In a flat and accessible form, these excerpts from the letters from prison and from confinement of Eugenio Colorni to Ursula Hirschmann contain a small treasure. They stemmed from what - referring to Eugenio Colorni’s and his 1937-38 Trieste friends’ public engagement and intellectual attitude of great openness, in which nothing was taken for granted - Albert Hirschman called “the ideal microfoundation of a firmly democratic society”. These excerpts explore the microfondation of that lifestyle: a series of key points that are at the base of the theoretical-practical elaboration of their author.