Guaraldi Vittorio (1 results)

Condition: Very good. 3 handwritten letters, 57 typewritten letters (some with handwritten letters on the reverse side), and several other documents and a few photographs relating to the service and personal life of Vittorio Guaraldi, an Italian-born diplomat who served in Addis Ababa from sometime in the late 1930s through the end of the Second World War. The bulk of the letters are bound by a metal clasp, which could be removed without much difficulty. Overall in very good condition, with chips and small tears to the edges of some letters, not affecting legibility. A touch of foxing here and there. Several of the letters are in Italian, but most are in English. Most letters date from the last weeks of 1945, and continue through the summer of 1946, and go into serious detail about the process that Guaraldi had to endure to get safe passage to the United States, where he wanted to move to be close to his brother Romeo and a woman who must be Romeo's wife, the perfectly-named Juliette. The visa, which one anticipates greatly after reading through the letters, is also present. Some of the more personal and even political anecdotes seem to be contained in the letters that are in the Italian language, but we have not translated them. Altogether, though quite focused on a short moment in political history, still a reasonably rich bureaucratic archive of a diplomat who served at perhaps the most turbulent time in world history - World War II, and the early dawn of both decolonization and the Cold War.