Editing Federico Fellini (section)

=== Rimini (1920–1938) ===
Fellini was born on 20 January 1920, to [[Middle class|middle-class]] parents in [[Rimini]], then a small town on the [[Adriatic Sea]]. On 25 January, at the San Nicolò church he was baptized Federico Domenico Marcello Fellini.<ref name="autuori">{{cite web |title=Ma la casa mia n'dov'è? |url=http://www.ilponte.com/ma-la-casa-mia-ndove/ |last=Autuori |first=Beppe |date=30 October 2017 |website=Il Ponte|language=it-IT}}</ref> His father, Urbano Fellini (1894–1956), born to a family of [[Romagna|Romagnol]] [[peasant]]s and small [[Land tenure|landholders]] from [[Gambettola]], moved to [[Rome]] in 1915 as a baker [[apprentice]]d to the Pantanella pasta factory. His mother, Ida Barbiani (1896–1984), came from a [[Bourgeoisie|bourgeois]] [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] family of Roman [[merchant]]s. Despite her family's vehement disapproval, she had eloped with Urbano in 1917 to live at his parents' home in Gambettola.{{sfn|Alpert|1988|p=16}} A civil marriage followed in 1918 with the religious ceremony held at [[Santa Maria Maggiore]] in Rome a year later.

The couple settled in Rimini where Urbano became a [[Vendor|traveling salesman]] and [[Wholesaling|wholesale]] [[vendor]]. Fellini had two siblings, [[Riccardo Fellini|Riccardo]] (1921–1991), a documentary director for [[RAI]] Television, and [[Maddalena Fellini|Maria Maddalena]] (m. Fabbri; 1929–2002).

In 1924, Fellini began primary school at an institute run by the nuns of San Vincenzo in Rimini, later attending the Carlo Tonini public school two years afterward. An attentive student, he spent his leisure time drawing, staging [[puppet shows]] and reading ''Il corriere dei piccoli'', the popular children's magazine that reproduced traditional American cartoons by [[Winsor McCay]], [[George McManus]] and [[Frederick Burr Opper]]. (Opper's ''[[Happy Hooligan]]'' would provide the visual inspiration for Gelsomina in Fellini's 1954 film ''[[La Strada]]''; McCay's ''[[Little Nemo]]'' would directly influence his 1980 film ''[[City of Women]]''.){{sfn|Bondanella|2002|p=7}} In 1926, he discovered the world of [[Grand Guignol]], the circus with [[Pierrot|Pierino]] the Clown and the movies. [[Guido Brignone]]'s ''[[Maciste all'inferno (1925 film)|Maciste all'inferno]]'' (1925, ''Maciste in Hell''), the first film he saw, would mark him in ways linked to [[Dante]] and the cinema throughout his entire career.{{sfn|Burke|Waller|2003|p=5-13}}

Enrolled at the Ginnasio Giulio Cesare in 1929, he made friends with Luigi ''Titta'' Benzi, later a prominent Rimini lawyer (and the model for young Titta in ''[[Amarcord]]'' (1973)). In [[Benito Mussolini|Mussolini]]'s Italy, Fellini and Riccardo became members of the ''[[Avanguardisti|Avanguardista]]'', the compulsory [[Italian Fascism|Fascist]] youth group for males. He visited Rome with his parents for the first time in 1933, the year of the maiden voyage of the transatlantic ocean liner ''[[SS Rex]]'' (which is shown in ''Amarcord''). The sea creature found on the beach at the end of ''[[La Dolce Vita]]'' (1960) has its basis in a giant fish marooned on a Rimini beach during a storm in 1934.

Although Fellini adapted key events from his childhood and adolescence in films such as ''[[I Vitelloni]]'' (1953), ''[[8½|{{Fraction|8|1|2}}]]'' (1963), and ''[[Amarcord]]'' (1973), he insisted that such autobiographical memories were inventions: 
{{Blockquote |It is not memory that dominates my films. To say that my films are autobiographical is an overly facile liquidation, a hasty classification. It seems to me that I have invented almost everything: childhood, character, nostalgias, dreams, memories, for the pleasure of being able to recount them.<ref>Fellini interview in ''Panorama'' 18 (14 January 1980). Screenwriters [[Tullio Pinelli]] and [[Bernardino Zapponi]], cinematographer [[Giuseppe Rotunno]] and set designer [[Dante Ferretti]] also reported that Fellini imagined many of his "memories". Cf. Bernardino Zapponi's memoir, ''Il mio Fellini'' and Fellini's own insistence on having created his cinematic autobiography in ''I'm a Born Liar: A Fellini Lexicon'', 32</ref>}}

In 1937, Fellini opened Febo, a portrait shop in Rimini, with the painter Demos Bonini. His first humorous article appeared in the "Postcards to Our Readers" section of Milan's ''Domenica del Corriere''. Deciding on a career as a caricaturist and gag writer, Fellini travelled to [[Florence]] in 1938, where he published his first cartoon in the weekly ''420''. According to a biographer, Fellini found school "exasperating"{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=17}} and, in one year, had 67 absences.{{sfn|Kezich|2006|p=14}} Failing his military culture exam, he graduated from high school in 1939.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://dspace.unive.it/bitstream/handle/10579/14022/866246-1226445.pdf?sequence=2|title=Fellini a Rimini. Storia della documentazione sul regista tra Cineteca, Fondazione e Museo|page=44|access-date=21 November 2022|language=it}}</ref>