Progress and Reaction in Early Italian SF

Abstract

The publication of Paolo Mantegazza’s The Year 3000: A Dream [L’anno 3000: Sogno, 1897] should be viewed within the context of a recent reevaluation and growing interest in Italian science fiction, as demonstrated by the current issue of SFS and a 2014 issue of the online journal Reading Italy. Moreover, the significance of this particular volume is that it represents the first translation of Mantegazza’s novel into English. Even in Italy, only two contemporary editions of the original text exist: one from 1988, published by Lubrina, and the second (published by Lupetti) which appeared in 2007. The English edition of the novel is preceded by a detailed introduction written by the volume’s editor, Nicoletta Pireddu. According to Pireddu, the polymath Paolo Mantegazza (1831-1910)—with publications in science, politics, pedagogy, and aesthetics—was a popular figure in the Western world during his lifetime, quoted by such luminaries as Darwin and Freud. Pireddu views Mantegazza as a prominent contributor to Italian science fiction, which, although less conspicuous and compact in comparison to its foreign counterparts, had been decisively stimulated by a variety of causes in the latenineteenth century. In fact, Pireddu cites three factors that contradict the popular theory that the slow pace of Italian industrialization, compared to other European nations, delayed the development of Italian science fiction, which by the end of the nineteenth century appeared in a substantial output of novels and short fiction and subsequently became an authentic cultural phenomenon. First, numerous translations of foreign works—such as those of Verne and Wells—encouraged a growing number of eager young Italian authors to experiment with the genre. Second, the production of Italian science fiction was also inspired by scientific discoveries of the period, such as Schiaparelli’s 1877 observation of the “Mars channels.” Third, Italian science fiction indubitably felt the impetus of the rapid industrialization that, especially in Northern Italy, led to other crucial cultural repercussions, such as the first Futurist Manifesto. Even Emilio Salgari—best known for penning exotic adventures set in the South Seas—made forays into science fiction—e.g., with Le meraviglie del Duemila [The Wonders of Two Thousand, 1907], an implicit reference, in Pireddu’s opinion, to Mantegazza, with whom Salgari was undoubtedly familiar. At a time when Italian science fiction did not yet have a longstanding tradition, Mantegazza was very much aware of the genre’s established topoi, situations, and structural elements that had appeared in previous works of