Persistenze e mutamenti nell’Italia postfascista: il caso Aldo Braibanti

Abstract

The thesis is divided into two macro-sections. The first section deals with the analysis of the evolution of Italian sexual behaviour in the period between the birth of the Republic and the end of the 1960s. The second section examines a specific case study, the Braibanti case. The objective is to provide an interpretation of the process of sexual liberalisation that takes into account the persistence of stereotypes and taboos of a fascist origin even in the new democratic order. To this end the thesis integrates official discourses on public morality with the discourses on sexuality spread by consumer publishing (newspapers, magazines) and media. The study employs a methodology which combines the historiographic category of “continuità dello Stato” used by historian Claudio Pavone with cultural history. The seven chapters of the thesis analyze: post-World War II Italian sexual morality, the irruption of sex in public debate, homosexuality in post-World War II Italy, the life of Aldo Braibanti, the trial against Braibanti and the letters the poet wrote from prison, the reactions of intellectuals and the press to Braibanti’s sentence, the poet’s release from prison, and the memory of the case.