War Years

Upon returning to Italy, Uguccione went to Rome and worked for the Ministry of Popular Culture where he wrote news bulletins and transmissions for the English-speaking public. During the years of World War II completed assignments for foreign journals. Uguccione became more involved in the war when Mussolini allied himself with Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. He worked with the Allies as a censor, examining mail to and from British and American prisoners of war (POWs). Eventually Uguccione was sent to the front, a consequence of an argument with a superior in the censor office. Even though he held a position of high status in the Italian government, Uguccione despised Fascism. When his brother Ludovico returned from the war with an injury, Uguccione mocked his need to be a hero. Uguccione’s beliefs fueled his participation in the rescue of many POWs by organizing an escape route to the west.

After the war ended in 1945, he worked in the press office of the Italian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, and was decorated with a silver medal for military valor. After 1949, he left Rome and worked for The United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO). However, Uguccione was unsatisfied and the war still haunted him. Disturbed by his friend Augusto Rufino’s passing, Uguccione wrote a letter to Augusto’s mother about the war. His writings served as an outlet for his grief but he was eventually able to move on and met his wife Marilena de Vecchi; they married in 1951.

Birth and

childhood

Uguccione

the scholar

Uguccione

the writer