden, along with his wife, his sons and daughters; the latter are all young adults who also work for the Finzi-Contini.
Perrotti has a great fondness for antiques. Among this sort of objects we can find the carriage in which he carried Alberto and Micòl to the Public Gymnasium Lyceum, G.B Guaraní, to take their final exams every year. The carriage ended up being replaced by a modern car. However, Perrotti never stopped cleaning the carriage with water-soaked sponges, and polishing it with chamois. The only reason why the carriage has not been restored after so many years is the refusal on behalf of Professor Ermanno. Also, Perrotti has always had a great affection for the elevator that connects the second to last floor of the house with the rooftop. Whenever he has a chance to drive the elevator, he takes pleasure in placing his fingers on the cockpit keypad, and gripping the sliding door handle with his left hand.
Another interesting aspect to highlight of Perotti is his loyalty to the Finzi-Contini. It must be admitted that Perotti is not comfortable with Mrs. Olga’s obsessions, or with Micòl’s insistence in being away from home to finish her doctoral thesis. Various behaviors of the Finzi-Contini displease him; but he has served them throughout his life. They have given him, and his family, food, as well as a place to live. Perotti is, neither more nor less, a grumpy who shows his affection for his masters in a reserved and gruff way.
The narrator’s father
♦Fascism
A doctor in his youth, at the beginning of the story it seems that he no longer practices his profession. He has been a volunteer soldier in World War I when Italy decided to intervene in the confrontation taking the side of France and Great Britain. He has always been a freethinker, and a fascist since 1919.
The Fascio (a word that later gave its name to the political ideology of fascism) was born as a worker’s union. It began to take political connotations at the end of the 19th century when one of those groups, the one of Sicily, led important riots against the government due to the poverty in which rural workers lived. The Second Industrial Revolution, which took place after the Italian Unification, brought with it a significant loss of economic income in northern Italy; the gains obtained through the agricultural exploitation were reduced gradually until reaching almost zero. The violent spirit of these protests led citizens of nationalist ideology to adopt the term “Fascio” as a synonym of “rebellion” to create a new political party and ask the government to put aside its neutral stand in the World War I. After Benito Mussolini entered the Fascio in 1914, and became its leader, the Italian government agreed in 1915 to be part of the World War I.
In 1919, after the end of the batle, the Fascio led by Mussolini became a troop of combatant soldiers. At the same time, different organizations emerged throughout Italy also using the name of Fascio, and maintaining the essence of that first political party of 1914. The Fascio itself would undergo through different changes until it became a banch of fans of Benito Mussolini; the other existing associations would join in or change their name to differentiate themselves from the ideology of the aforementioned. The new purpose of the Fascio’s members would be for Italy to seize power from Europe in another confrantation by allying with Germany.
When we talk about the father of the narrator of the story, and we mention that he was a fascist, there seems to be a certain contradiction taking into account that fascism became a massive social movement, and ended up discriminating against Jews. However, at that time, when the political history of Europe of the 20th century was taking shape, many of those who joined the Fascio driven by a nationalist sentiment, could not imagine that it would later become an authoritarian order. Even when the racial laws were enacted, there was still misbelief about Benito Mussolini’s intentions; especially considering that in some regions of Italy, such as Ferrera, where the novel is set, they took several weeks to go into effect. This is how the character expresses his point of view when he talks to his son about this matter:
Why wouldn’t I admit, in fact, that after the announcement on September 9th, and even after the additional circular of the 22nd, things, at least at Ferrara, had in fact carried on pretty weil the way they’d done before? It was perfectly true-he admitted, with a melancholy smile-during the last month, out of the 750 members of our community no one important enough to deserve space in the Corriere ferrarese had died (…)But let’s be fair: the telephone directories hadn’t been withdrawn to be reprinted, purged; not a single haverta, * maid, cook, nurse, or old housekeeper, serving in any of our families, had suddenly discovered a “racial conscience” and packed her bags; the Circolo dei Commercianti, where the lawyer Lattes had been vicepresident for over ten years-and which, as I must know, he still frequented, undisturbed, almost daily-hadn’t so far asked anyone to resign. And had Bruno Lattes, Leone Lattes’s boy, been expelled from the tennis club, by any chance?
(The Garden of the Finzi-Contini, by Giorgio Bassani; Atheneum, New York, year 1965; page 57 and 58).
Shortly after this conversation, he would be expelled from the Fascist Party, and he would also be expelled from the Merchants’ Circle to which he belonged.
♦The anguish of old age
Even being younger than Ermanno Finzi-Contini (the latter is seventy-three years old during the course of most of the story), constant concern about the tense situation in Europe altered his features to the point of giving him a haggard appearance. His eyes no longer expressed that confidence in the future that he used to had; instead, they expressed fear for the fate of his family. In this regard, his attempts to establish a conversation with his eldest son were useless. Loneliness gnawed at him, and he needed to vent on someone; precisely on his firstborn child. But it was not possible. With sadness he observed how the aforementioned walked away from him, and from his high school acquaintances, preferring the company of the Finzi-Contini, those people so different from them.
His son was in love with Micòl Finzi-Contini. This reality did not go unnoticed for him. But that girl didn’t care about him, she couldn’t do so. It was better this way. His dear son would realize, some day, that this was the true. There was nothing to do about it. Yes, his son would figure that this was the case, and he would stop hating him. It was a matter of time. Meanwhile, each day he would grew older, and older, contemplating how life slipped through his fingers having still three children to guide so they could get ahead in life.
The narrator
♦Childhood and puberty
When the story begins, the narrator goes back to the stage when he was a child to allude to the curiosity he felt for the Finzi-Contini, who he only saw in the Temple during the religious ceremonies. Those afternoons in the Italian synagogue never erased from his memory. He accurately describes his behavior, always restless, eager to find opportunities to speak with Professor Ermanno, or to grimace to Alberto and Micòl, all of them sitting on the back bench.
Already studying in the Public Gymnasium Lyceum, G.B Guaraní, being twelve years old, he still felt a peculiar affection for the Finzi-Contini, and for their secret life in the magna domus; that old mansion bought by Moisè Finzi-Contini. He especially had a keen interest in Micòl; always so cheerful and provocative.
There is an anecdote, as far as Micòl is concerned, which also remained engrave in his mind as well as the other memories of his childhood; a premonitory episode, we could say, of another one that would take place ten years later in the garage of the Finzi-Contini.
Having failed math at the end of the school year, extremely depressed and full of a feeling of shame, walking aimlessly at the exit of the Lyceum, he ended up in the vicinity of the Mura degli Angeli. He lay down on the grass, and hided his face on the fold of his elbow. At one point, he heard a noise that made him snap out of his reverie. Someone was there; it was Micòl, watching at him from the top of the wall.
Micòl was aware of the qualification he had obtained in the exam, and seeing him so sad she decided to invite him to the garden. They had to make sure that Perotti didn’t saw them, though; therefore he would have to enter by climbing the wall to drop himself on the other side. Micòl descended from the top of it to show him how to do it, and she also showed him a hidden cave in the vegetation so that he could put his bicycle in there before ascending the wall. The cave was deep, and he entered while Micòl, in the distance, gave him instructions to guide him in the darkness. When he reached the largest part of the cave, which resembled a chamber, he stopped, disturbed, thinking about Micòl; thinking about what might have happened between them if she had also been there, with him; wondering if he would had dared to kiss her, and what would had happened after that kiss; asking himself, in short, the same questions that he would ask himself years later after having remained inside the Finzi-Contini’s garage, with Micòl, sheltered from an intense storm.
♦Adulthood
As the narrator becomes a twenty-two-year-old man, his personality ends up being consolidated. His father knew how to define his temperament better than anyone. He resembled his grandmother Fanny, who was very sensitive and dreamy. It was true; that was his essence, and perhaps that was the reason why he had always leaned towards the profession of a man of letters. And, of course, that explained why he lived locked in his own thoughts, isolating himself from his acquaintances and taking refuge in books.
However, he was also stubborn; his beliefs could not change no matter what the opinions of others were. A proof of this was the tenacity with which he defended his views on political issues before Malnate, or the integrity with which he endured the discrimination he was subjected to as a Jewish.
But his weak point was, indeed, his sensitivity. He knew it well. He couldn’t help but harboring a deep affection for Alberto, despite the antipathy of this one; for Malnate, with whom more than once he was about to come to blows; and for Professor Ermanno, who, although he was an odd person, was so friendly with him. And it was also inevitable for him to love Micòl. He would have preferred not to fall in love with Micòl Finzi-Contini being aware of the disdain with which she treated him. But he was still attracted to that girl in the same way that he had been attracted to her as a childe. Micòl and her family were different from him, they belonged to another social class. Out of rebellion towards his father, which he himself recognized as such, he tried to get closer to the Finzi-Contini, and to become another member of their family. If he had never felt that strange admiration for the Finzi-Contini, Micòl herself, in any case, would have ended up seducing him with her tricks. The narrator would renounce his greatest illusion of forming a home with her only after having lost his dignity.
Scenarios
A)The Magna Domus
It is the mansion acquired by Moisè Finzi-Contini. Certain sectors of it are of great importance for the development of the novel.
The dining room It is a beautiful and enormous lounge, their walls are upholstered in leather except for one, completely made of glass, which allows to contemplate the park in its immensity. The furniture, of wood, have carved flower designs; from the great fireplace glints are given off that are reflected on the cristal objects. It is an intimate room designed to shelter the heart of young people of the house.
Alberto’s studio It is the sector of his apartment, separated from the bedroom, where he receives his guests. There is at least one single chair and a divan. Next to a window there is a metal-clad lamp that emittes indirect lights. The furniture is simple and modern. A disturbing atmosphere can be perceived in the studio due to the obsessive arrangement of the objects.
The billiard room It is the salon in which the narrator writes his thesis with the books provided by Ermanno Finzi-Contini. It is a large room, with excellent lighting thanks to its three windows; the billiard table is in the center.
Ermanno Finzi-Contini’s office It is a room adjoining the billiard salon and somewhat smaller than this. In it are several shelves full of books; a table, with other volumes; some chairs, also occupied by books; a big map on a wall; a microscope; a lectern; some barometers; an upright concert piano with two metronomes on its top; a steel safe; some objects specifically for scientific use; and a life-size portrait of his mother, Josette Artom, painted by Lembarch.
Micòl’s bedroom Against one of the walls there are three shelves containing various jars, boxes, and goblets; relics that Micòl acquired in shops in Venice. On another wall there is one more shelf but this one exclusively for the volumes of English and French literature, this shelf is located in the space between the only two windows of the bedroom. At the left of the same wall there is a desk with a lamp on its top; next to the desk we can see a small table on which her typewriter restes, and a last shelf containing a small collection of classical, contemporary and Italian literature, as well as several translations of Russian novels. A sofa and three armchairs, along with a nightstand, and a cart with thermos flasks complete the set of furniture. Finally, a Persian rug in the center of the room is the most exotic detail.
B) The Barchetto del Duca
We refer to the garden of ten hectares that surrounde the Magna Domus.
The tennis court The groud is in deplorable conditions, the metal nets are worn out, and the measures of the place are not adequate to play; between one game and another it is necessary to take long breaks to prepare the field.
The Hütte Several trees hid an isolated space from the rest of the park that serves as a locker room after tennis games; you can even take a shower in it.
The pier At one end of the garden, there is a small port with an exit to the Canal Pánfilo from which Alberto and Micòl used to sail in a small boat when they were children. This pier is hidden in the middle of the undergrowth.
Perotti’s country house It is Perotti’s family home. Nothing more is said about it.
The stable There is no description of this enclosure. It is visited only once by Micòl and the protagonist.
The garage It is a brick construction, with a half-water roof. Inside there is a shelf with lemons, and two cars; one of them is the old carriage that the Finzi-Contini had used long ago, the other is a modern car that happened to replace the previous one.
Similarities between fact and fiction
The identity of the storyteller is a mystery that is never revealed to us. His name is not written on any page of the novel. However, there are not a few persons who believe that the protagonist is Giorgio Bassani himself. This idea is the most common among readers mainly because of the novel’s prologue. In fact, examining in detail the life of Giorgio Bassani, and the characters of the novel, we find several points in common.
To begin with, Giorgio Bassani, like the protagonist, was of Jewish origin. His family consisted of his father (a doctor), his mother, and two siblings (a man and a woman). He studied letters at the University of Bologna, and graduated in 1939. His life developed, until his twenties, in the city of Ferrara. All these details coincide exactly with those referred to the protagonist of the novel.
There are also similarities about the Finzi-Contini. Some files have been found with the personal data of Jews who were transferred to concentration camps in Germany. The family that would have served as an inspiration to portray the Finzi-Contini would have been the Magrini[1], a well-known Jewish family within the Community. Silvio Magrini was the head of the family, and his children were Uberto and Giuliana, the former having died of leukemia as well as Alberto’s character. Silvio and his wife, Albertina, were reported in 1943. Giuliana, on the other hand, having married Marcelo Pesado in 1934, managed to escape this fate. According to the testimonies of Giuliana’s children, her mother was very different from the character of Micòl. Some investigations throw an hypothesis about who Micòl could have been in real life. It may have been Caterina Tumiati, sister of the writer Rosedal Tumiati. However, the information available in this regard is too scarce. On the other hand, Giorgio Bassani never claimed that the novel was self-referential.
Conclusion
The novel constitutes a touching story due to the drama that the protagonist, the Finzi-Contini, and the Jewish Community have to go through. After reading the first lines, the reader intuits that the end will be tragic for most of the characters after the Nazi’s genocide. The love between Micòl and the protagonist, though it never ceases to be dramatic, the bond between the latter with the rest of the members of the Finzi-Contini family, as well as his friendship with Giampero Malnate, represent the only nuances of tenderness and innocence in a narrative in which misery overshadows the pleasure that comes from reading. The exposition of the historical events that preceded the outbreak of the World War II, intertwined with the experiences of each character, express the state of uncertainty, and despondency in which they were immersed, as well as the impossibility of glimpsing a light of hope. The book is an historical document of the situation that prevailed in Europe at the time in which the novel is set; and it is also a clear description of how relationships of love and friendship can flourish and die out without us being able to prevent one situation or the other.
