BORGO DI TRAPPETO | Danilo Dolci

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He who is silent is an accomplice

A profile of Danilo Dolci

Danilo Dolci is born on 28 June 1924 in Sesana, in the province of Trieste, in a family of Enrico and Meli Kontelj, of Slovenian nationality. His father’s job of a railway employee led the family to Lombardy, where young Danilo completed his first studies. A voracious reader, his interests range from Plato’s Dialogues to the poets of German Romanticism and to the classics of Eastern thought. He is also passionate about music.

Although he had no relations with exponents of the clandestine opposition, Dolci soon developed a strong, albeit generic sense of aversion to fascism. In the Tortona area, where he lived in the early years of the conflict, he was kept under surveillance after he got caught for tearing down propaganda posters for the regime. In 1943, he refused to wear the republican uniform and was arrested in Genoa but then managed to escape by taking refuge in Abruzzo. “I reached Poggio Cancelli in the Roman Apennines, a village where I had shepherd friends”, he would remember many years later. “In a small inn-trazzera, people came in the evening, whole families, to participate in improvised octave contests. Their knowledge of nature and poetic experience was incredible […]. They knew how to observe, and yet express themselves. They spent winter in Maremma. They also knew Marino and Ariosto by heart”.

At the end of the conflict – after a brief stay in the capital, during which he attended university architecture courses and Ernesto Buonaiuti’s lectures – he returned to Milan, where he continued his studies at the Politecnico and met, among others, Bruno Zevi. The first works he published were two construction science manuals for architecture students…

Download the full document [biography of Giuseppe Barone]. [biografia di Giuseppe Barone]

Vincenzina Mangano, Danilo’s wife, who was engaged daily with her large family and often with the convivial reception of friends from many parts of the world, actively participated in fasts and other various initiatives promoted by the Study Centre. Her presence, discreet but at the forefront, was also a reference figure for the generation of women of the 1960s and 1970s, who hardly ever made uncomfortable and courageous choices, breaking with the clientelist-mafia system and dissenting against those governments that mismanaged public affairs.

An attentive, present, tireless and generous mother, she was a perfect example of how family commitment can be combined with public, civil and political commitment in the broadest sense.

[Libera Dolci]

Acknowledgements

1957
Lenin International Peace Prize (Soviet Union), which he accepted despite declaring that he was not a communist
1968
Honorary degree in Philosophy from the University of Bern
1969
Antonio Feltrinelli Prize (gold medal)
1969
Gold Medal of the Accademia dei Lincei for his work in spreading humanitarian and cultural values
1970
Sonning Prize of the University of Copenhagen "for his contribution to European civilisation"
1970
Socrates Prize of Stockholm for "his activity in favour of peace, for his contributions to the world in the field of education".
1975
Etna-Taormina Prize for Poetry
1979
Viareggio International Poetry Prize
1979
Gold Medal for Educational Work, Municipality of S. S. Giovanni (MI)
1989
Jamnalal Bajaj (India) International Gandhi Prize for the deepening of non-violent revolutionary values
1996
Honorary Degree in Educational Sciences from the University of Bologna

Bibliography

categoria biblio

La forza della nonviolenza

[Libri su Danilo]

Banditi a Partinico

[Libri di Danilo]

Danilo Dolci e la via della nonviolenza

[Libri su Danilo]

Processo all’articolo 4

[Libri di Danilo]

Ciò che ho imparato e altri scritti di Danilo Dolci

[Libri su Danilo]

Inchiesta a Palermo

[Libri di Danilo]

Lettere 1952-1968

[Libri su Danilo]

Spreco

[Libri di Danilo]

Danilo Dolci. Attualità profetica

[Libri su Danilo]

Conversazioni

[Libri di Danilo]

Danilo Dolci, una rivoluzione nonviolenta

[Libri su Danilo]

Racconti siciliani

[Libri di Danilo]

Borgo di Dio. La Sicilia di Danilo Dolci

[Libri su Danilo]

Conversazioni Contadine

[Libri di Danilo]

Chi gioca solo

[Libri di Danilo]

L’educazione irripetibile

[Libri su Danilo]

Danilo Dolci, lo speleologo dell’umano

[Libri su Danilo]

Inventare il futuro

[Libri di Danilo]

Esperienza di una maieutica planetaria

[Libri su Danilo]

Il limone lunare

[Libri di Danilo]

Danilo Dolci e l’utopia possibile

[Libri su Danilo]

Non sentite l’odore del fumo

[Libri di Danilo]

Conversazioni con Danilo Dolci

[Libri su Danilo]

Chissà se i pesci piangono

[Libri di Danilo]

Piantare uomini

[Libri su Danilo]

Poema umano

[Libri di Danilo]

Danilo Dolci. Verso un mondo nuovo, mediterraneo

[Libri su Danilo]

Esperienze e riflessioni

[Libri di Danilo]

Non esiste il silenzio

[Libri di Danilo]

Il Dio delle zecche

[Libri di Danilo]

Creatura di creature. Poesie 1949-1978

[Libri di Danilo]

Il ponte screpolato

[Libri di Danilo]

Da bocca a bocca

[Libri di Danilo]

Palpitare di nessi

[Libri di Danilo]

Dal trasmettere al comunicare

[Libri di Danilo]

Sorgente e progetto

[Libri di Danilo]

Nessi fra esperienza etica e politica

[Libri di Danilo]

La legge come germe musicale

[Libri di Danilo]

La comunicazione di massa non esiste

[Libri di Danilo]

La struttura maieutica e l’evolverci

[Libri di Danilo]

Comunicare, legge della vita

[Libri di Danilo]

Se gli occhi fioriscono

[Libri di Danilo]

Gente semplice

[Libri di Danilo]

Girando per case e botteghe

[Libri di Danilo]

Un cosmo vivo. Poesie 1968-1996

[Libri di Danilo]