Gramsci’s Influence on Antonio La Penna From Gentile training to Empiriomaterialism

This article aims at clarifying Antonio Gramsci’s influence on Antonio LaPenna, one of the most important Italian Classicists. It will show how Antonio Gramsci’sworks provided La Penna with several categories which were fundamental in hisanalysis of both Latin literature and Roman society. Moreover, I will argue that Gramsci’sthought represented for La Penna a doorway to Marxism in the postwar period, andsubsequently a way to overcome it. In fact, the reading of Gramsci’s work determinedLa Penna’s constant attempt to emancipate himself from Idealism. As matter of facts,this philosophy deeply characterised the training he received during his childhood andyouth in the Italian school system which was dominated by the figure of Giovanni Gentilethroughout the thirties and the early fourties.