Robert Dombroski Italian Conference

Nor do iron bars a prison make

Imprisonment in Italian Culture

September 25-26, 2004
University of Connecticut , Storrs , Connecticut

Since its earliest flowerings, Italian literary and cinematic culture have always produced works centered upon the concept of the prison. From Marco Polo and Dante to Machiavelli, Gramsci, Lina Wertmüller and Benigni, the representation of imprisonment has been a recurrent theme throughout Italian cultural production.

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage,
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage.

 Richard Lovelace
‘To Althea', from Prison (IV)