Before the First War (1967), when Austria was a well-ordered country (1969) and we paid our respects to the figure of Poor Old Franz (1985) by singing Serbidiòla (1964) and Viva l’A. (1983), We from the old provinces (1971) would sometimes get up to some Maldobrie (1966).

The story of “La Cittadella”, the satirical newspaper directed and edited for 54 years – from 1947 to 2001 – by Carpinteri and Faraguna, first as a standalone publication and then as a weekly supplement to the revived “Il Piccolo”, is in itself extraordinary for its longevity and continuity.

The theatre is another area in which the “Premiata Ditta” C&F has enjoyed extraordinary success. The so-called Maldobrie cycle, staged in the first half of the 1970s – Le Maldobrie (1970), Noi delle vecchie province (1972), L’Austria era un paese ordinato (1974) – drew no fewer than sixty thousand people to the Politeama Rossetti over the course of nearly eighty performances in total.

“The Noneto from Co’ ierimo putei and Serbidiòla were created for the radio; the telephone exchanges for the Pronto, mama… feature were written for the radio; and the episodes later collected in the six volumes of Maldobrie were originally broadcast on the radio, to which Lino Savorani – the first, unforgettable Bortolo – lent his voice and brought to life on the stage of the Teatro Stabile.”

To understand their work – a tapestry of excavations, memories and nostalgia, which are, of course, literary nostalgia and chronologically implausible, constructed with irony and self-awareness, yet grounded in a cultural heritage of authentic and shared memories – the family histories of Carpinteri and Faraguna are almost as important as their personal stories.

In 1982, the Trieste-born sculptor Marcello Mascherini (1906–1983) created a bronze portrait of the writer to honour his fellow citizen James Joyce on the centenary of his birth; it can still be seen today in the ‘Muzio de Tommasini’ Public Garden.

Between 1911-1914 Joyce wrote Giacomo Joyce, an enigmatic text composed of 50 unconnected and irregular fragments

While in Trieste, Joyce and his family moved house ten times

“Written in the Military Depot at Monte Oliveto in the summer of 1907″

This short correspondence is the first known composition by Saba to appear in print.