Editing Italo Calvino (section)

===Early life and education===
In 1925, less than two years after Calvino's birth, the family returned to Italy and settled permanently in [[Sanremo]] on the [[Liguria]]n coast. Calvino's brother Floriano, who became a distinguished geologist, was born in 1927. The family divided their time between the Villa Meridiana, an experimental floriculture station which also served as their home, and Mario's ancestral land at San Giovanni Battista. On this small working farm set in the hills behind Sanremo, Mario pioneered the cultivation of the then exotic fruits such as [[avocado]] and [[grapefruit]], eventually obtaining an entry in the {{lang|it|Dizionario biografico degli italiani}} for his achievements. The vast forests and luxuriant fauna omnipresent in Calvino's early fiction such as ''[[The Baron in the Trees]]'' derive from this "legacy". In an interview, Calvino stated that "San Remo continues to pop out in my books, in the most diverse pieces of writing."<ref>Corti, ''Autografo 2'' (October 1985): 51.</ref>

Calvino and Floriano would climb the tree-rich estate and perch for hours on the branches reading their favourite adventure stories.<ref>Weiss, ''Understanding Italo Calvino'', 2.</ref> Less salubrious aspects of this "paternal legacy" are described in ''[[The Road to San Giovanni]]'', Calvino's memoir of his father in which he exposes their inability to communicate: "Talking to each other was difficult. Both verbose by nature, possessed of an ocean of words, in each other's presence we became mute, would walk in silence side by side along the road to San Giovanni."<ref>Calvino, ''The Road to San Giovanni'', 10.</ref> A fan of [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s ''[[The Jungle Book]]'' as a child, Calvino felt that his early interest in stories made him the "black sheep" of a family that held literature in less esteem than the sciences. Fascinated by American movies and cartoons, he was equally attracted to drawing, poetry, and theatre. On a darker note, Calvino recalled that his earliest memory was of a [[Marxist]] professor who had been brutally assaulted by [[Benito Mussolini]]'s [[Blackshirts]]. He said: "I remember clearly that we were at dinner when the old professor came in with his face beaten up and bleeding, his bowtie all torn up over it, asking for help."<ref name="ReferenceB">Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', ''Hermit in Paris'', 130.</ref>

Other legacies include the parents' beliefs in [[Freemasonry]], [[republicanism]] with elements of [[anarchism]] and [[Marxism]].<ref>McLaughlin, xii. Calvino defined his family's traditions as "a humanitarian Socialism, and before that Mazzinianism". Cf. Calvino, 'Behind the Success' in ''Hermit in Paris'', 223.</ref> Austere freethinkers with an intense hatred of the ruling [[National Fascist Party]], Eva and Mario also refused to give their sons any education in the Catholic Faith or any other religion.<ref name="ReferenceD">Weiss, ''Understanding Italo Calvino'', 3.</ref> Italo attended the English nursery school St George's College, followed by a Protestant elementary private school run by [[Waldensians]]. His secondary schooling, with a classical [[lyceum#Italy|lyceum]] curriculum, was completed at the state-run Liceo Gian Domenico Cassini where, at his parents' request, he was exempted from religion classes but frequently asked to justify his anti-conformism to teachers, janitors, and fellow pupils.<ref>Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', ''Hermit in Paris'', 133.</ref> In his mature years, Calvino described the experience as having made him "tolerant of others' opinions, particularly in the field of religion, remembering how irksome it was to hear myself mocked because I did not follow the majority's beliefs".<ref>Calvino, 'Political Autobiography of a Young Man', ''Hermit in Paris'', 134.</ref> In 1938, [[Eugenio Scalfari]], who went on to found the weekly magazine {{lang|it|[[L'Espresso]]}} and {{lang|it|[[La Repubblica]]}}, a major Italian newspaper, came from [[Civitavecchia]] to join the same class though a year younger, and they shared the same desk.<ref>Sabina Minardi,['Eugenio Scalfari: «Io e Calvino nel segno di Atena» ,'] [[L'Espresso]] 15 September 2015.</ref> The two teenagers formed a lasting friendship, Calvino attributing his political awakening to their university discussions. Seated together "on a huge flat stone in the middle of a stream near our land",<ref name="ReferenceB"/> he and Scalfari founded a university movement called the MUL. Eva managed to delay her son's enrolment in the Party's armed scouts, the {{lang|it|[[Opera Nazionale Balilla|Balilla Moschettieri]]}}, and then arranged that he be excused, as a non-Catholic, from performing devotional acts in Church.<ref>Calvino, "Political Autobiography of a Young Man", ''Hermit in Paris'', 134.</ref> But later on, as a compulsory member, he could not avoid the assemblies and parades of the {{lang|it|[[Avanguardisti]]}},<ref>Calvino, 'The Duce's Portraits', ''Hermit in Paris'', 210.</ref> and was forced to participate in the Italian invasion of the [[French Riviera]] in June 1940.<ref name="ReferenceD" />