Born in Pisa in 1946, he had studied philosophy with Cesare Luporini. He arrived in via Solferino in 1989 where he became editor-in-chief of the cultural pages
He could recall with vaporous syntheses a lesson by Cesare Luporini, his philosophy teacher at the University of Florence, and immediately afterwards slip into a comparative analysis of Italian and American noir novels. Or draw parallels between the protonazi ferments in the Weimar Republic, punished beyond measure by the victors of the Great War, and the eclipse of a certain popular spirit in Greece (where it had its home on the island of Simi) due to the economic strangulation decided by Brussels with the crisis of 2009. Or take care of the militant writings of Luis Seplveda, not disdaining to dedicate an essay to the songs of Vasco Rossi. And at the Milanese restaurant Rigolo in Largo Treves, after having perhaps related friends about the films not awarded at Cannes, he was always ready to compete, humming the tunes of remote Sanremo Festivals.
He held this together and much more, Ranieri Polese Remaggi, crushed in Milan on August 14 by a severe illness against which he fought for five years. Born in Pisa in 1946 into a cultured bourgeois family (his father, a lawyer-humanist, his brother, Luigi, an orientalist with a professorship in Tokyo) and lived until maturity in Florence, he wrote about the Nation and the European, arriving in 1989 to the cultural pages of Corriere della Sera, the reign of Giulio Nascimbeni, the historic signature of via Solferino.
Alongside the old parn Polese worked for several years, perfecting the Corriere style that was already inherent in him, before taking the helm of the editorial staff himself. Since then he has enriched the newspaper with the infinite discoveries he derived from a high-class culture and from his curiosities as an omnivorous and multilingual reader (he spoke English, German and French), eager for novelty. Especially if they didn’t come from the swamped academic world, which he didn’t like.
An eclecticism that allowed him to mix high and low of literature, theater, cinema (he was in the critics’ union since the seventies and was among the selectors at the Venice Biennale), music and any form of art, more or less traditional, experimental or alternative, provided it anticipated the spirit of the time. In short, Ranieri Polese welcomed everything. Without laziness or snobbery, with generosity even towards the latest arrivals on the public scene because, in addition to having the genius of friendship, he was indeed generous.
A canon of authenticity and freedom to which it was consistent until the last. This is proved by the themes that, in his capacity as editor-in-chief, he had his colleagues explore, as well as the themes he explored personally, as a correspondent and columnist. Scrolling through those pages of the Corriere now allows you to compose his intellectual and moral portrait. An important profile, which is completed with some of his books (for example You call them if you want … e For a kiss of love, published by Archinto), proved to be much more than refined divertissements on the literary debts of the songs. On him, then, a supplement of knowledge is offered by the collection ofGuanda Almanac, which he has cared for for years and in which his civil passions have reverberated.
A few weeks ago, as if by chance, Ranieri he asked me on the phone if I knew the French poet Paul-Jean Toulet. I was amazed because I knew him, and well: in the sixties he was almost an infatuation for me. When he put me to the test by starting to recite his most famous verses, Friend sleep, tomorrow your soul / the flight will take higher / Sleep …, and he heard me complete the poem from memory, he kept silent, putting down the receiver with a cough and a hello. was his way of saying goodbye.
August 14, 2021 (change August 14, 2021 | 09:30)
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