"« A Tuscan town surrounded by swamps, near the sea; three generations of rebels, by family tradition and by instinct, who traversing the history of Italy from unity to liberation, give the Garibaldina red shirt the black reflections of the anarchy to later take out a communist flag; characters with such symptomatic names as Garibaldo, Quarto, Volturno, who from their small town launch, or are pushed, on fortune trips and wars in Europe, Africa, the two Americas, the In the same way that his frugal life is open to strong acts and companies, until his death in the fight against the bosses (successively represented by the royal guards, by the forest guards, by the fascists of various kinds, by the Republic police) ; women who face not only reality, but also fantasies and horoscopes, with tragicomic cries; a populist and freethinker priest, who ends up like a mole, meditating underground on the errors of the Church. These are some of the materials with which Tabucchi has built this "popular fable", the popularity of which is above all content (I also point out the striking color scheme, interiors and exteriors worthy of the most unbridled period posters), while the fabulous is a product of the narrative treatment: laconic passages, abrupt approximations, spectacular changes of register ... so that the greatness that is revealed within daily life preserves, even more, accentuates the comic and grotesque profiles inserted in its sublime unconsciousness. Delicate balances that Tabucchi sustains by cutting out with unusual inventiveness the short chapters, small pictures framed with ingenious titles, assembling those pictures with anticipation and hovering games that enhance their tension, adapting to the fluctuating syntax a lexicon of rustic efficiency, unusual among writers Tuscans today. Piazza d'Italia is a popular fable so refined that it makes your skills go unnoticed. ”

This is how the prestigious critic Cesare Segne presented, in 1975, the first edition of this work, which won the «L'inèdito» award. A beautiful, extravagant novel, full of humor and melancholy. A telegraphic history of Italy, or better yet, an antihistory of Italy through a family of anarchists, of losers. A first Tabucchi that already announces the future Tabucchi, who has established himself as one of the best writers of our day. "