The zafarrancho aquel de via Merulana, considered the summit work of Carlo Emilio Gadda, occupies on its own merits a prominent place among the most important Italian novels of the twentieth century. Set in 1927 Rome, at the height of fascism, the story revolves around the efforts of police commissioner Francesco Ingravallo, who must solve a double crime that occurred in a building in Via Merulana: the theft of the jewels of Countess Menegazzi and, subsequently, the brutal murder of the splendid and melancholy Liliana Balducci, whom the commissioner secretly admired. Ingravallo is a kind of detective-philosopher whose instinct and prodigious intelligence trace hidden connections between events and characters entering and leaving this puppet theater commanded by Gadda, in a novel that has been compared to Joyce's Ulysses both for linguistic richness and detail with which both writers were able to portray in their respective works the cities that starred them , certainly capturing his spirit. In the case of El zafarrancho, the pieces of research seem to form the enigmatic puzzle of a nation somewhat deaciated by the narcissistic madness of a tyrant, and it remains to be seen whether Commissioner Ingravallo's furious determination will be enough to account for disorder and evil, and manage to solve the case. Social novel, buffalo opera and literary act of political resistance, El zafarrancho is in any case a dazzling stylistic feat, portentously poured into our language in the new translation of Carlos Gumpert, and an unforgettable story about life and death.