This special issue gathers together articles which explicitly engage with the journal’s action in local, national, and international cultural networks, from Solaria’s inception in 1926 to the demise of Botteghe Oscure in 1960. The chronological spectrum of this guest-edited issue ensures that, for instance, we can identify the main phases of the development of a disinterested, and seemingly apolitical, approach to the role of the arts, cutting across Solaria, Letteratura, and Botteghe Oscure, linking together Florence, Rome and the various foreign republics of letters with which these journals dialogued over the years