The project aims to analyze the physiognomy and action of institutional censorship (initially regulated by Bill 407 of December 12, 1944) of the Republican period, which limited the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Constitution with preventive actions (for the show business sector) and repressive (for the press, censurable only once was published).
G. Andreotti, head of the office from 1948 to1953, set the tone by employing the old MinCulPop censors and the principles of Pius XI¿s Vigilanti cura encyclical (1936). Post-war Italian culture (writers, directors, screenwriters) was conditioned not only through promotions and failures but also in terms of critical judgment.
In order to understand the phenomenon, which was uneven due to the several sectors involved (cinema, theater, literature, television, radio, press) and the cultures in play (the old fascist culture, now outlawed; the communist or socialist one, especially in the harsh phases of Cold War) and because of the almost infinite variations and evolutions of the so-called ¿common sense of decency¿, we have decided to devote this research to the years of the so-called First Republic (1946-1989).
In addition to reconstructing the institutional workings (legal arrangements; structure and composition), of the sectors affected (cinema, theater, literature, radio and television), the debate it aroused (magazines, pamphlets), the lexicon that characterized it (construction of a glossary), this research also includes censorship cases divided into 4 sections (literature, cinema, theater, radio and television), each organized in the following levels: 1) subjects of censorship (works or authors); 2) biographical and intellectual profile of censors; 3) mechanisms of production (publishing, theatrical, cinematographic, radio and television) in relation to the institutional machine; 4) census, inventory and cataloging of archival collections in accordance with the Central State Archives.
