If Da Verona, Pitigrilli and Mariani represent the more "transgressive" wing of successful writers in the XNUMXs, with their novels tinged with pornography and sometimes with ideals distant from those of the regime, see Mario Mariani in this regard, there is no shortage of writers politically more reassuring, both in terms of content and ideological aspect. They respond to the names of Virgilio Brocchi, Salvator Gotta, Lucio D'Ambra, Guido Milanesi and others.
What we see this time is Virgilio Brocchi, a writer with romantic tones, sometimes languidly sentimental, suitable for petty bourgeois readers, even if mildly based on socialist-reformist and Christian ideals.
He comes from a wealthy family from Bassano del Grappa, his father is a lawyer, but he was born in the province of Rieti in 1876. He completed his classical studies between Cremona and Padua, where he graduated in literature. He immediately began his long and troubled career as a teacher around Italy, as was the custom then, and partly even today. He moved from Modica, in Sicily, to Macerata, from Bologna to Milan, alternating the duties of teaching with those of an essayist and literary and artistic critic, with not despicable writings. Already at the age of 21 he published a work on a seventeenth-century novelist; in the following years essays on Zola, Hugo, Petrarca, Goldoni and others were published. But this promising start as a critic and essayist was interrupted in the early twentieth century, when his passion for fiction prevailed.
Debut in fiction
Thus began in the early twentieth century, just twenty-five, the activity of writer, while continuing to teach in high schools, a profession that will continue until the twenties.
The first works come out, which, as often happens to beginners, are to be forgotten and which the writer, once they have achieved success, will repudiate and prevent their reprinting. One of these was published in 1901 by the publisher Giannotta of Catania, behind a contribution for the publication of 300 lire, while he was teaching at the technical institute of Modica.
His real debut as a narrator took place in 1906 with a novel, The Eagles, published by Treves, who is the most important publisher of the period. The book meets a lukewarm reception, the stuff of a very few thousand copies over more than ten years. And on those levels, as a writer known only to a limited number of readers, Brocchi also remained with his subsequent works.
In 1911 it was the turn of The Sounding Island, which broadens his notoriety to the public a little. However the novel, which can be considered a significant testimony on the social, political and religious conditions in Northern Italy, benefits from a favorable review by Ettore Janni. At the time he was one of the most promising critics in the country, and his intervention in the "Corriere della Sera" in 1911 gave him greater visibility. Another critic, then young but very promising, GABorgese, grasps in the events and characters of the novel appreciable ideas on the themes at the center of the country's political, philosophical and religious debate: socialism, positivism and modernism. These are the ideals to which Brocchi himself adheres with full conviction, and for which he then concretely commits himself within the socialist party, when he enters as councilor for higher education in the socialist junta of Milan presided over by Caldara, which governs the city from 1914 to 1920.
But the editions of the books remain quite limited: Brocchi appears as a writer with good potential, endowed with a pleasant and captivating type of writing, with contents that are influenced by the echoes of Fogazzaro and above all of Rovetta, a writer the latter perhaps culpably forgotten by our times. He is animated by sincere ideals, but is still far from the masses of readers. In the first two decades of the century these continued to favor other narrators, including Luciano Zuccoli, Carolina Invernizio, Annie Vivanti, De Amicis, the just mentioned Fogazzaro and Rovetta, while the popularity of Guido Da Verona is exploding, who will outclass everyone, waiting that his name was accompanied by that of Pitigrilli from 1920 onwards.
Success comes with Mitì
In 1917 the great public success finally arrives. And this is due to Miti. The title seems echo that of Mimi Bluette by Guido Da Verona, released the previous year, which is depopulating throughout the country, even among the soldiers at the front, where it manages to give substance to dreams of escape in the terrible moments of Caporetto. But the juxtaposition between the two novels is only in the name of the protagonist, because then they have nothing else in common. As well as the two authors. Miti in fact it is a tender love story, made up of romance and good feelings: one of those that every reader secretly dreams of and would like to live.
This novel brings Brocchi to the attention of the general public, and is confirmed immediately after by other works that come out regularly in the following years: According to my heart in 1919, The place in the world in 1921, Destiny in hand in 1923, Netty of 1924 and others still later.
The move to Mondadori
The success of Miti and subsequent novels determines, as always happens, a revival of interest in previous works. And so The Eagles from the distant 1906, which until then had sold a few thousand copies in over ten years, are rediscovered and re-proposed to the attention of the public. In this way they reach 60.000 copies, which could have been 100.000 if they had been reprinted in time when they ran out, as Brocchi himself will admit in his memoirs (confidences, 1946). This circumstance determines a cooling of the writer towards his traditional publisher, Treves, and the convinced approach to what in the first post-war period is proving to be the rising star of publishing: Arnoldo Mondadori.
In 1922, the two formed a close partnership, with mutual benefit. Brocchi will be the first successful author to enter the Mondadori team, and will play the role of attraction for a large group of other writers. And he will be reciprocated with particular attention from the publisher, both from a human and professional point of view. A common ideological matrix also unites the two: they are both socialists. Even Mondadori, which began its activity way back in 1907, has socialist ideas and training, and the understanding between the two is truly successful.
From this moment Brocchi abandoned the political activity that kept him very busy, and also abandoned teaching, to devote himself exclusively to fiction. From now on, all his books will be published by the Veronese-Milanese publisher, with the prominence they deserve, adequate promotion, impeccable and punctual distribution, effective advertising, synergy with the house magazines: all characteristics that stand making Arnoldo Mondadori the largest Italian publisher.
The most read Italian writer at the end of the XNUMXs
From the mid-100s onwards, when Da Verona's fortunes began to decline and Pitigrilli devoted himself more to magazines than to books, Brocchi rose to the top of the book market, as acknowledged by another prince of the critics of the time, Antonio Baldini, which from the columns of the "Corriere della sera" proclaims him the most read Italian writer of the period. A statement that weighs heavily, and which is confirmed by the circulations of the various books: on average from 160.000 to XNUMX copies per title for the most successful books. Of course, it is half of those of the major best sellers of Da Verona and Pitigrilli, but in those years it certainly placed it at the top of the book market, where it will remain for a long time to come.
Brocchi, for his part, does not rest on his laurels and continues undaunted to turn out the books punctually, at the rate of one a year, sometimes even more. In all there will be about sixty. They are grouped together in cycles, usually trilogies and quadrilogies, so that readers know in which context the events will take place, with what type of writing they will be narrated, which characters they will find, and so on, even before buying. We recall some of them: the cycle of the "Sounding Island", of the "Son of Man", "Of the chaste books of women who loved me", "Of the anxiety of the eternal", "Of the novels of the pleasure of telling " and others.
This practice, i.e. of including the novels in more or less long series, was also taken up by other writers, such as for example Lucio D'Ambra and Salvator Gotta. The latter will incontrovertibly have the primacy, as the author of a saga, the saga of the "Vela", made up of over 20 titles!
Virgilio Brocchi's novels are liked, his characters are loved, so much so that each new release becomes an unmissable appointment for readers. His elegant prose, flat, captivating like few others, reassures both bourgeois and popular audiences, indulges them in their deepest tastes and expectations. And from now on, the titles that come out always reach the top of the book market.
The production of Brocchi for children, which today we would call young adults, is also prolific. Excellently illustrated and carefully edited editorially, they were an instant success to such an extent that they became the major bestsellers of the Venetian author
A long series of successes
Thus the books he publishes are reprinted several times, albeit with a progressive reduction in circulation as the decades go by. But Brocchi never loses that hard core of readers who find narrative models of sure impact in him. Even in the fifties and sixties, in which many authors of the period are now forgotten, there are still quite a number of readers who continue to read his novels.
Brocchi also composes children's books, completely forgotten today, but which at the time achieved even greater success than his major bestsellers. We mention among them The story of Allegretto and Serenella, released in 1920 and sold in hundreds of thousands of copies, as is also the case for the other titles that make up the series of children's books.
Having settled permanently on the Ligurian coast, Brocchi also spent his last years engaging in environmental battles, such as the one for the protection of the territory of Nervi, where he resides.
He died in 1961 at the age of 85, after an industrious life full of satisfactions, dedicated largely, but not only, to writing.
