Italian writers on war and militarism

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Italian writers on war and militarism

Vittorio Alfieri: The infamous trade of soldier, the sole basis of all arbitrary authority

Vittorio Alfieri: Thousands immolated on the altar of despotism, slaves born but to fertilize the soil

Pietro Aretino: Overjoyed at statue of Peace and her flames burning up arms of war

Pietro Aretino: Proper task, the giving of a beginning to peace and an end to wars

Ludovico Ariosto: Cast new weapons into the hell from which they came

Giambattista Basile: “To war, to war”: Tavern warriors

Giuseppe Berto: Selections on war

Giuseppe Berto: Bombing produced cities of the dead

Giuseppe Berto: A fable: The war was going well, the war was going badly

Giuseppe Berto: It was a good night for an air raid. Somewhere or other there would be terror and death and destruction.

Giuseppe Berto: No one truly survives war

Giuseppe Berto: One of the fruits of war, that people should feel so alone and desolate

Giuseppe Berto: Orphaned by the bombs

Giuseppe Berto: The sound of the bombs whistling, the sounds of human suffering, the groans, the screams, the agonized appeals

Giuseppe Berto: Stop destroying so many good things that existed on earth simply in order to slaughter each other

Giuseppe Berto: Then the war passed over our countryside

Giuseppe Berto: A universal evil has given them the power to kill unknown people, people very like themselves

Giuseppe Berto: War destroys the soul even when it spares the body

Giovanni Boccaccio: Avarice armed mankind in violence

Baldassare Castiglione: Leaders must prepare their people for peace, not war

Baldassare Castiglione: Sabine peace

Benvenuto Cellini: War kept behind closed doors

Dante: The decree of peace the centuries wept for

Dante: The fate of those who deal in bloodshed and in pillaging

Dante: In earlier eras wars were carried on by swords

Alessandro Manzoni: The havoc of war devastated the state

Eugenio Montale: Poetry in an era of nuclear weapons and Doomsday atmosphere

Alberto Moravia: Selections on war

Alberto Moravia: “Ah well, war is war, you know”

Alberto Moravia: Even in uniform and with a chest covered with medals, always a thief and a murderer

Alberto Moravia: That is what war is like, the war is everywhere

Alberto Moravia: Torn colored posters inciting people to war

Alberto Moravia: War destroys all things seen and unseen

Alberto Moravia: War survives in our souls long after it is over

Cesare Pavese: Every war is a civil war

Cesare Pavese: A moment of peace, to be reborn into a bloodless world

Petrarch: Return, O heaven-born Peace!

Petrarch: Wealth and power at a bloody rate is wicked, better bread and water eat with peace

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Holy peace wherein men become angels

Salvatore Quasimodo: In every country a cultural tradition opposes war

Ignazio Silone: Resorting to the bloody diversion of war

Ignazio Silone: They have been warned of wars and rumors of wars

Ignazio Silone: War with today’s hereditary enemy

Torquato Tasso: Pastoral refuge from war

Torquato Tasso: War’s devouring minister, the sword

Giovanni Verga: The Mother of Sorrows

Giambattista Vico: Mars, the vilest of the gods

Elio Vittorini: Dialogue between a dead soldier and his brother

Elio Vittorini: Slaughter perpetrated in the world; one man cries and another laughs