The newspaper that taught immigrants how to be Italian in Brazil.

On June 17, 1893, a small humorous weekly magazine written in Italian circulated for the first time in São Paulo. It was called... fanfullaIt was four pages long and was created with the modest aim of entertaining readers.

Few could have imagined that that leaf would become... the most influential newspaper of the Italian community in Brazil.

With interruptions, format changes, and very distinct phases, Fanfulla has spanned more than a century of history. It moved from humor to politics, became a daily newspaper, defended immigrants, helped found symbols of Italian culture in São Paulo, and later also carried an uncomfortable page: adherence to fascism.

The history of the newspaper is, to a large extent, the history of itself. Italian immigration in Brazil.

A nickname for a joke newspaper.

The name Fanfulla came from Fanfulla da Lodi, a legendary figure in Italian history. According to the historian Franco Cenni, a fundamental reference in studies on Italian immigration to Brazil, was a warrior friar from the 15th century, linked to the imagery of battles, tournaments, and popular bravery.

The choice matched the initial spirit of the publication. Fanfulla was born as a humorous, satirical, light-hearted newspaper, aimed at a rapidly growing community in São Paulo.

But the playful tone didn't last long.

Its founder was Vitaliano Rotellini, an Italian journalist who had previously worked in newsrooms such as Messenger e L'Aquila Latina before crossing the Atlantic. Under his direction, from 1893 to 1910, Fanfulla ceased to be just a humor paper and assumed a much more ambitious role.

He began to speak on behalf of the Italians.

The unofficial voice of the colony

From 1894 onwards, Fanfulla became a daily newspaper. It published Brazilian politics, news from Italy, culture, entertainment, sports, advertisements, public debates, and everyday affairs of the colony.

It wasn't just a newspaper for Italians. It was a space where Italians in Brazil began to see themselves as a group.

Angelo Trento, one of the leading scholars of the Italian press in the country, defined Fanfulla as "the true unofficial organ of the Italian community on Brazilian soil".

The phrase sums up the importance of the newspaper.

At a time when immigrants were still seen as foreign labor and often treated with suspicion, Fanfulla functioned as a spokesperson., platform, community mural and instrument of pressure.

He defended the interests of immigrants, demanded participation in Brazilian public life, and closely followed the problems of a population that was growing at an accelerated pace.

Before they were Italian, they were Venetians, Calabrians, and Piedmontese.

Fanfulla's role went beyond simply providing information.

At the end of the 19th century, many newcomers to the peninsula did not see themselves exactly as Italian. Italy had been unified only a few decades earlier, and national identity was still fragile, especially among peasants, poor workers, and families from very different regions.

The National Library sums up this point directly: many immigrants "did not yet identify as Italian in the 19th century."

They identified themselves as Venetians, Calabrians, Piedmontese, Tuscans, Trentino, Sardinians, or Lombards. They spoke different dialects, had different customs, and carried local memories that were much stronger than the abstract idea of ​​an Italian homeland.

It was in this void that the Italian-language press gained strength.

By writing in Italian for everyone, Fanfulla helped to forge a common identity. The newspaper transformed regional fragments into community. It created shared points of reference. It gave immigrants a public language, a common agenda, and a narrative of belonging.

It's no exaggeration to say that Fanfulla has helped many Italians in Brazil feel Italian.

Five Italian newspapers in one city.

Fanfulla was not alone. São Paulo had as many as five Italian-language newspapers in 1907, including Fanfulla, La Tribuna Italiana, Il Secolo, Avanti! and Corriere d'Italia.

It was a rare, vigorous, and highly politicized ecosystem of ethnic press.

The phenomenon mirrored the size of the immigration. Between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, São Paulo became the main destination for Italians in Brazil. The city and the interior of São Paulo They received hundreds of thousands of immigrants, and Italian-language newspapers began circulating in cafes, warehouses, associations, mutual aid societies, workshops, and family homes.

In Rio Grande do Sul, the first Italian weekly newspaper was... Italian, Cesare Pelli, published in 1890. In Porto Alegre, the pioneer was Il Corriere CattolicoOf 1891.

Angelo Trento's survey gives an idea of ​​the power of this universe: between 1854 and 1975, the following circulated in Brazil: 834 Italian titlesMore than two-thirds emerged between 1880 and 1920, at the height of immigration, and just over 70% circulated in the state of São Paulo.

It was too much of a newspaper to be just nostalgia.

The Italian press in Brazil was political, community-oriented, identity-based, and often combative.

Recognition that turned into print runs

Fanfulla's strength was evident in the numbers.

The circulation reached approximately 20 copies in 1915 and 40 in 1934. At that time, the newspaper was considered the second largest in São Paulo, behind only O Estado de S. Paulo.

For a foreign-language periodical, it was an extraordinary achievement.

The explanation lies in the place that Fanfulla occupied in the lives of immigrants. It wasn't just read; it was used. It served to look for work, advertise services, follow political decisions, publicize events, defend causes, call meetings, and organize community life.

It was in the pages of Fanfulla that, in 1914, a group of Italians called for those interested in creating a football club to represent the colony.

Journalist Vincenzo Ragognetti published a call to form a sports association with "the representation that the immense community deserved."

Palestra Italia was born there, officially founded on August 26, 1914. Decades later, due to the political context of World War II, the club would change its name and become Palmeiras.

The troublesome page: fascism

Fanfulla's story doesn't fit into a romanticized version.

In the 1920s and 1930s, under new management and in a context of strong influence from Benito Mussolini's regime over Italian communities abroad, the newspaper became one of the main vehicles for fascist propaganda in Brazil.

Historian Teresa Malatian is direct in stating that Fanfulla came to support fascism and became "one of the main disseminators of this ideology in Brazil," favored by its wide circulation in the capital of São Paulo and in the interior of the state.

This point is crucial.

The same newspaper that helped organize the lives of immigrants and build a common Italian identity was also used, at another time, as an instrument of authoritarian political propaganda.

Fanfulla's history is extensive, but not clean. And that's precisely why it's historically relevant.

The silence of war and the return

In January 1942, Fanfulla ceased publication. That month, Brazil broke off diplomatic relations with the Axis powers, in the midst of World War II. From then on, the Italian-language press faced censorship, restrictions, and a hostile political environment.

The newspaper returned to newsstands in 1947, already in a different world.

Italy was a republic. Fascism had fallen. The Italian community in Brazil was no longer the same. Many descendants spoke Portuguese as their first language, were integrated into Brazilian society, and saw Italy more as a family memory than as a daily political reference.

Even so, Fanfulla survived.

It changed format, becoming weekly, then bi-weekly, gained color and a digital presence. Throughout this trajectory, it began to claim the continuity of a century-old history under the formula "the newspaper of Italians in Brazil since 1893".

A community printed on paper

Fanfulla started as a joke, became a platform, and ended as a memory.

Its legacy lies not only in the old editions, the headlines, the controversies, or the advertisements. It lies in the role it played in shaping a community.

For thousands of immigrants, the newspaper was a bridge between their homeland and their destination country. For their children and grandchildren, it became a vestige of a time when being Italian in Brazil was still a daily struggle.

Fanfulla did not only record the Italian colony.

He also helped manufacture it.