Il cavaliere presbite. Bufalino il Meschino?

This contribution intends to study the notion of identity that is outlined in the work of Gesualdo Bufalino, starting with his reinterpretation of the chivalric novel "Guerrin Meschino" (1991 and 1993). In particular, I will try to demonstrate that an overly automatic overlap between the author, the old puppeteer, and the paladin-puppet risks to nail Bufalino to an anthropological belonging that is all too deterministic. The anthologist of the "One hundred Sicilies" is in fact aware of how much each identity is the result of multiple factors, well beyond the biographical data. In his production, the search for roots is largely an invention of roots, since memory acts selectively and, on the other hand, opens to the inventions of dreams, fantasy and intertextual “re-being”.