A gallant European Maurizio Serra,

He is a scholar, «we were advised». «An expert of the Vichy government», «He has a passion for the literature of irregular people such as Luis Aragon, André Malraux and Drieu La Rochelle», «He is a polyglot and in particular writes and speaks the most elegant French, without an accent» «At his breakfast meetings in Paris the elite of the French Intelligentsia were present». Not only that: «He is a man of exquisite elegance». And to conclude: «In four hundred years of history he was the first Italian academic of France, and it goes without saying, the only one». At this point, to avoid turning out to be inadequate interviewers, all that remains is to throw ourselves into last-minute studies, to gain new knowledge and to dust off those that we no longer remember having. Like the gentleman he is, rather than making an appointment in his study amidst columns of books, our interviewee requests an appointment at «Dal Bolognese», the most fashionable restaurant in Rome, in Piazza del Popolo, in front of the Pincio. Although we do not know him, we immediately recognize him: Maurizio Serra is standing next to the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, dressed in that kind of elegance carried with the naturalness of everyday use, not dandyism, which is now seen almost only in the Recoleta neighborhood in Buenos Aires. Interpretative note: if an ambassador who has lived in London, Berlin, Moscow, Geneva, Paris and Rome, a historian and man of letters, a university professor, a French academician, invites you to the most anthropologically interesting restaurant in Rome, where at each table there is someone you know from having seen them in the newspapers or on television or in the movies, it means that he does not suffer from a sense of narcissism, that he’s not afraid of you becoming distracted looking at who is or who is not there. And it also means he’s a man of the world with a taste for a good life. «I share a twisted affection for the underdog» «he later tells us, once at the table, to justify his choice of heroes from his extensive historical-literary productions. After more than forty years, Serra left his diplomatic career and devoted himself to studying and writing, gathering together the memories, the anecdotes, the details he had observed in his long and fascinating career. In addition to his successful literary-historical activity, the impeccable French manner in which he wrote most of his books, including the fundamental biographies of Malaparte (Goncourt Prize for biography), D’Annunzio (Chateaubriand Prize and de l’Académie des Littératures) and Svevo, earned him the rank of Academician of France in 2020. Founded in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the Académie Française is tasked with overseeing the use of the French language by publishing a dictionary that sets the language’s usage. Now academicians are working on the ninth edition. Serra got the 13th of the 40 seats, formerly belonging to Simone Veil. One reads of vicious gossip and brutal rumors which have undermined or weakened the nominations of prestigious academician hopefuls. Victor Hugo only managed to pass on the fourth ballot, while Serra did well on his first attempt. «I’m not that prominent and well-known, not to the point of being hated. One cannot say of me that I have many enemies. On the contrary, my candidacy was under the sign of a careful internationalization and also of a comeback to the origins, with a humanistic coterie and while in the Académie there were also soldiers, clergymen, scientists and politicians such as Simone Veil». We ask him about the uniform of academicians: the fact is that the majority of them are not rich, while their uniform, which is required for the inauguration and official ceremonies including frequent funerals, is very expensive. The vert habit, codified in 1801 and then modified by Victor Hugo in 1848 in order to make it more comfortable, consists of a tailcoat and with a vest with green and gold embroidery, plus a cape that reaches the floor. Everyone has their own made, and the expensive creativity of the greatest tailors is unleashed on the embroidered lapels. Serra’s was a gift from Giorgio Armani, who brought Italian creativeness into the heart of the most exclusive institution. The thorny question of the academician sword, an endowment that symbolizes the institution’s role in defending its values, has also been raised. Serra handled it like this: «Since the statute permits family arms, I mentioned that I still had my grandfather’s commissioned sword, so it was sent to a Parisian craftsman to embellish the hilt, I also engraved on it a verse by Petrarch: ‘I’ vo gridando: Pace, pace, pace’». Serra’s latest book is a series of three short novels, Amori diplomatici. It tells of wandering diplomats struggling with the ups and downs of love, at the crossroads of war, upheaval, expatriate lives, diplomacy, with cameos by historical figures and very well chosen settings. These stories have the same kind of tone that we find in Serra’s biographies: a precision of details, an ability to describe historical periods with literary veins, and a winding humor that is useful in diluting nostalgic and melancholic atmospheres. Along with a book on East Berlin («It was like Potëmkin village: all fake»), as well as another on the Moscow experience before the fall of communism, he is currently writing the sequel to Amori diplomatici, which is based on the immense wealth of memories, characters and settings witnessed throughout his career. In addition there is a collection of writings on Marinetti, which were published in Spain. Maurizio Serra is consequently also a cultural ambassador, in a sense that it is almost as if he had been delegated to disclose the lives and works of eminent twentieth-century Italian intellectuals abroad. «My career as a writer has ranged from mostly historical non-fiction to biographies. Non-fiction which, in any event, has always contained an element of character study. Out of my books, I particularly loved L’esteta armato» he tells us. «It included a number of microbiographies, mainly on German subjects, with a consideration of Germany in the 1930s. It featured figures of poet-conductors, literate intellectuals with a rebellious soul that believed in Europe more than we do today, and they took action because they believed they could help break down the the injustices around them».

A career devoted Maurizio Serra was born in London in 1955. A diplomat. He was the Italian ambassador to UNESCO and the UN. As a biographer and historian, he focused particularly on the Twentieth century, with works that include «Beyond Decadence. La rivolta dei moderni contro l’idea della fine» (Il Mulino, 1994), «Il passeggero del secolo. Guerre, Rivoluzioni, Europe» with François Fejtő (Sellerio, 2001), «Fratelli separati. Drieu, Aragon, Malraux» (Settecolori, 2007). Since 2020 he has been a member of the Académie française. As a narrator, he made his debut this year with his first novel: «Amori Diplomatici» (Marsilio)