Edmondo De Amicis's bestselling and
iconic 19th century children's novel Cuore, a staple of
essential Italian youth reading till the present day, was
acquitted Saturday night of charges of over-sentimentality and
boosting nationalist fervour in the traditional Historic Trial
staged each summer at Villa Torlonia at San Mauro Pascoli near
Forlì in Romagna.
At the mock trial, which in the past has featured figures and
works including Garibaldi, Julius Caesar, Mazzini and cult
Fellini film I Vitelloni, Cuore was defended by ex Udine
university literature lecturer Giampaolo Borghello who told the
jury: "Cuore aims to be an edifying book, one of passionate
exaltation of the Good, of willpower and altruism".
The landmark novel was acquitted by 443 votes to 126, with 146
abstentions.
Bologna university lecture Roberto Balzani, in demanding a
guilty verdict for the 1886 work on charges of simplistic
moralism and over-sentimental nationalism in the wake of Italian
reunification, said in his final appeal to the jury: "I ask for
the condemnation of De Amicis, not because he was incapable of
writing a work on Italian unification for use in schools, but
because he deliberately preferred to sweeten reality".
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