Good hearts, impulsive heads
Good hearts, impulsive heads
Pinocchio, Don Quixote and Other Stories by Giorgio Scapinelli
Folly and play, humor and rule-breaking, thirst for justice and freedom, intersect in Don Quixote, Pinocchio and Baron Munchausen, three famous literary characters whose adventures, translated into comic strips by Giorgio Scapinelli, in Scap art, represent an original point of view on the theme of Chaos, to which the 2026 festivalfilosofia is dedicated.
This exhibit, which features for the first time the works exhibited in their entirety, corresponds with two important anniversaries: the centenary of Scapinelli’s birth (Modena, 1926 – Bologna, 1999) and the bicentenary of Carlo Collodi’s, pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini, author of The Adventures of Pinocchio. It was the latter anniversary that earned the patronage of the National Carlo Collodi Foundation and the invaluable scholarly contribution offered by Prof. Daniela Marcheschi, councilor of the same Foundation, Italian literature specialist and president of the National Edition of Carlo Lorenzini’s works.
The stories of Pinocchio, Don Quixote and Baron Munchausen are accompanied by a wide selection of Scap’s works, divided into comics, paintings, advertisements, characters from the famous program Carosello, and illustrations for children’s literature. Works that in turn reflect an era marked by the transformation of Italian society, between reconstruction and economic boom, which in Modena saw the birth of an important “school” of comics and animation, launched in the 1950s by Paul Campani, of which Scap is among the most significant figures.
The enthusiasm and experimentation of that period are evoked in the exhibition by a series of jazz pieces performed by the New Emily Jazz Orchestra of Modena during the 1960s and 70s.
[first room, left side]
Artistic education and advertising from the post-war period to 1970
Giorgio Scapanelli enrolls in the Venturi Art Institute of Modena in 1939, in the Mural, Pictorial and Plastic Decoration department. The school’s objective is the application of artistic knowledge in the professional world, including commercial activities, toward which so-called “poster art” in particular is oriented. The experience and stimuli transmitted by the teachers are decisive for the students’ training, especially those of teachers like the skilled watercolorist Arcangelo Salvarini, whose teaching is flanked by freelance work. After the end of World War II, the skills acquired by Scapanelli at Venturi respond to the need to invest in advertising by numerous production businesses and trade fairs.
In 1946, along with his former classmate Ivo Bertolini, Scapanelli opens the Artistic Advertising Poster Company (S.C.A.P.), whose materials, presented here, tell the story of the economic recovery of the province of Modena, based largely on agriculture and livestock, but also of a community regaining optimism and confidence through work, following the destruction of the war. The damages from bombing are open wounds in the city, sometimes masked by advertising or film posters created by S.C.A.P., among others. This is the case, for example, of the corner of the Portico del Collegio between Via Emilia and Corso Canalgrande, which was gutted by the Anglo-American air raid of 13 May 1944 and was subsequently covered with posters for the films Conta solo l’avvenire (Tomorrow Is Forver) and I migliori anni della nostra vita (The Best Years of Our Lives).
Caption 1
Photo Umberto Orlandini, Modena
Prof. Arcangelo Salvarini with his students in the Decoration laboratory at the A. Venturi Institute of Art
1932
Positive, gelatin silver print, reproduction
Courtesy Fondazione Ago – Photographic Archive of the A. Venturi State Institute of Art of Modena
2
Photo Benvenuto Bandieri
A. Venturi Institute of Art, exhibition of works by the students of Mural, Pictorial and Plastic Decoration
1941
Positive, gelatin silver print, reproduction
Courtesy Fondazione Ago – Photographic Archive of the A. Venturi State Institute of Art of Modena
3
The Sponge
Souvenir of a school prank by Giorgio Scapanelli
1950s
4
Giorgio Scapanelli (right), with two friends in Piazza San Domenica in Modena
24 May 1943
Positive, gelatin silver print
5
Giorgio Scapanelli, left, and Ivo Bertolini on Via Emilia in Modena on the occasion of the founding of S.C.A.P.
1946
Positive, gelatin silver print
6
Passito all’ovo
circa 1947
Advertisement created by S.C.A.P for the Schiavoni distillery
Lithography print on cardboard
Modenese Graphic Arts
7
Sassolino
circa 1947
Advertisement sketch created by S.C.A.P. for the Benvenuti distillery
Tempera and airbrush on paper mounted on cardboard
8
Albergo Ristorante della Rocca, Bazzano
1947
Advertisement created by S.C.A.P.
Typographic print
9
Frarica
Early 1950s (?)
Typographic print on paper
10
The Dance of Seven Hairs
1947
Reproduction of flier
Positive, gelatin silver print
11
Postcard of Veglionissimo della Stampa at Eden Dances in Piazza Matteotti in Modena
1950
Typographic print
12
S.C.A.P. account 1946-1947
Listed are income and expenditures, including expenses for work materials such as paints, chalk and an airbrush.
13
Materials from Giorgio Scapanelli’s studio
14-15
Bombed corner of the Portico del Collegio between Via Emilia and Corso Canalgrande in Modena.
Film posters for the films Conta solo l’avvenire (Tomorrow is Forever) and I migliori anni della nostra vita (The Best Years of Our Lives), created by S.C.A.P.
1947-1948
Positives, gelatin silver prints, reproductions
16-17
Bellucci promotional calendar
1951
Months of July-August and September-October
Lithographic print
18
Mirandola Trade Fair
1946
Promotional card made by S.C.A.P.
Lithographic print
20
Tifosport Modenese, illustrated sport periodical
18 March 1947
21
36th Milan – Modena Cycling Race, Grand Prix URSUS
1949
Promotional image created by S.C.A.P.
Lithographic print on paper
22
Modena, today’s Largo Aldo Moro. Tractor parade on the occasion of the Modena Fair
May 1956
Positive, gelatin silver print, reproduction
Modena, Civic Library of Art and Architecture
L. Poletti – Tondini Fund
23
Modena Weeks 1951. 13th Modena Fair
Promotional catalogue
Historical Archive of the Modena Society for Expositions, Fairs and Horse Races
24
2nd Eucharistic Congress of Modena
1948
Poster created by S.C.A.P.
25
Photo Antonio Goldoni
Cardinal Benedetto Aloisi Masella, center, during the 2nd Eucharistic Congress
1948
Positive, gelatin silver print, reproduction
Archive of Archbishop Cesare Boccoleri,
Historical Diocesan Archive of Modena-Nonantola
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Carosello and the economic boom
The advertisements that Giorgio Scapanelli, under the pseudonym Scap, made in the 1950s and 60s reflect the season of Italian economic boom, characterized by the growth of industry and the corresponding spread of wellbeing and consumer goods, such as cars and household appliances.
The founding of Paul-Film by Paul Campani in Modena in 1954 is emblematic of this period. It would go on to become one of the major production studios for animated cartoon commercials, first for cinema and later for television, starting in 1958 with the show Rai Carosello. Scap joins the group of designers that formed around Campani and the screenwriter Max Massimino Garnier, to whom we owe the creation of advertising characters, many of whom have become icons of the economic boom. Through Scap’s work, they live on beyond television, thanks to a pioneering merchandising campaign including school diaries, coloring books, games, dolls, records and illustrated books.
During the 1960s, Scap makes advertisements that are characterized by a cheerful and youthful image, as would be the gadgets created at the end of the decade. Particularly effective are brochures in which the reproductions of household appliances and accessories are inserted in a dynamic frame of forms, lines and bright colors: a visual game that becomes a metaphor for a wellbeing within reach for all.
26
Erich & Pohl
Herstellung, Fotograf
Girls posing among television models produced by a German manufacturer
September-October 1958
Reproduction
Deutsche Fotothek, Germany
27
The famous theater of the Carosello theme song, with the logo written on the curtain
1957
28
“Promotional Carosello” magazine
1 December 1961
Cover with the character Angelino (Carosello Trim).
Paul Campani, graphic design
Max Massimino Garnier, subject
Giorgio Scapinelli, drawing
Modena, Civic Museum, donation Giulia and Paolo Scapinelli
29
Paul Campani, graphic design
Max Massimino Garnier, subject
Giorgio Scapinelli (?), drawing
Coloring book with the character Svanitella (Carosello Benelli)
Ruggeri Editions, Modena, 1964
30
Paul Campani, graphic design
Max Massimino Garnier, subject
Doll of the Little Mustachioed Man (Carosello Bialetti)
made of Lenci cloth
circa 1962
Paul Campani heirs
31
Photo Enzo Botti and Luigi Pincelli
From left: Secondo Bignardi, Giorgio Scapanelli,
Paul Campani. First on the right: Angelo Benevelli
1952
Positive, gelatin silver print, reproduction
32
Paul Campani, graphic design
Max Massimino Garnier, subject
Giorgio Scapinelli, drawing
Si, si…Sembra Facile… (Yes, Yes…It Seems Easy…)
Carroccio Editions, Bologna, 1962 (?)
33
Paul Campani, graphic design
Max Massimino Garnier, subject
Giorgio Scapinelli (?), drawing
Toto e Tata fra i cannibali (Toto and Tata Among the Cannibals)
45 record with songs about the characters Toto and Tata
(Carosello Motta)
34
Paul Campani, graphic design
Max Massimino Garnier, subject
Giorgio Scapinelli (?), drawing
Coloring book with the character Kikki
(Carosello Mobil)
Ruggeri Editions, Modena, 1964
35
Paul Campani, graphic design
Max Massimino Garnier, subject
Giorgio Scapinelli (?), drawing
Il diario di Toto e Tata (The Toto and Tata Diary)
School diary, Ruggeri Editions, Modena, 1964
36-37
Errebi
Early 1960s
Sketch and promotional flier for the Modenese
eyeglass company of the same name
Tempera on cardboard and lithographic print
38
Urania household appliance catalogue
1960s
Stab. Pol. Artioli, Modena
Scapinelli heirs
39
Inside of the Ligmar household appliance factory
1957
Positive, gelatin silver print, reproduction
Courtesy Fondazione Ago – City of Modena,
Press Office Fund
40-42
Ligmar Appliances
circa 1957
Promotional brochures
Stab. Pol. Artioli, Modena
43
Iris calendar
1970
Print on die-cut paper in the shape of a flower
Iris Ceramics Group Historical Museum
44
The Iris Game
circa 1970
Promotional gadget
Paper print on cardboard
Iris Ceramics Group Historical Museum
45
Auguri Iris (Best Wishes Iris)
Late 1960s
Promotional gadget for Iris Ceramics
Print on folding, perforated paper
Modena, Ruggeri Lithography
[second room, from left following the walls]
Pinocchio, Don Quixote, Baron Münchhausen: three variations of chaos
The adventures of three famous characters are drawn by Scap in the 1950s, in the form of “cartoon cinenovels”. Instead of the traditional comic book balloons, jokes were presented in the form of captions, as they were in the photonovels drawn or made with photos of real actors, which were very popular at the time. The theme of chaos, to which the 2026 edition of the Festivalfilosofia is dedicated, can be an interesting key to interpreting them. Their complete stories are exhibited in this room, accompanied in the introductory panels by Daniela Marcheschi’s critical insights, taken from her essay in the exhibition catalogue.
“What Pinocchio, Don Quixote and Baron Münchhausen have in common is being different, but complementary, conjugations of the anthropological experience of the human being. In particular, it is a matter of being born and finding oneself catapulted into a natural and human Space (private and public, physical and intimate, geographical and psychological) and into a Time, precisely that of chronicle and of History, as well as of the Earth. And it is also, and above all, a matter of facing the responsibility of having to domesticate that Space and that Time that do not belong to us ab origine, but which are the synergistic whole of different fields, of stratifications, whose causes and effects are not so clear and linear, subject as they are to upheavals, to random events, to the statistical ponderable and to the imponderable.”
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Pinocchio
Drawn by Scap and based on the abridged version of the novel by Carlo Lorenzini-Collodi (1883), written by Isidoro Luigi Garibotti, it is published from 1954 to 1958 in “Noi dell’Ilva per i bimbi”, an insert of the magazine “Noi dell’Ilva”, distributed to the staff of the Genoese iron and steel complex. The story is composed of twenty-seven plates made in tempera and India ink on Schoeller paper, with the exception of numbers 8-10 and 24, exhibited through prints of the time.
The novel The Adventures of Pinocchio. Story of a Puppet “represents the encounter-clash of a country rich in misery and social plagues (for example the buying and selling of children to wandering artists) with the push for progress, both cultural (the emancipated role of the Fairy, who dispenses rewards and punishments as if she were a father; the loving care that Geppetto devotes to his beloved son Pinocchio, as if he were a mother) and industrial, towards work and individual initiative.
Curious about the world, Pinocchio projects his own needs and expectations on reality, which he discovers in all its frustrating substance. For example, he does not think about Evil; on the contrary, he is overflowing with good intentions. And yet, he encounters it, in the form of the Fox and the Cat. He naïvely communicates to them his desire to deliver the gold coins he received from Mangiafoco to his “father”, Geppetto, and the criminals hang him from the Great Oak. He follows his friend Candlewick into the Land of Toys because, puppet-boy that he is, he is attracted by the idea of carefree play and not going to school, which requires so much effort, discipline and responsibility. But there he will meet the ugliest and most devious Evil of all: the Coachman, who trades in children.”
Scap’s plates are accompanied by a selection of critical passages by Renato Bertacchini (Modena, 1921-2011), one of the first and most attentive scholars of Collodi’s work.
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Cinenovel Bellezze in cielo (Beauties in the Sky)
Published in “Cineillustrato”, 15 May 1949
Roberto Baldazzini Archive
Graphic novel L’assurda nemica (The Absurd Enemy)
Drawn by Aldo Torchio in “Grand Hotel”
28 January 1956
Roberto Baldazzini Archive
Paul Campani
Pinocchio
1955
Pencil on paper with color indications
Paul Campani heirs
Storyboard at the beginning of the feature film Pinochhio
September 1955
Pencil, India ink and tempera on paper
Paul Campani heirs
Scap’s Pinocchio must be placed in relation to an animated feature
film about the famous puppet, planned in 1955 by Paul Film, but never
made due to lack of state support. The materials exhibited here
refer to this.
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One of the most famous parts of Pinocchio is the ending, which recounts the transformation of the puppet into a real boy. However, Collodi did not want to be constrained by the rigidity of a politically correct message…
“In the Italy of today, a vision focused on opposite and contradictory categories still prevails: one is that of chaos opposed and contrary to cosmos, or the harmony of ordered things. This was not the case, however, in that of the cultured Lorenzini-Collodi. Chaos and cosmos are, in fact, parts of a complex whole; each is the limit of the other, but they are indispensable to one other. Therefore, the boy Pinocchio in flesh and blood betrays the puppet who he was and who made him become what he is, because he totally adheres to order, to the cosmos, and he feels ‘respectable!..’, whereas childhood must be safeguarded in us, like an indispensable value in the clarity of its impulses. This, then, is Collodi’s satire. It is no coincidence that in the years of authoritarianism—of Umbertine Italy first, then of Fascism—the ending of Pinocchio was seen as the happy outcome of a moral and social reform, the triumph of a rigid and unidirectional pedagogy (think of the almost proverbial association of the lie with the lengthening nose), as if the work, intended for children (in reality for a double audience), were the result of true realism. But how can the burlesque adventures of a puppet inspired by the aesthetic of satirical literature ever be read as ‘true’?”
-----------------------
Don Quixote
Consisting of twenty-two plates, reproduced here from the prints of the time, the abridged novel in third-person captions, written by Isidoro Luigi Garibotti and drawn by Scap in a realistic caricature style, was published in the Genoese weekly “Lo scolaro” from 19 July to 13 December 1953.
As in Pinocchio, chaos and cosmos (or the harmony of ordered things) also appear in continual tension in the famous novel by Cervantes, published between 1605 and 1615. Don Quixote loses reason because he “passionately believes in the ideals of chivalry and courtliness that he learned from reading epic poetry. He will thus decide to be a wandering knight, to accomplish great and noble deeds, but not without having renamed the peasant woman Aldonza as Dulcinea del Toboso, the lady to whom he will be devoted. He superimposes his own ideals onto the reality of facts: this is his folly. Cervantes’ hero lives by dreaming and dreams by living; for him the difference between waking and dreaming does not matter, he simply dreams all the time and is therefore a sort of living paradox. The paradox, however, is also literature itself. On the one hand, the novel introduces subversive chaos—rich in the values of its fantastic worlds—into the strictly hierarchical society that is based solely on material needs and requests. On the other, the novel itself is also configured as the cosmos or the bright horizon of the chaos of a society made of disvalues, flat concreteness, cynicism and gratuitous violence. What makes Don Quixote look ridiculous in the eyes of the world is his passion and his desire to redeem its pettiness and emptiness with noble deeds.”
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Baron Munchausen
Published in “Noi dell’Ilva per i bimbi” between 1959 and 1960, the surreal and humoristic style that characterizes it offers the reader a visual experience that brings him closer to the absurdity of the adventures that are recounted in the first person by the Baron himself, a form which is maintained in the captions. Of the eleven plates that make up the story, prints from the time and original plates made with tempera and ink on paper are exhibited, missing, however, parts of the text accompanying each vignette, which were added in the editorial phase and given this way to printing.
After Pinocchio and Don Quixote, “there is another character who has extraordinary adventures: the baron protagonist of the Rudolf Erich Raspe’s book, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1785). Here, the work itself is full of chaos: the incredible adventures do not follow an articulated plot, but, passed off as being absolutely true, they emerge from autonomous tales, randomly inserted into a sort of narrative framework. The oddities that Baron Munchausen passes off as truth in his tales, or rather, reports with apparently objective tones, are extravagant inventions, a delirium that is contrary to any principle of sufficient reason, in fact.
These “truths” cannot be contradicted. There is nothing logical or mathematical in them, merely rhetorical. How can the incongruent, illogical and meaningless be shared when they are the result of nothing more than an individual gaze, ready to warp reality as we have always known it?
This is what introduces chaos everywhere. Chaos is narration with topics that alternate without a structure, chaos is the world. Munchausen recounts one that, thanks precisely to its wild adventures, seems like anything but the best of all possible worlds.”
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Painting as anti-advertising
Scapinelli’s painting is characterized by a process of synthesis that originates in the lesson of Giorgio Morandi and which had already oriented the research of his fellow Modenese artist, Giorgio Preti. This aspect is seen, for example, in the paintings from the early 1960s depicting industrial complexes, not as positive symbols of progress, but as cold, inhospitable places, from which emerges an awareness of the crisis of values that often co-exists with technological progress and the wellbeing that follows. Hence his choice to look for new subjects for his paintings in outlying areas, even going so far as the Po Delta, following a path laid out in part by the elder Tino Pelloni, attracted by the light of the Venetian lagoon.
A critical attitude towards the consumerist society to which he had dedicated a significant part of his career through his work in advertising emerges, for example, in works like the enigmatic Donna dei limoni (Woman of the Lemons), inspired by an elderly street vendor actually present in Modena in the early 1960s, taken as a symbol of a bygone life of poverty and simplicity. The same can be said of a series of satirical canvases marked by a grotesque and deliberately unpleasant caricature. Made between 1964 and 1965, these are personifications of vice and malice, summarized in titles such as The Misers, The Liars, The Three Chats, or The Gamblers, through which to express an image diametrically opposed to that of advertising, where beauty, cheerfulness and good feelings predominate.
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The Shooting Ranges
early 1960s
Oil on canvas
Giorgio Preti
The White Carousel
circa 1957
Oil on Masonite
Civic Museum of Modena, Giorgio Preti Fund
Refinery
1960
Oil on canvas
Winter
1960
Oil on canvas
Tino Pelloni
Burano, Fishermen’s Houses
1957
Oil on canvas
Civic Museum of Modena
The Red Hill
1963
Oil on canvas
The Woman with Lemons
early 1960s
Oil on canvas
The Three Chats
1964
Oil on canvas
The Misers
1964
Oil on canvas
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[in front of the puppet theater, in the middle of the room]
Pinocchio, from a drawing of Scap’s, among marionettes and puppets from the Cesare Maletti Fund held at the Civic Museum of Modena
This installation is inspired by Pinocchio’s entrance into Mangiafuoco’s puppet theater, where he is immediately recognized and invited on stage.
“It’s Pinocchio!” all the puppets cry in unison, jumping out of the wings.
“Pinocchio, come up here with me,” yells Harlequin, “come throw yourself into the arms of your wooden brothers!”
At this affectionate invitation, Pinocchio jumps up from the audience and splashes onto the stage.
(The Adventures of Pinocchio, Chapter 10)
Pinocchio’s connection to and detachment from puppetry are described by Renato Bertacchini in these terms:
By injecting affection and ferment into the rags and wooden heads of their old puppets, puppeteers are able to touch the truth of certain passions in the best possible way: the poor sentiments of the people, who in order to give themselves a reason to exist, after struggle and food, know no other outlet than laughter: an awkward or coarse laugh, often subtle, under the breath. But Pinocchio, this mask, this thick-skinned, stubborn, spicy puppet, […] this figurative silhouette of a puppet-boy, is born of the marionette theater.
And at the same time, he surpasses it, moves beyond it. Mangiafuoco’s spotlight and the marionettes’ celebration only underscore the opportunity before the recognition, they mark the most suitable place to offer quick and effective credentials of his caricatured identity as a mask. […] His theater remains the world.
(Renato Bertacchini, Collodi Narrator, Pisa 1961)
Please do not touch
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[return to the first room, proceed from the left side to the exit]
Nico and Cati
Thanks to his collaboration with Paul Film, Scap keeps abreast of the international scene, including the comic strips Miss Peach by Mel Lazarus, Peanuts by Charles Schultz, and Denis the Menace by Hank Ketcham. In 1963, he draws inspiration from these characters and Campani and Garnier’s Toto and Tata to create Nico and Cati, a brother and sister pair who are the protagonists of the humorous comic strip of the same name, published in the magazine “Lo Scolaro”. Their stories depict a middle-class daily life, which can be found in the settings and jokes that reflect the thoughts and attitudes of their time: trading cards, Cati’s statements about miniskirts or Nico’s on conscientious objection. At the same time, in the thoughts of Nico, who is a young painter, a reference to the author’s inner journey can be gleaned.
1
Nico and Cati on the cover of “Lo Scolaro”
1 December 1963
2
Nico and Cati and the Faucet
In “Lo Scolaro”
13 October 1963
3
Nico and Cati and the Cake
In “Lo Scolaro”
24 November 1963
4
Nico and Cati on the cover of “Lo Scolaro”
31 May 1964
5
Nico, Cati and the Dog Bu
In “Lo Scolaro”
16 February 1964
6
Nico and Cati and the Color TV
India ink and collage on Schoellershammer paper
Published in color in “Lo Scolaro”
12 April 1964
7
Dennis the Menace
n. 67, July 1963
Hallden/Fawcett Editions
8
Miss Peach
n. 1, October-December 1963, pp. 2 and 3
Translation in Italian handwritten
by Giorgio Scapinelli
9
Peanuts
n. 3, November 1963
Dell Editions
10
For the Love of Peanuts!
1963
Fawcett World Library
11
Vote Ken
early 1960s
adhesive post card
12
Nico and Cati on the cover of “Lo Scolaro”
3 January 1965
13
Nico and Cati, “We’re not the same as you!”
In “Lo Scolaro”
27 December 1964
14
Nico and Cati, “Enough! You’re not the only man in this world!”
Reprint 1971
15
Nico, Cati and the Miniskirt
In “Lo Scolaro”
17 September 1967
16
Nico and Cati, Conscientious Objector
In “Lo Scolaro”
24 March 1968
17
Nico, Cati and the Cat Mao
India ink and collage on Schoellers Parola paper
Published in color in “Lo Scolaro”
16 August 1964
18
Nico, Cati and the Trading Cards
India ink, pencil and collage on paper
Published in color in “Lo Scolaro”
3 October 1965
19
Musical Fairytale Among the Stars
1965
Typescript with handwritten notes
20
Mario D’Amico to Giorgio Scapinelli
30 June 1965
Letter regarding the same musical fairy tale
21-23
Setting of Nico and Cati dolls
1965
Positive, gelatin silver print
24
Nico and Cati. Everyday Life
1966
Ruggieri Editions
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Comics for Industry
During the 1950s, Scap draws in “Noi dell’Ilva per i bimbi”, an insert of the magazine “Noi dell’Ilva”, distributed to the staff of the Genoese iron and steel complex. In the publication, which was aimed at an audience of young readers, the employees’ children, Scap is able to express his skills, which during those same years would find new vigor, thanks to time spent with Paul Campani and his staff, who were active on the animation front. Interesting contaminations would derive from these relationships, such as The Donkey in the Lion’s Skin, Aesop’s famous fable which in 1948 with Campani and Secondo Bignardi becomes an animated short film, while Scap makes it into a cartoon cinenovel published in 1953. In that same year appears the character Lingottino, an anthropomorphized steel ingot, symbol of Ilva’s production, whose parallelepiped shape recalls that of the mattresses that were protagonists of the film commercial A Battle Won, the first one made by Paul Film in 1954 for the company Permaflex. In 1957, Homo Sapiens is born, a likeable green primate with red hair who grapples with unfortunate situations that he gets out of through the invention or discovery of something that brings him happiness and wellbeing. The angular line which constitutes its stylistic code is a metaphor for a primordial humanity, but one that finds ways of progressing through ingenuity, which in turn is a symbol of the industrial activity of Ilva to which the newspaper refers. Finally, from the famous Popeye, Scap draws inspiration for Captain Pirin Pan-doro, a kindly old sailor in perpetual search of the legendary pirate’s treasure, but destined to never find it.
1-4
Lingottino
In “Noi dell’Ilva per i bimbi”
December 1953; October 1955
June 1959; August 1960
5
Homo Sapiens
1971
Reprint and adaptation of a 1959 cartoon
6-9
Homo Sapiens
India ink, tempera and pencil on Schoellershammer.
published with captions in “Noi dell’Ilva per I bimbi”
Episode “Clothing”, 1957; episode “The Boat”, 1957;
Episode “Musical Instruments”, October 1959;
Episode “The Invention of Stilts”, 1960
10
Easter Monday
In “Noi dell’Ilva per i bimbi”, April 1953
11
Captain Pirin Pan-doro
In “Noi dell’Ilva per i bimbi”, February 1954
12
The Donkey in the Lion’s Skin (Aesop)
In “Noi dell’Ilva per i bimbi”, April 1953
Reprint
13
The Wolf and the Lamb (Aesop)
In “Noi dell’Ilva per i bimbi”, September 1953
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One drawing after another: From the Military Academy to children’s literature
In addition to comics, Italian publishing for children in the 1950s also flourishes in terms of novels and illustrated tales, for which Scap draws numerous covers and internal plates, stylistically different depending on the narrative genre, but all aimed at engaging the reader. Among these, the ones for Emilio Salgari’s novels with the famous protagonist Sandokan are particularly effective. There are also the “cinenovels”, or abridged versions in comic strip format of historical biographies or literary classics accompanied by captions, as seen in Pinocchio, Don Quixote, and Baron Munchausen. Examples include Marco Polo, based on the novel by Ranieri Alulli, The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni, and The Eagle of the East, dedicated to the Albanian hero Giorgio Castriota Scanderbeg. Of note for its perspective on current events is Captain Tenner (1955), based on the novel by A. Veroni and set during the Korean War that had just ended, about which the public was informed at the cinema with the Incom Week newsreels.
The abridged version of Alphonse Daudet’s novel Tartarin of Tarascon, on the other hand, was an actual comic strip complete with traditional balloons. At the same time, for the Military Academy of Modena, Scap illustrates several volumes of Mac P 100, the celebratory ceremony for the students, held one hundred days before the end of the last year of the course. Also contributing were his fellow Modenese artists, Giacomo Montagnani and the elder, well-known Mario Molinari.
1
Walter Scott
Ivanhoe
Carroccio Editions, 1954 (?)
2
R. Pozzi
New Grimms’ Tales
Carroccio Editions, Bologna, 1961
3
Charles Dickens
The King of the Mountains
Carroccio Editions, 1960
4
Emilio Salgari
The Comeback of the Tughs
Carroccio Editions, 1957
5
Emilio Salgari
The Buccaneers of Tortue
Carroccio Editions, 1958
6
Louisa May Alcott
Jack and Jane
Carroccio Editions, late 1950s
7
Charles Dickens
The Cricket on the Hearth
Carroccio Editions, 1960 (?)
8
Emilio Salgari
The Dramas of Slavery
Carroccio Editions, 1958
9-10
Una Acies
Humorous illustrations in the volumes of the
Military Academy of Modena
Mak Π 100—7th course, 1951-1953
and Mak 100—11th course, 1956
Modena, Stabilimento Poligrafico Artioli
11
Charles Dickens
Il canto di Natale
Ed. Carroccio, 1957
12
Colomb
The Two Mothers
Carroccio Editions, 1957
13
Emilio Salgari
Sandokan in the Infernal Labyrinth
Carroccio Editions, 1960 (?)
14
Hector Malot
Without Family
Carroccio Editions, 1957
15
Emilio Salgari
The City of Gold
Carroccio Editions, 1960 (?)
16
Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Carroccio Editions, Bologna, 1961
17
Charles Dickens
A Christmas Carol
Carroccio Editions, 1960 (?)
18
Colomb
The Two Mothers
Carroccio Editions, 1960 (?)
19
R. Pozzi
New Andersen Tales
Carroccio Editions, Bologna, 1961
20
Hector Malot
Amongst Family
Carroccio Editions, circa 1957
21
Emilio Salgari
The Marauders of the Sea
Carroccio Editions, 1958
22
Maria Berrera Brandi
The Wizard Yes Yes and the Little King No No
Marzocco Editions, Florence, 1954
23
The Betrothed
In “Noi dell’Ilva per i bimbi”
June 1956
24
Captain Tenner, plate 1
In “Lo Scolaro”
23 October 1955
25
Captain Tenner
1971
Reprint and adaptation
26-27
The Eagle of the East
Beginning and ending plates, 1954
Tempera and India ink on paper
Published in “Lo Scolaro”
28
Marco Polo, plate 1
In “Lo Scolaro”
15 March 1953, reprint
29
Tartarin of Tarascon, plate 1
In “Lo Scolaro”, 4 January 1953
Bound magazine, vintage 1953