Beginning 8 October 2022, the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan launched Milano Racconta—Quattro appuntamenti tra libri e città (Milan Tells Stories: Four Encounters between Books and City), a new lecture series curated by Michela Fregona that examined the city through recent and classic novels, running alongside the theatre’s 150th-anniversary programming.
The Four Encounters
The series unfolded across four Saturday afternoons, each devoted to a different literary vision of Milan. On 8 October, Jacopo del Michelis presented La Stazione (The Station), a debut thriller set in Milan’s Central Station in April 2003, where a young railway police inspector named Riccardo Mezzanotte investigates mutilated animal corpses while Laura Cordero, a wealthy young woman with a secret, searches for abandoned children. The novel became a bestseller and is slated for film adaptation.
On 22 October, Cecilia Scerbanenco discussed Si vive bene in due (Two Together), a rediscovered 1943 novel by her father Giorgio Scerbanenco that had been absent from shelves for nearly eighty years. The story follows Cesare Vairaghi, an aspiring penniless bookseller caught between three women, and evokes nineteenth-century Milan. Cecilia, author of Il fabbricante di storie (The Storyteller), a biography of her father drawn from family archives, presented the work alongside her own research.
On 5 November, Marina Di Guardo presented Dress Code Rosso Sangue (Blood-Red Dress Code), a thriller set in Milan’s fashion world. The novel follows Cecilia Carboni, a twenty-five-year-old who escapes her lawyer father’s expectations to work at the showroom of celebrated designer Franco Sartori, only to become enmeshed in mystery when Sartori is found murdered.
On 26 November, Alessandro Zaccuri presented Poco a me stesso (Little of Me to Myself), a novel set in mid-nineteenth-century Milan that weaves together the elegant Brera palace, home to descendants of legal theorist Cesare Beccaria, with the city’s underworld. The narrative follows a French adventurer and a Beccaria family accountant through intrigue and secret dealings, reimagining the era with contemporary linguistic invention. The novel was shortlisted for the Strega Prize and won the Isola d’Elba–Raffaele Brignetti Prize.
About Michela Fregona
Michela Fregona, who holds degrees in classical letters and traverso flute, works as a journalist and literary curator. She writes for Cultweek and collaborates with the Venetian Institute and the Accademia dei Lincei. Her published works include the essay collections Tangomalia and Buenos Aires Café (both Postcart, with photographs by Lucia Baldini), the novel La classe degli altri (The Class of Others, Apogeo), shortlisted for the Calvino Prize, and Riscossa (Anima Mundi). She has taught in evening schools since 2000 and has previously curated the Teatro Dal Verme’s Connessioni season linking music and literature.
Frequently asked questions
What was the connection between Milano Racconta and the Teatro Dal Verme’s programming?
The four-part series ran concurrent with the theatre’s 150th-anniversary celebrations and took place within one of the historic venues that has shaped the city’s cultural imagination for over a century.
Where did the novels discussed set their stories?
All four works explored Milan across different historical periods and social registers: Del Michelis’s novel in the modern Central Station, Scerbanenco’s in nineteenth-century Milan, Di Guardo’s in the contemporary fashion district, and Zaccuri’s in mid-nineteenth-century Milan ranging from the Brera palace to the criminal underworld.
Were these all first-time publications?
No; Si vive bene in due by Giorgio Scerbanenco was a rediscovered novel first published in 1943 that had been out of print for nearly eighty years when it was reissued for this series.
