This contribution investigates, from a philological-historical perspective, the different versions of texts by Cesare Zavattini that will later merge into the subject of “Bellissima”, the film directed in 1951 by Luchino Visconti, starring Anna Magnani. Through a crucial decade for Italian cinema, the early forties and fifties of the twentieth century, the variants depict mutable scenarios through deep historical, political and cultural changes. From Fascist Cinecittà, animated by its stars swept away by the Second World War, to the change of gender of the two protagonists—first a widower and his son, then a woman willing to barter her daughter in exchange for the realization of their dreams—the variants of the subject draw a long-standing perspective on modern society: life becomes a show.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Jandelli, C., (2025), "“Cerchiamo un bambino distinto”. La genesi di Bellissima nei soggetti di Cesare Zavattini", HSSCommons: (DOI: )

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1. Quaderni d'italianistica

Original publication: Jandelli, Cristina. "“Cerchiamo un bambino distinto”. La genesi di Bellissima nei soggetti di Cesare Zavattini." Quaderni d'italianistica 34 (2): 2014. 47-64. DOI: 10.33137/q.i..v34i2.21034. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Iter Canada / Quaderni d'italianistica. Copyright © the author(s). Their work is distributed by Quaderni d'italianistica under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.