Serena Dandini (photo by Gianmarco Chieregato).
THEOctober 15th is centenary of the birth of Italo Calvino. The author, as the biographies state, was born in Cuba, to be precise in Santiago de Las Vegas in 1923, and returned to Italy at the age of two with his parents together with a large quantity of kiwi seeds, of grapefruits and various varieties of palm trees that had not yet been seen in our country.
AND if today Liguria is the land of flowersrich in extraordinary vegetation, it is due to their incredible work and to the inexhaustible passion with which they have studied and cared for plants throughout their lives.
Yes, because Italo’s parents were two renowned botanists and in particular the career of Eva Mamelithe mother, is to be counted among those of exceptional women: the so-called pioneers who paved the way for generations of girls.
Born in Sassari in 1886 she was among the first women to attend a public high school, and still among the first in Italy to graduate in Natural Sciences obtaining a teaching qualification in a subject not recommended for marriageable girls.
But despite the great successes in 1920 Eva decides to leave for Cubacertainly for the love of her future husband but also to discover with him the wonders of tropical vegetation and reveal its secrets.
The couple led the Agronomic Experimental Station of Santiago de las Vegas for five years – where Italo was born – and once she returns to Italy she directs the Experimental Floriculture Station of Sanremo, a small paradise to which they also annex their large garden: a place of botanical experiments and discoveries where little Italo grows in contact with nature.
Eva studies, travels, teaches, founds and directs magazineshas another son (Floriano) and signs more than two hundred publications.
During the Second World War the Calvinos give help and refuge to Jews and anti-fascists, and the two sons join the ranks of the partisans. More than once the Nazis simulate the shooting of the couple to steal information, but they resist like the most stubborn rose plants.
Eva Mameli Calvino under the microscope and, in the background, her son Italo. Photo from the Mario and Eva Mameli Calvino Fund courtesy of the “F.Corradi” Civic Library of the Municipality of Sanremo
There is a photo of Eva seeing her at her work table: a microscope in the foreground and various notebooks scattered everywhere together with vases full of beautiful flowers, in the background little Italo intent perhaps on doing his homework, but certainly on absorbing this wonderful maternal legacy.
Reread in this new light The Baron in the Treeswhose protagonist lives and travels only on trees – which unfortunately have now been deforested – is certainly a more complete and exciting experience.
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