Casa giocosa. L’antologia di Ernesto Codignola, Eurialo De Michelis e Raffaello Ramat

Abstract

In 1940, La Nuova Italia published Casa giocosa, an anthology of Italian edited by Ernesto Codignola, Eurialo De Michelis, and Raffaello Ramat, and illustrated with drawings by the artist Virgilio Guzzi. The three editors, considered to be suspected of anti-fascist sympathies, tackled the task of assembling a collection for students in the newly established middle school, at a time when questions were being raised about the creation of a new literary canon and the opening of school textbooks to contemporary twentieth-century authors. This article analyzes the architecture and cultural criteria underlying the selection of texts, demonstrating how, through the proposed reading path, a conception of literary education and the image of childhood emerges that, despite the constraints of the political context of the time, reveals significant elements of intellectual autonomy and pedagogical renewal.