Sandro Gerbi

Sandro Gerbi was born in Peru because his father Antonello (1904-1976), who at the time was senior economist of Banca Commerciale Italiana, had been transferred there in 1938 by his boss, Raffaele Mattioli.

It was Cantoni, at the time a regular contributor to the Italian daily papers, Il Sole 24 Ore (Milan) and La Stampa (Turin), who introduced him to the world of journalism.

Gerbi’s work as an author — which began quite late, at the age of 55 — is characterized by a special passion for extensive archival research: he likes to write biographical essays, and parallel biographies (with two characters examined together).

His books with the publishing house Einaudi include: in 1999, Tempi di malafede (winner of the Comisso Award in 2000),[3] a story about the thwarted friendship between the writer Guido Piovene and the antifascist philosopher Eugenio Colorni; in 2002, Raffaele Mattioli e il filosofo domato (the “tamed philosopher” being Antonello Gerbi); in 2006 and 2009, together with Raffaele Liucci, a two-volume biography about famous Italian journalist Indro Montanelli; in 2011, an essay called Mattioli e Cuccia.

His publications with the publishing house Hoepli include: in 2013, Giovanni Enriques, dalla Olivetti alla Zanichelli (winner of the Biella Award in 2014); in 2016, I Cosattini.

With Hoepli, Gerbi also published a couple of second editions of books previously written, such as Tempi di malafede in 2012 and the Indro Montanelli biography, Raffaele Mattioli e il filosofo domato, in one sole volume in 2017.

Between 1991 and 2006, Gerbi published several essays in the literary magazine Belfagor, as well as penning various entries for the Dictionary of Fascism (Einaudi, 2005), edited by Sergio Luzzatto and Victoria De Grazia.

His autobiographical research on the secularization of the Gerbi family has led to the 2019 publication of his book Ebrei riluttanti (Hoepli), which in 2020 has been translated into English by Jeremy Moyle as Reluctant Jews, published by Centro Primo Levi Editions in New York City.

This book tells the adventurous story of fascist broadcaster Lisa Sergio (1905-1989), who in 1937 moved from Italy to the United States and slowly embraced democratic principles.