Possible Worlds, Real Worlds and Worlds of Fiction in Loriano Macchiavelli’s Detective Stories

Abstract

The essay deals with part of the literary production of Loriano Macchiavelli, one of the founders of the contemporary Italian detective story. One part is devoted to the transmedia nature of the character that brought Macchiavelli fame, Sergente Sarti Antonio. He is adapted for the small screen and for comic strips: an extension that the author mentions within the texts and that conditions the phases of his own fictional life. The other half deals with Marco Gherardini, known as Poiana, a young Forestry Police Inspector, the protagonist of the most recent trilogy by Macchiavelli & Francesco Guccini. Poiana stands almost at the antipodes of Sarti Antonio: as much Sarti is 'urban' and disenchanted, as Gherardini is at ease in the mountains and capable of casting, on nature more than on men, a gaze full of wonder. With the Poiana trilogy, the path of uprooting noir from its environment of choice, the city, comes to an end, after a significant passage through the saga of Maresciallo Santovito, the first character created by Macchiavelli & Guccini.