Lettere di Ambrogio Donini a Iside Mercuri. Con una premessa di Mario Alinei e uno scritto inedito di Iside Mercuri su Ernesto Buonaiuti

In this study, I edit the correspondence between the great historian of religions and famous poli-tician Ambrogio Donini and the intellectual Iside Mercuri. In the background stands the figure of Ernesto Buonaiuti, one of the greatest and most innovative historians of Christianity, excom-municated and then deprived of the university chair, in 1931, for having refused, with a few other teachers (just twelve), to swear allegiance to the Fascist Regime. The importance of this corre-spondence lies in the historical fresco that it outlines of post-war Italian culture, and also as a contribution for understanding the genesis of the thought of Mario Alinei, founder of «Quaderni di Semantica», who owes Donini's teaching a large part of his groungreaking theory on the gen-esis of languages.