Umbrellas, umbrellas. A journey through seaside Italy in the pages of “Tempo” (1946-1949)

Abstract

In the issue no. 29 dated 16-23 July 1949 of Tempo, the ‘Letters to the Editor’ section announces that Federico Patellani, a photojournalist linked to the newspaper, has begun ‘the Tour of the Beaches of Italy’. From Versilia to the Adriatic coast, Patellani produces photo-texts that investigate with insight and irony the connotations that seaside holidays took on in the late 1940s and early 1950s, between the immediate post-war period and reconstruction. Patellani's seaside wanderings would not be unique: the following year, Tempo itself entrusted Vincenzo Rovi and Carlo Cisventi with a series of photo-investigations on Italian beaches.
This contribution aims to read these beach reportages as a singular thematic articulationof the ‘Italian Journey’, as part of that phenomenon of exploration and remapping of the country present in numerous post-war Italian cultural products.