ROME.- Today, in the heart of Rome, a curtain was raised not on a play, but on the extraordinary life and work of one of Italy’s most beloved storytellers. The Società Dante Alighieri's headquarters at Palazzo Firenze officially opened "Scenes, Voices, Accents, Writings: The Infinite Theater of Andrea Camilleri," a magnificent exhibition celebrating the centenary of the writer's birth.

Timed to coincide with the milestone anniversary, this show—which runs until November 9, 2025—is far more than a tribute to the creator of Inspector Salvo Montalbano. It’s an intimate invitation to step inside the mind of a cultural polymath who saw the entire world as one grand, unending stage.

Curated by historian Giulio Ferroni, the exhibition is a sophisticated and evocative collaboration between the Società Dante Alighieri and the Fondo Andrea Camilleri (Andrea Camilleri Fund). It meticulously re-assembles Camilleri's vast universe, guiding visitors through six thematic sections rich with original documents, private photographs, handwritten letters, rare scripts, and audiovisual clips.

Beyond Montalbano: A Man of the Theater

While millions know Camilleri for his sun-drenched, linguistically distinct Sicilian detective series, the exhibition's core mission is to showcase his deep and enduring commitment to the performing arts. Camilleri, like the great Sicilian master Pirandello before him, believed life itself was a performance, a "teatro infinito" where people were merely players—or puppets—defined by their "voices, accents, and writings."

His early life provided the foundation for this worldview. The exhibition’s second section, "Poet or Director?," charts his transition from a budding post-war poet, corresponding with literary giants like Elio Vittorini, to his entry into the Academy of Dramatic Art in Rome. This marked the beginning of a relentless career as a theater director. Visitors can browse documents, reviews, and scripts that bear witness to his passion for the Theater of the Absurd, particularly his acclaimed stagings of Beckett, Pirandello, and Ionesco.

The show also shines a spotlight on his prolific career with RAI, Italy’s public broadcasting service. For decades, Camilleri was the unseen hand behind some of the nation's most popular radio and television programs, writing screenplays for detective series like Il tenente Sheridan and Maigret. Letters and screenplays detail this period, including correspondence related to his work on Il Versificatore, and his collaborations with celebrated authors like Leonardo Sciascia.

The Anatomy of a Storyteller

The process behind Camilleri's distinctive narrative voice—the one that blended Italian with local Sicilian dialect—is unveiled in the section "An Inexhaustible Narrative." Here, the journey from his early, unheralded novels like the typescript for Mani avanti (1967–68) and Il corso delle cose (1978) to the global phenomenon of Montalbano is meticulously traced. A fascinating display includes editorial correspondence, various translations of his works, and even a Sicilian glossary meticulously drafted by the author himself. This offers a rare, technical look at how he engineered a language that became his signature and, eventually, a new vernacular for an entire generation of Italian readers.

The visual dimension of the writer's life—often overlooked—is explored in "Forms of Vision." Camilleri’s interest in art is revealed through his published works on painters like Caravaggio, Guttuso, and Renoir. The culmination of the exhibition, however, is a poignant tribute to his final years. The final segment re-creates the atmosphere of his one-man show, "Conversazione su Tiresia" (Conversation on Tiresia), which he performed in 2018 at the monumental Greek Theatre of Syracuse.

This moment, just a year before his passing, symbolized the final transformation of the author’s life: blind but with his mind and voice as sharp as ever, he became the brilliant, critical symbol of storytelling vitality itself.

Adding to the experience, an immersive array of audiovisual materials from the RAI archives and other sources are woven throughout the exhibition, featuring interviews, television appearances, and the backstage footage from the Tiresia production. A delightful detail for visitors is the audio guide, narrated by Marco Presta, a direct student of Camilleri from his days teaching at the Academy.

"The Infinite Theater of Andrea Camilleri" is open from October 23 to November 9, 2025, at Palazzo Firenze. It is a necessary pilgrimage for fans of Inspector Montalbano and a profound discovery for anyone interested in the cultural heart of modern Italy.

The exhibition is open Monday to Friday (10:00 AM–6:00 PM) and Saturday/Sunday (10:00 AM–2:00 PM), but will be closed on November 1st and 2nd.