1. Other sources, including Adriano Aprà's extensive filmography in Le Cinéma révélé: Roberto Rossellini , ed. Alain Bergala (Paris: Les Éditions de l'Étoile, 1984), pp. 162-86, maintain that more than half of the footage in the extant version of the film was shot by Rossellini.

2. Savio, Cinecittà anni trenta , vol. 3, p. 966.

3. In another interview, Rossellini said he had begun filming on July 15 or 16. (Baldelli, Roberto Rossellini , p. 237.)

4. Faldini and Fofi, L'avventurosa storia , p. 70.

5. Giuseppe Ferrara, Il nuovo cinema italiano (Florence: Le Monnier, 1957), p. 83.

6. Faldini and Fofi, L'avventurosa storia , p. 48.

7. Rondolino, Rossellini , p. 50.

8. Raymond Borde and André Bouissy, Le Néo-réalisme italien: Une expérience de cinéma social (Lausanne: La Cinémathèque suisse, 1960), p. 26.

9. Nino Frank, Cinema dell'arte (Paris: Bonne, 1951), p. 151.

10. De Santis mentioned this in the context of an anecdote that also helps to explain Rossellini's unique position vis-à-vis the Fascist authorities: "We were writing the script of Desiderio and one evening . . . we were going home when we were stopped by a police patrol which demanded to see our papers. I didn't have a Fascist party card—but only because I had forgotten it at home in a drawer . . . and I could have gotten into trouble. Well, Rossellini, of whom Vittorio Mussolini and the Fascist Federation thought very highly, intervened, and everything was taken care of. (Faldini and Fofi, L'avventurosa storia , p. 69).

11. Ferrara, Il nuovo cinema italiano , pp. 45-46.

12. It is also easy to understand his relationship with Vittorio Mussolini in terms of personal friendship rather than politics; Rossellini's first wife, Marcella De Marchis, has stated that the two men never talked about the regime and neither she nor Roberto were ever enrolled in the Fascist party. (Faldini and Fofi, L'avventurosa storia , p. 59).

13. Faldini and Fofi, L'avventurosa storia , p. 69.