The first jury of the Antico Fattore prize, in one reunion (1930)
| The "Antico Fattore" Literary Prize was originally created in 1931. It took its
name from a restaurant in the Via Lambertesca in Florence which was a famous
meeting-place for men of culture who also enfoyed the pleasures of the table.
Literary contacts made at the Antico Fattore had a certain importance for the
development of Italian twentieth-century writing. Painters and sculptors met to
choose the best poet of the yeaL Works of outstanding cultural interest were in
this way brought to light, and the award was made to two future Nobel Prize
winners: Eugenio Montale for his "La Casa dei Doganieri", and Salvatore Quasimodo
for his "Odore di Eucaliptus". The Prize acquired greater and greater influence
and importance, until events put an end to it and it ceased to be awarded.
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In
1983 the Folonari family, who have owned the Chianti Ruffino winery since 1913
and have alwavs becn aware of cultural responsibilities, sponsored the revival of
the Prize. With great enthusiasm they have striven to recover the old values, and
to increase the fame and reputation of the Prize on a European level, so as to
make it fully worthy of the city which gave it birth. The present Prize is
intended to honour those works which, having already obtained international
literary recognition, best express the values of nature, the environment, the
countryside or the pleasures of enjoying its produce. Since its revival the
Chianti Ruffino Antico Fattore International Literary Prize has been awarded to
Italian and foreign writers of the first rank. The 1989 Prize was awarded to Toni
Morrison (USA), who was later (1993) to receive the Nobel Prize for literature .
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