Leo Longanesi

Early life and career

Born in Bagnacavallo, Longanesi was the son of Paolo Longanesi, director of a gunpowder factory in Lugo, and Angela Marangoni, who came from a local, wealthy landowning family. In 1911, when Leo was six, the Longanesi family moved to Bologna, where, in keeping with the family's affluence, Leo attended the most prestigious school and learned French at the Liceo Galvani. In 1920, at the age of 15, Leo wrote his first printed sheet, Il Marchese, followed by the monthly magazines È permesso…? Zibaldone dei giovani (1921), Il Toro (1923), and Il Dominio (1924). After high school, he earned a bachelor's degree in law at the University of Bologna.

Once graduated, Longanesi developed his social connections by joining the city's worldly elite, literary cafés, and nighthawk pubs. He became friends with leading intellectuals like Galvano Della Volpe, Giorgio Morandi and Vincenzo Cardarelli, as well as with young rising politicians like Leandro Arpinati, Dino Grandi and Italo Balbo. During this time, Longanesi developed his interest in politics, and began collaborating with L'Assalto (transl. "The Assault"), a fascist newspaper in Bologna, in 1924. In the same year he met Mino Maccari, a famous painter, who introduced him to Rome's cultural circles. With Maccari and popular writer Curzio Malaparte, Longanesi began a cultural movement called Strapaese (literally "great country"), which believed Italian Fascism to be the bearer of rural traditions and patriotic virtues.

Living between Rome and Bologna, Longanesi worked with the magazine Il Selvaggio (transl. "The Savage") from 1925 to 1929, and ran his weekly magazine L'Italiano (transl. "The Italian") from 1926 to 1942. Headquartered first in Bologna and then in Rome, the magazine saw collaborators such as Maccari, American playwright Henry Furst, and writer Giovanni Comisso, former legionnaire of Fiume with Gabriele D'Annunzio. Around the same period, Benito Mussolini was establishing his police state, banning opposition parties, and imposing a cult of personality based on his figure (the Duce) and the National Fascist Party. Longanesi and his collaborators grew close to the new regime, and started a cultural debate on the relationship between the arts and Fascism. In 1926 Longanesi wrote his first great work, the "Vade-mecum of the perfect fascist". The book expresses, with the motto "Mussolini ha sempre ragione" (transl. "Mussolini is always right"), a mix of adoration and caricature of Mussolini's dictatorship. During Mussolini's regime (from 1926 to 1943), Longanesi was both loyal and critical to Fascism, and was ironic about the Battle for Grain (a self-sufficiency campaign for wheat production), the mystification of Ancient Rome, and fascist imperialist dreams on Africa.

On 18 February 1939, shortly after the closure of Omnibus, Longanesi married Maria Spadini, daughter of Armando Spadini, whom he knew through Vincenzo Cardarelli, former L'Italiano journalist. In their marriage Longanesi had three children: Virginia (born 19 December 1939), Caterina (born 25 December 1941) and Paolo (born 6 April 1945).

While at home, Longanesi explored his passion for painting, causing some arguments with his wife for his surrealistic works. He believed in traditional and superstitious cures, such as using rabbit skin to treat sciatica.

Post-war, political activism and death

In January 1946, Longanesi moved to Milan with his family, while his parents moved to Imola. Shortly after, Longanesi accepted an offer from industrialist Giovanni Monti and founded the publishing house Longanesi & Co. on 1 February 1946 and simultaneously published Il Libraio (transl. "The Bookseller"), a bibliographic magazine, from 1946 to 1949. Politically, Longanesi became a prominent opponent of the new republican democracy that replaced Fascism, stating that,

Italy is a democracy in which one third of the citizens sigh for the past dictatorship, another wait for the Soviet one, and the last are conforming with the next of the Christian Democrats.

In his pieces, he pokes fun both at anti-fascists ("There is who believe to be an anti-fascist only because Fascism never noticed him") and ex-fascists reused in the new system ("There is a question we must never say, 'Where we have met before?'").

Longanesi was also a staunch anti-communist. During the 1948 election, fearing a victory of the Soviet-sponsored Popular Democratic Front, Longanesi and Montanelli campaigned for the "less worse" Christian Democracy (DC), printing and publishing pamphlets, fliers, posters and hosting Radio Garibaldi, an illegal FM transmission in Milan. After the defeat of the Front, Longanesi left Il Libraio, and in 1950 founded the magazine Il Borghese, collaborating with Montanelli, Giovanni Ansaldo, Giuseppe Prezzolini, Giovanni Spadolini, Alberto Savinio, Mario Tedeschi, Ennio Flaiano, Colette Rosselli, Irene Brin, Goffredo Parise, Mario Missiroli and Piero Buscaroli. In Longanesi's view, Il Borghese should be an expression of a new right-wing anti-communist movement, who he named "Brothers of Italy's League", and organized political circles in several cities. The movement grew rapidly, attracting both unsatisfied voters and those who had been excluded from the 1950s economic miracle, especially farmers. Longanesi and his followers feared that the new media culture and consumerism would destroy traditions, disfigure the Italian landscape and brutalize culture. They also criticized the nullification of classes. Longanesi was harshly critical of the government, calling it unable to balance old traditions and modernity, and of the democratic policy of universal suffrage, stating:

The danger to democracies is universal suffrage to the masses. Giving liberty to the masses means losing liberty.

In the early 1950s, Longanesi tried to transform his movement into a large right-wing party, formed by former Fascists, monarchists, Catholics, liberals and conservatives. He also visited Achille Lauro, mayor of Naples and advocate of the Monarchist National Party, to convince him to join and finance the movement, but Lauro's refusal and Longanesi's lack of political ambition lead the project to fail. However, Longanesi still supported the idea of a national party, and in 1955 he organized a conference titled "What is the right[-wing] in Italy?".

His criticisms both of government and of neo-fascists led to his isolation. In 1956, Monti proposed separation between Il Borghese and Longanesi & Co., and Longanesi's refusal was used to justify ousting him from the administration council. Due to an unknown connection in Confindustria, as reported by Ansaldo, Longanesi was able to maintain Il Borghese by himself, paying ₤5,000,000. Ansaldo later always claimed that Monti's operation was forced by governing pressures, especially from President Giovanni Gronchi, a left-leaning Christian Democrat who personally disliked Longanesi and Il Borghese, and hoped that without money it would be closed and Longanesi ruined.

On 27 September 1957, Longanesi suffered a heart attack while in his office. It was reported that his last words were: "That is, exactly as I always hoped: quickly and among my things".

He died soon after being transported to a clinic. His death was grieved by his few living friends, including Benedetti; Montanelli, future founder of Il Giornale; and Spadolini, future first non-Christian Democrat Prime Minister of the Italian Republic.