Download or read book The Conservatory of Santa Teresa written by Bilenchi, Romano and published by Firenze University Press. This book was released on 2015-10-22 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is the first translation of Romano Bilenchi’s 1940 masterpiece to appear in English. This is surprising since The Conservatory of Santa Teresa is much more than an invaluable historical document of life in provincial Tuscany around the time of the First World War. It is truly one of the most important works of fiction published in Italy under Fascism. In telling of the pre-adolescent Sergio’s encounter with the larger world of sex, politics, and the violence and cruelty of adult life, Bilenchi succeeds in representing a universal paradigm, that of the clash of innocence with experience. But what makes Sergio’s trajectory unique is that he goes through it in the company of three extraordinary women who are at once femmes fatales and benevolent guides: his mother, his aunt, and his tutor, all almost unbearably beautiful, as least in Sergio’s eyes. These women, plus the dazzling landscape of the Sienese countryside as captured by Bilenchi, make Sergio’s journey an enviable even if sometimes painful and bewildering experience.