Acknowledgements
I take great pleasure in publishing this book. For this reason, I wish to thank all those who over the last few years have helped me to better understand one or more aspects of Four Quartets and their reception in Italy. Above all, I owe thanks to Alberto Cadioli, who as my supervisor at the University of Milan followed this work from its inception, and to Stefano Ballerio, the co-examiner on my thesis committee. I am especially grateful to Prof. Cadioli for having taught me the approach of textual studies, including its material aspects.
I would also like to thank those who allowed me to present the preliminary results of my research in conferences and publications: Alberto Cadioli (once again) and Virna Brigatti; Edoardo Zuccato and Francesco Fava; Savina Stevanato and Annalisa Federici; Riccardo Raimondo, Allison Steenson and Francesco Laurenti; Massimo Fusillo, Serena Guarracino, Doriana Legge, Mirko Lino, Mattia Petricola, Luca Zenobi, Angela Albanese, Doriana Legge and Niccolò Scaffai.
Special thanks to Serenella Zanotti and the Research Commission of the Department of Foreign Languages, Literature and Cultures of Roma Tre University â then under the direction of Giorgio De Marchis â which financed this project, and to Sabina Truini, Viorel Sisto, and Anna Maria Siepracki for administrative help. Heartfelt thanks also to Gandolfo Cascio, editor of the Literary Reception & Art Reception series, for having supported this publication, to Masja Horn of Brill publishers for having supervised it, and to Mike Carlos for his careful linguistic revision.
I wish to further thank Marina Morbiducci for having provided me with first-hand documentation on Margherita Guidacci as well as all the institutions that opened their archives to me and guided me with their advice. In this regard, I am particularly grateful to Tiziano Chiesa of the Mondadori Foundation, to Cecilia Bello, head of the Archivio del Novecento at the Sapienza University of Rome, to Giovanni Pasini of the Biblioteca Gino Bianco, and to the Alfred Lewin Foundation. Sincere thanks also to the librarians of the Biblioteca Sormani, the Biblioteca Braidense, the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, the Centro Apice and the libraries of the University of Milan, whose names I do not know.
Finally, I would like to thank my husband Tim Parks, not only for the infinite patience that he showed me during these years of research, but also for having familiarized me â many years back â with translations of English modernists as well as with Eliotâs poetry through his Teach Us to Sit Still.