Menéndez Pelayo e Italia (1856-1912)

As he already highlighted in his first “Letter from Rome”, the relations between the Iberian and Italian Peninsulas had been intense and constant over the centuries due to geographical and racial affinities, cultural interests and trade. And he cited in it a copious list of Spaniards who, for very different reasons, lived in Italy or had the opportunity to visit it. And both in these letters and in those dedicated to the Spanish Jesuits in exile, the work of our compatriots and the mark they left on the culture of that country, so present in Italian libraries and archives, stood out. In this work I will deal, on the one hand, with Menéndez Pelayo's interest in the cultural presence of the Spanish in Italy and, on the other hand, with his work among Italian intellectuals.