Having joined the ‘Giustizia e Libertà’ movement as early as 1931, Levi was arrested for the first time in March 1934 on suspicion of antifascist activity. A year later, in May 1935, following a tip-off from the writer Dino Segre (better known by the pseudonym Pitigrilli), he was arrested a second time.
Sentenced to internal exile in the Lucanian village of Grassano, he was then transferred to the small town of Aliano, in the province of Matera: his cousin Paola Levi, sister of Natalia Ginzburg, went with him.
In 1936 the Fascist regime granted him a pardon. Levi moved to France for a few years, where he continued his political activity in opposition to the dictatorship.
He returned to Italy in 1943, called to edit, together with other members of the Partito d’Azione, ‘La Nazione del Popolo’, the organ of the Tuscan Committee of National Liberation.
After the war he alternated literary and intellectual work with painting and political commitment, for which he served as a senator in two legislatures.
Levi died in Rome on 4 January 1975 and was buried in Aliano.
This was a promise he had made to the inhabitants when he left the village: to return to the community that had been decisive for his civic, political and human formation.
The Gagliano in which the novel Christ Stopped at Eboli is set is, in fact, none other than the little village of Aliano.
It is in the name of this union of extraordinary value, in some ways unique in the panorama of Italian culture, that the Literary Park was born.
Visitors who, out of curiosity, wish to discover and remember the so-called ‘Levi places’ need only reach the village. Among those narrow lanes and houses that still powerfully recall the years described in the novel, they can follow an evocative itinerary – a veritable sentimental journey – that leads from the Casa di Confino to the Pinacoteca, and then on to the Museum of Peasant Civilisation and the artistic nativity scene of the master Francesco Artese.
The ‘Carlo Levi’ Literary Park is made up of hospitality, guided tours, events and performances. Its calendar includes food and wine activities and crafts, all strongly tied to the area, which have become a point of reference in the local cultural scene.
The Park’s initiatives aim to recover and enhance local identity, culture, history and traditions; to carry out programmes aimed at spreading knowledge of literature, the visual arts and the performing arts; and to promote studies, research, conferences, publications, exhibitions, performances, competitions and literary prizes of particular interest. All in the name of one of the most important intellectual figures of our contemporary history: a writer whose memory must absolutely be kept alive, also and above all among the younger generations.
Behind the low wall two slender cypresses rose; through the gate the tombs could be seen, white under the sun. The cemetery was the farthest limit, at the top, of the ground I was allowed. The view from up there was wider than from any other point, and less dreary.
Not all of Gagliano could be seen, for it lies hidden like a long serpent crouching among the stones; but the red-yellow roofs of the upper part appeared among the grey fronds of the olive trees, stirred by the wind out of their usual stillness, like living things; and, behind this coloured foreground, the great desolate expanses of clay seemed to undulate in the warm air as if suspended from the sky; and over their monotonous whiteness passed the changing shadow of the summer clouds. The lizards lay motionless on the sunlit wall; one or two cicadas answered each other now and then, as if trying out a song, and then suddenly fell silent.
from the Park’s website
https://www.parcolevi.it
To get to Aliano, see:
https://www.cittadellolio.it/citta/aliano/
