[SANGUINETTI, Gianfranco] CENSOR. Rapporto Veridico Sulle Ultime Opportunia di Salvare il Capitalismo en Italia. Milan: Scotti Camuzi, 1975. 150 p.; 23.5 x 14.8 cm.; tan cover with text in red and black. Copy no. 137 of 520. Complete of its errata card. We locate a single OCLC copy at Yale University’s Beinecke Library, part of the Gianfranco Sanguinetti papers.

True first edition of what is perhaps Gianfranco Sanguinetti’s most critical work.

Gianfranco Sanguinetti joined the Situationist International after May 68, and soon turned into a key contributor to the organization (and of its last two members). He was one of the founding members of the Italian section of the S.I. in January 1969, alongside Claudio Pavan and Paolo Salvadori. Sanguinetti became very close to Debord (the two of them exchanged over 600 letters, many of which remain unpublished to this day), with whom he co-authored La veritable scission dans l’Internationale Situationniste in 1972. He also helped Debord with his film, La Société du Spectacle, also in 1972.

In July 1975, writing under the pseudonym of Censor, Sanguinetti authors the Rapporto Veridico Sulle Ultime Opportunia di Salvare il Capitalismo en Italia (in English: Truthful Report on the Last Chance to Save Capitalism in Italy). Posing as an anonymous, high-ranking member of the Italian intelligentsia, Sanguinetti makes the argument that the Christian democrats should welcome Communists in a coalition government in order to maintain the capitalist order. Written in the style of a political treatise, the book openly draws from the likes of Machiavelli and Clausewitz.

The book was printed in 520 numbered copies, then mailed to a small set of influential politicians, company executives, union leaders, and journalists. The book was then printed by Mursia in October 1975, garnering many positive reviews in the press and selling thousands of copies. The Rapporto would eventually be translated into French (Paris: Champ Libre, 1976) and English (Pougkeepsie, N.Y. : Anti-torpor league, 1979 — partial translation; Flatland: Fort Bragg, 1997; and online here)

For more details on the context behind the book, see here.

SANGUINETTI, Gianfranco. Prove Dell’Inesistenza di Censor. Milan: n.p., 1976. 32 p.; 23.5 x 15.3 cm.; tan cover with text in black. Copy no. 400 of 520. Compete with its red wrapper band. We locate two OCLC copies, at Bologna and Roma.

It was not until December 1975 that Sanguinetti revealed that the book was a fake, a hoax. In Prove Dell’Inesistenza di Censor: Censor did not exist; Rapporto was Sanguinetti’s attempt to point out the cynicism of the Italian bourgeoisie. This caused a large scandal, contrasting with the many positive reviews of the Rapporto in the Italian press.