Narrative of the origins and responsibility of writing in “Un infinito numero” by Sebastiano Vassalli

Abstract

Sebastiano Vassalli’s historical novel Un infinito numero (1999) is based on the myth of the lost wisdom and the secrets of the remote Etruscan civilization and shows effectively how literary imagination can attempt to ‘fill the gaps’ of historical science. The novel effectively portrays a problematic relationship with a hidden area of antiquity and the creative strategies that the novelist can put in place to imaginatively retrieve it. This article analyzes Vassalli’s unique perspective on the ancient and puts it in dialogue with other examples from Vassalli’s oeuvre (i. e. Terre selvagge, 2014), and with comparable case studies from Italian and British literature.