The news of the great authors, like Montaigne, is permanent and multiple. But Stefan Zweig, at a time when the war drama and an intimate and tragic despair are looming over him, fixes his attention on an element that is fundamental in the author of The essays: the effort to keep his own independence safe in an increasingly brutal and gregarious society. Zweig's text on Montaigne is not a cold study for specialists, but an emotional and vibrant work directed at the Viennese author's usual audience. A work that Zweig did not even finish, because before he took his own life. In spite of everything, in view of the strength of this beautiful book, can we interpret that Montaigne's hope was present at some time also in Zweig, and that the great Viennese writer conceived, in spite of everything, a new dawn for Europe?.
