For the «patriotic and national education» of Italians abroad. The posthumous edition of the reading book O Patria mia… by Luigi Bertelli (Vamba) and its distribution in Brazil

Depending on a wealth of archival and print documentation, the article reconstructs for the first time the genesis, contents and ideological and cultural addresses, and the particular editorial fortune, recorded in and out of the peninsula by one of the bestknown and long-lived reading books for the Italian schools abroad appeared between the two world wars: O Patria mia…«degna nutrice delle chiare genti», posthumous work of the famous children’s literature writer Luigi Bertelli, better known by the vast audience of his little readers with the pseudonym of Vamba. The a. It focuses on the original nationalistic but non-fascist approach of Vamba’s work, which, after the advent of Mussolini’s regime in Italy, was subjected to a sort of fascistization of the contents by the Florentine publisher Bemporad. In spite of this, the work was never loved by the regime, so that in the mid- 1930s, given its large distribution, for example, in Italian schools in Brazil, it was decided to replace it with ideological and political textbooks more in line with the addresses of fascist totalitarianism.