Today is a busy day for Google, clearly. Aside from getting tech geeks everywhere excited with the Google I/O 2012 conference, they also decided to make their Google Doodle department feel the burn as well, with not one, but two international Doodles. The first was for Google France and it featured Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The second Google Doodle, which features Luigi Pirandello, is targeted at Google Italy users.
If you don’t live in Italy, but you still want to see the Pirandello Doodle, you can do so by navigating to the Italian version of Google. The Doodle also leads this article. The focus of the Italian Doodle won the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature in 1934. While that may be the case, Google’s use of Pirandello is a little confusing, if you go by the author’s biography. Pirandello was a vocal supporter of Mussolini and even publicly called himself a fascist. However, a look at his Nobel biography reveals a little more about the man, and perhaps Google’s attraction:
Pirandello’s greatest achievement is in his plays. He wrote a large number of dramas which were published, between 1918 and 1935, under the collective title of Maschere nude [Naked Masks]. The title is programmatic. Pirandello is always preoccupied with the problem of identity. The self exists to him only in relation to others; it consists of changing facets that hide an inscrutable abyss.
Considering his Doodle has Pirandello removing a mask, aligning Google’s work with the Nobel’s brief snippet, perhaps the company relates to the author due to their personal identity data collection activities. Much like the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Doodle, we were informed of Pirandello’s tribute via the Google Doodles Twitter feed:
To not doodle a tribute to Italian novelist and playwright Luigi Pirandello would be considered a “tragic farce”. http://t.co/m9B3FFUo