Between biography and philology: Gramsci’s Italian renaissance gathers the contributions of three Italian scholars focussing on the outburst of renewed interest about the author of Prison Notebooks which has recently taken place in Italy. Though important studies continued to appear in Italy all over the ’90s, shedding new light on Gramsci’s correspondence and writings, his importance seemed sometimes more relevant outside Italy, and particularly in the field of subaltern and cultural studies. Since the end of the last decade, however, the first volumes of the national edition of Gramsci’s writings has fostered a series of high level scholarly works, while the endless question of Gramsci’s relationship with Togliatti and the Italian Communist Party has occupied the stage again. Generally speaking, new and less "ideological" approaches to Gramsci’s thought seem now to prevail, while the way his extraordinary "fortune" was built in the early life of the Italian Republic still looks the most shrewd cultural and political operation performed by Togliatti.
