[citation needed] Growing up, his imagination was caught by several writers, including Dante Alighieri, and by the study of foreign languages (especially English), as well as the landscapes of the Levante ("Eastern") Liguria, where he spent holidays with his family.

[citation needed] Alongside his imaginative work he was a constant contributor to Italy's most important newspaper, the Corriere della Sera, for which he wrote a huge number of articles on literature, music, and art.

[5] Montale's work, especially his first poetry collection Ossi di seppia ("Cuttlefish Bones"), which appeared in 1925, shows him as an antifascist who felt detached from contemporary life and found solace and refuge in the solitude of nature.

Florence was the cradle of Italian poetry of that age, with works like the Canti orfici by Dino Campana (1914) and the first lyrics by Ungaretti for the review Lacerba.

Visiting the café often several times a day, he became a central figure among a group of writers there, including Carlo Emilio Gadda, Arturo Loria and Elio Vittorini (all founders of the magazine).

[citation needed] Though hindered by financial problems and the literary and social conformism imposed by the authorities, in Florence, Montale published his finest anthology, Le occasioni ("Occasions", 1939).

From 1933 to 1938 he had a love relationship with Irma Brandeis, a Jewish-American scholar of Dante who occasionally visited Italy for short periods.

Franco Fortini judged Montale's Ossi di seppia and Le occasioni the high-water mark of 20th century Italian poetry.

Here his figure Clizia is joined by La Volpe ("the Fox"), based on the young poet Maria Luisa Spaziani with whom Montale had an affair during the 1950s.

Montale's later poetry is wry and ironic, musing on the critical reaction to his earlier work and on the constantly changing world around him.