La Ronda (magazine)

La Ronda was first published on 23 April 1919.[1] It was founded by the poet and writer Lorenzo Montano.[2] The magazine came out monthly and was headquartered in Rome.[3]

Vincenzo Cardarelli, Aurelio E. Saffi, Riccardo Bacchelli, Antonio Baldini, Bruno Barilli, Emilio Cecchi and Lorenzo Montano were the members of its editorial board in the first year.[4] From the second year only Cardarelli and Saffi held the post.[1] In addition, Cardarelli served as the editor-in-chief of La Ronda.[1]

The aim of La Ronda was to reinforce a modernist literary approach supporting the values of literature understood as a style.[1][3] In the first editorial Cardarelli argued that it was time to focus on the Italian modernism which had delayed due to World War I.[5] The magazine managed to develop a literary movement which was called rondismo[3] which harshly criticized the futurism movement calling its adherents as literary destroyers.[6] La Ronda avoided taking part in political discussions.[7] Instead, it attempted to develop connections with international literary circles to make the Italian literary work much more known.[5] The magazine had an elitist approach and was not read by the masses.[1]

La Ronda had three major sections: discussion of literary and cultural affairs, major literary work and theories and review section which included both letters and reports on other magazines.[8] Notable contributors of the magazine included Guglielmo Ferrero, Vilfredo Pareto, Filippo Burzio, Giuseppe Raimondi, Alberto Savinio, Ardengo Soffici and Carlo Carrà.[6] Of them Ardengo Soffici left the magazine soon due to its apolitical stance and its insistence on returning to formal literary style.[7] La Ronda also featured translations of the work by Robert Louis Stevenson, Herman Melville, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, George Bernard Shaw, Edgar Lee Masters and Thomas Hardy.[6]

The magazine ceased publication in November 1922 after producing a total of 34 issues.[4] In December 1923 a special issue was released.[4]

Solaria, a literary magazine started in 1926, was influenced from La Ronda.[9]

All issue of La Ronda were archived under the project Circe at the University of Trento.[4]

• Media related to La Ronda at Wikimedia Commons