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| Fondazione Lelio e Lisli Basso | |
|---|---|
| Name | Fondazione Lelio e Lisli Basso |
| Formation | 1978 |
| Founder | Lelio Basso; Lisli Basso |
| Type | Foundation |
| Headquarters | Rome |
| Leader title | President |
Fondazione Lelio e Lisli Basso is an Italian foundation established to preserve and promote the intellectual legacy of Lelio Basso and Lisli Basso. The foundation operates in Rome and engages with archives, publications, seminars, exhibitions, and international collaborations that connect postwar Italian socialism, human rights activism, anti-fascist movements, and transnational networks. It serves as a hub for historians, political scientists, lawyers, and cultural institutions interested in twentieth-century European and Global South solidarities.
The foundation was created following the deaths of Lelio Basso and Lisli Basso to safeguard materials related to Lelio Basso, Lisli Basso, Italian Socialist Party archives, Italian Communist Party, Socialist International, and related movements. Its early activities linked with institutions such as Fondazione Istituto Gramsci, Istituto Nazionale Ferruccio Parri, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, and Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei to catalogue papers, legal documents, and correspondence. During the 1980s and 1990s the foundation organized conferences with participation from figures associated with Giuseppe Saragat, Alcide De Gasperi, Palmiro Togliatti, Aldo Moro, and international interlocutors linked to Nelson Mandela, Leopoldo Zea, Amílcar Cabral, Che Guevara, and Ho Chi Minh. Through partnerships with Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", Università degli Studi di Milano, Università di Bologna, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, and European University Institute it expanded holdings and academic profiles. The foundation’s trajectory intersected with events such as the 1978 Italian general election, the Years of Lead (Italy), the Spanish Transition, and the Carnation Revolution in Portugal.
The foundation’s stated mission emphasizes defense of human rights and promotion of socialist-democratic thought, including study of Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and transnational solidarity movements like Non-Aligned Movement and Organisation of African Unity. Its activities include curating exhibitions on figures such as Antonio Gramsci, Rosa Luxemburg, Jean Jaurès, Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, and Giorgio La Pira; hosting seminars on legal frameworks including references to Italian Constitution of 1948 and cases before the European Court of Human Rights; and fostering dialogue with organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, International Commission of Jurists, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and United Nations Human Rights Council. The foundation also engages with contemporary movements connected to Black Lives Matter, Arab Spring, Zapatista Army of National Liberation, and Solidarnosc networks.
Its archival holdings include manuscripts, correspondence, legal briefs, photographs, and audiovisual recordings relating to individuals and organizations: Lelio Basso, Lisli Basso, Piero Gobetti, Carlo Rosselli, Gaetano Salvemini, Palmiro Togliatti, Giuseppe Saragat, Aldo Moro, Enrico Berlinguer, Ugo La Malfa, Federico Caffè, Norberto Bobbio, Sergio Mattarella, and international correspondents like Julius Nyerere, Kwame Nkrumah, Jawaharlal Nehru, Eleanor Roosevelt, André Malraux, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Alberto Moravia, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italo Calvino, Primo Levi, Natalia Ginzburg, and Elena Ferrante. The archive is linked to institutional collections at Casa della Memoria e della Storia, Istituto Luce, Archivio di Stato di Roma, Biblioteca dell'Archiginnasio, Fondazione Feltrinelli, Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Fondazione Istituto Gramsci, Fondazione Adriano Olivetti, and international repositories including British Library, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Library of Congress, Bundesarchiv, and Arquivo Nacional Torre do Tombo. Holdings document conferences, trials, and campaigns tied to Nuremberg Trials, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Helsinki Accords, and decolonization struggles in Algeria, Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Vietnam.
The foundation sponsors research projects and publishes monographs, edited volumes, journals, and documentary editions featuring scholarship on Italian Resistance, Anti-fascist Resistance, postwar Italy, Cold War, European integration, and Third Worldism. It has collaborated with publishers and academic presses such as Einaudi, Laterza, Feltrinelli Editore, Routledge, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Brill Publishers, and Palgrave Macmillan to produce critical editions of writings by Lelio Basso, annotated correspondence of Antonio Gramsci, and collections on peace movements, nuclear disarmament, and human rights law. The foundation organizes peer-reviewed conferences attracting scholars from Harvard University, Columbia University, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Sciences Po, Università Bocconi, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, and Johns Hopkins University.
Public programming includes lectures, symposia, workshops, exhibitions, film screenings, and digital initiatives aimed at students and the public in collaboration with Museo della Deportazione, MAXXI, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Teatro Argentina, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Istituto Italiano di Cultura, and municipal cultural departments of Rome. The foundation runs internships and fellowships for researchers from institutions such as European University Institute, Central European University, Universität Heidelberg, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and University of Cape Town, and contributes to curricula at Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II and Università degli Studi di Torino. It curates exhibitions on historical figures including Antonio Gramsci, Piero Calamandrei, Giorgio Amendola, and themes like decolonization, migrants’ rights, and antifascist memory, and produces educational materials used by Istituto per la Storia dell'Antifascismo e dell'Italia Contemporanea.
Governance structures involve a board of directors and scientific committee with members drawn from academic institutions such as Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", Università degli Studi di Bologna, Università degli Studi di Milano, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, and legal experts connected to Corte Suprema di Cassazione and Consiglio di Stato. Funding sources have included endowments, grants from Italian cultural agencies like Ministero della Cultura (Italy), partnerships with philanthropic foundations such as Fondazione Cariplo, Fondazione Monte dei Paschi di Siena, support from European programs like Creative Europe and the European Research Council, and collaborative projects with international organizations including UNESCO and Council of Europe.
Category:Foundations based in Rome