Giuseppe Tontodonati

Ultimately, Giuseppe Tontodonati is considered one of the most important Italian dialect poets of the 20th century. Due to his strong commitment on celebrating the beauty of Abruzzo, the Regional Cultural Authority of the Abruzzo Region has included him among the top list of the top regional cultural testimonials. The Abruzzo Region Cultural Department twice, 1993 and in 2011, published collections of Tontodonati poems to commemorate his past activity. The last one, Da Lu Piccule Resurgemende a Porta Pije - L'Abruzzo dai moti carbonari all'Unità d'Italia fino a brigantaggio post-unitario (2011) has been included into the official activities of the 150th year of Italian nationhood celebration by the Abruzzo Region.

In 1959 he and his family moved to Bologna, where he lived until his death on January 6, 1989. In Bologna he started to write poems using mainly Abruzzo dialect (see his first work, "Storie Paesane" written in 1958 with an introduction by the poet Antonio Rinaldi). In Bologna he founded and directed as president, the Centro Internazionale delle Arti – CIDA a cultural center of arts active in Bologna from 1973 till 1985. He also wrote texts for several folk songs set with the music of Giuseppe di Pasquale.

From 1940 he was a soldier in Greece during World War II. On September 8, 1943, Italy signed the armistice and Tontodonati, like many other Italian soldiers, was deported at first to the Stammlager IV/B Mühlberg-Elbe and then moved to the Lager of Turgau and then Pieteritz as soldier/worker IMI, until mid-1945. He returned, skeletal in appearance, to Pescara at the end of 1945.

Giuseppe Tontodonati (February 2, 1917 — January 6, 1989) was an Italian poet.

Giuseppe Tontodonati was born in Abruzzo, a region in central Italy in the small town of Scafa (Pescara province) in 1917. When he was a child, in 1925, he moved with his family to Pescara. In this large city he started to feel the influence of the arts and poetry.