L'identità artistica nazionale. Ardengo Soffici e Mário de Andrade

The possible role of Ardengo Soffici's work in shaping Mrio de Andrade's aesthetic thought, from the perspective of a national artistic identity, was reviewed. The historical context in which these two intellectuals operated sees the development and affirmation of nationalism in Italy and Brazil. We present how the problem of national artistic identity manifests itself within the artistic and literary formation of the two writers. From the works of Soffici kept in Mrio de Andrade's library, we analyze the critical reading the Brazilian intellectual made of Soffici's texts. In particular, we study the concept of futurism as it develops in the theoretical works Primi principi di una estetica futurista (1920) and in A Escrava que no Isaura (1925) and we analyze some poems of Pauliceia desvairada (1922) and BIF&ZF+18. Simultaneit e Chimismi Lirici (1919), considering the relationship between modernity and tradition and between cosmopolitanism and nationalism. This work discusses the question of national artistic identity in Ardengo Soffici and Mrio de Andrade writings as art critics during the first and the second decade of the XX century and its evolution during the dictatorship in Italy and Brazil.