Letters from Prison

1908-11 Having obtained his gymnasium certificate in Oristano, he enrolled in the Dèttori Lyceum in Cagliari. He lived with his brother Gennaro, who was a cashier at the local Chamber of Labor and later secretary of the socialist section. He frequented the socialist movement and participated actively in youth circles in discussions about the economic and social problems of the island. A deep feeling of rebellion toward the wealthy manifested in him, tinged with regional pride. In 1910, he published his first article in the Cagliari daily "L’unione sarda," directed by Raffa Garzía. He was the paper's correspondent from Aidomaggiore, a small town near Ghilarza in the Tirso zone. He read the magazine "Il Viandante" by Tomaso Monicelli and followed the articles of Salvemini, Croce, Prezzolini, Cecchi, etc. His first readings of Marx, "out of intellectual curiosity," can also be traced back to these years. During the holidays, to contribute to school expenses, he did accounting work and gave private lessons.

1911 Summer. He obtained his high school diploma. To enroll at the University, he decided to compete for one of the scholarships of 70 lire per month, for ten months a year, offered by the Collegio Carlo Alberto in Turin to disadvantaged students from the old provinces of the Kingdom of Sardinia. He spent several weeks in Oristano at his uncle Serafino's house, tutoring his cousin Delio. Towards the end of the summer, he left for Turin, with a short stop in Pisa as a guest of his uncles Delogu, his mother's cousins.

October. He took the competition, in which Palmiro Togliatti, Augusto Rostagni, and Lionello Vincenti also participated, and obtained the scholarship.

November. He enrolled in the Faculty of Letters. He lived first on the Lungo Dora (Corso Firenze), then for a short period on Via San Massimo, together with Angelo Tasca, a fellow student and leader of the socialist youth movement, and later, at the widow Berra's, in a small room on the top floor of Piazza Carlina 8, near the University.

1912 In the first months of student life, he lived in isolation, in severe financial difficulty, and suffering from a nervous breakdown. His interests turned particularly to the study of linguistics, to which he was led by Matteo Bartoli through some research on the Sardinian dialect. He also attended Umberto Cosmo's Italian literature course. During an exercise by Professor Pacchioni on the Roman Law of the XII Tables, he renewed his acquaintance with Togliatti and became friends with him. Some time later, they conducted research together on the social structure of Sardinia.

He spent the summer holidays with his family in Ghilarza. In the autumn session, he passed the following exams: 4 No-