Filologia e canti popolari nel carteggio Michele Barbi-Renata Steccati (1930-1940)

The letters and postcards exchanged between Michele Barbi and Renata Steccata from Friuli, who was his student at Istituto Superiore, are chronologically organized and herein published with comments. The period covered are the years 1930-1940. Inspired by the several topics considered, particular attention is paid to specific aspects of the philological and scientific activities of the famous Italianist Alessandro Manzoni (with respect to Conversione dell’Innominato) and to the Italian popular poetry. Within this subject, important methodological issues are analyzed with regard to the oral transmission of the texts. An important internal memo was recovered, which was adopted as template for local investigations of Barbi’s collaborators. The figure of Renata Steccati emerges due to her remarkable merits as investigator of popular texts in the Slavic-Friuli area, which caught the attention of the biggest experts on the subject (Toschi, Maticetov ecc.).