Italian Politics & Society The Review of the Conference Group on Italian Politics and Society
No. 55 http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/congrips/ Spring 2002
President * About this issue Filippo Sabetti McGill University * Announcements
* Conferences Vice President
Carol Mershon * Internet Resources University of Virginia
Executive * Member Profile Secretary/Treasurer * Book Reviews Richard Katz The Johns Hopkins University * Membership Application/Renewal Form
Program Chair
Simona Piattoni Acting Editor: Book Review Editor University of Trento Vincent Della Sala Osvaldo Croci, Ph.D. Dept. of Political Science Dept. of Political Science Carleton University Memorial University Executive Committee Ottawa, Ontario St. John's, Newfoundland Piero Ignazi Canada K1S 5B6 Canada A1B 3X9 University of Bologna Tel: (613) 520-2777 Tel. (709) 737 8185
Julia Lynch Fax: (613) 520-4064 Fax (709) 737 4000 University of Pennsylvania [email protected] [email protected]
Raffaella Nanetti University of Illinois
Simona Piattoni University of Trento
Alan Zuckerman Brown University
2 Italian Politics & Society The Review of the Conference Group on Italian Politics and Society
No. 55 ISSN 1497-0716 Former Presidents Norman Kogan (1975-77); Samuel Barnes (1977-79); Gianfranco Pasquino (1979-81); Robert Putnam (1981-83); Joseph LaPalombara (1983-85); Sidney Tarrow (1985-87); Giacomo Sani (1987-89); Peter Lange (1989-91); Raphael Zariski (1991-93); Steve Hellman (1993-95); Alberta Sbragia (1995-97); Miriam Golden (1997-99); Richard Katz (1999-2001).
Contents
About this Issue 4
CONGRIPS Questionnaire 5
Announcements 7
Internet Resources 9
Conferences 11
Member Profiles – Raymond Grew 14
Book Reviews 27
Membership Renewals 64 3
Acknowledgements
This issue of Italian Politics and Society has been published with the support of CONGRIPS.
Deadlines and Forms
This newsletter is distributed twice a year, usually in the spring and autumn. Articles, research notes, summaries of conference proceedings, as well as commentaries and announcements meant for inclusion in the Autumn number should be sent before September 1. Those intended for the spring number should be sent before March 15. All contributions should be submitted in a commonly used word processing format on a diskette. Citations and references should follow the American Political Science Association Style Manual. The booklet Style Manual for Political Science can be requested from APSA at 1527 New Hampshire Avenue, Washington, D.C., 20036, USA.
Back issues
Back-issues can be obtained for five dollars each or ten dollars for any three issues. A complete set of the newsletter since January 1977 would cost $120, including postage. Send your requests to: [email protected]
Queries
Re: membership or dues: [email protected] Re: contributions: [email protected]
4
ABOUT THIS ISSUE
Readers will find that there are a number of changes in this letter and in CONGRIPS. I want to take the opportunity to welcome Filippo Sabetti as the new president, and Richard Katz as the new treasurer and executive secretary. I also want to welcome Osvaldo Croci as the new book review editor for the newsletter. I think you will find that the book review section of this issue lives up to the high quality of work that Osvaldo provided when he was the Newsletter editor. I want to thank Filippo, Richard, Osvaldo, and other members of the executive who have been extremely helpful in the preparation of this issue The issue also includes a new feature that profiles a prominent scholar who has produced important research on Italy. Members are probably familiar with the work of Raymond Grew, and will enjoy reading about the career of one of the most important historians of modern Italy. The member profile section of the newsletter is part of an attempt to provide more information about the community of scholars that works on Italy. In this respect, this issue also has more information about conferences and internet resources. If you have any information you would like other members to know about, please do not hesitate to send it along to the editor for inclusion in future issues. Othere members also may want to know about your current research so future numbers will include a research notes section that will have brief (1000-2000 words) descriptions of your work. This is a very good opportunity to let others know what you are working on, as well as to introduce graduate students to our community. Finally, CONGRIPS will be organising a panel atthe annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in Boston (see the conference section for details). Simona Piattoni has put together an interesting panel so you should try to make it as well as the business meeting that will follow. The annual panel at the APSA is a great opportunity to let others know about research on Italy and about CONGRIPS. So, please try to let others know, especially graduate students.
Finally, I would like to once again make a call for more graduate student participation. We all have attended conferences where we have come across interesting work being done on Italy by a new generation of scholars. Please try to encourage them to submit a brief description of their research and interests, as well as book reviews, to Congrips.
5
CONGRIPS
Questionnaire
Members may remember that in the early years of the association, a regular feature was a list of all members and their co-ordinates. This made it easier to find out who was who and how to find them. We would like to gather this information about CONGRIPS members once again. Please take the time to answer the questions below and send them to the editor by regular post. If you would like an electronic copy of the questionnaire, please send a message to: [email protected].
Name & Title: ______
Affiliation: ______
Mailing Address: ______(Street Address)
______(City, State, Zip/Postal Code, Country)
E-Mail: ______
Publications: Please list some of your most recent books or articles.
6 Projects: What projects of research and writing do you have in progress?
Dissertations: Please list any doctoral dissertations you are directing, giving the name of the student and the topic.
Appointments and Promotions: List any recent promotions, changes in rank or position, appointments, etc.
Fellowships and Honours:
Please give any information that you think may interest our members.
7 ANNOUNCEMENTS
Commission and from the Inquiry CONGRIPS at the American Political Commission on Poverty in Italy. Science Association Meeting “Elites, Change Agents and the Local The annual meeting of the APSA will be Political Economy. Italian Blueprints for held in Boston on 29 August – 1 September, European Accession Countries?” and Congrips has an interesting panel. Bruno Grancelli, University of Trento, Members in the Boston area who may not Italy be members of the APSA may want to attend the panels as well as the business The debate on Europeanization revolves meeting. Please consult the APSA website around the way in which national elites (www.apsanet.org/mtgs/index.cfm) for the (and masses) adapt to laws, procedures and official time and place. “cognitive frames” emanating from European institutions. Normally the Simona Piattoni has organised the following emphasis is on the formulation of policies CONGRIPS panel: rather than on their implementation, and the focus is on larger countries supposedly “Italy Between Europeanization and capable of “imposing” their practices onto Federalization” smaller countries. Yet crucially important is to understand how the “receiver” countries adopt and adapt these practices to Chair: Simona Piattoni, University of their particular needs, sometimes Trento, Italy. combining “muddling through” with Discussant: John Costantelos, Grand “window-dressing”. This paper explores Valley State University, USA whether practices in use in the “third Italy” might not constitute a useful blueprint for Papers: the organization of accession countries’ local political economy. The paper “A European Social Security Policy? Some assesses the role of both domestic elites Implications for Italian Regions” and “change agents” (particularly private Rosa Mulé, University of Warwick, UK and public managers) in exporting such practices to accession countries. The paper looks at the possible implications of an EU social security “Federalizing Italy: Two Steps in Different policy for the regional divide in Italy. It Directions” argues that unless endogenous activity is Ugo Amoretti, University of Genova, Italy encouraged in southern Italy, an EU social security policy may enhance rather than This paper examines the current process of mitigate the gap between rich and poor decentralization of the Italian State. regions. The paper examines the Despite a long history of economic, social, development of EU social security policy and cultural fragmentation along territorial in the postwar period using multilevel lines, Italy has had a largely centralized governance and realist approaches. It government since the formation of the draws on data from the European 8 Italian State in 1861. However, from the adaptation to norms, practices and laws late 1980s on, pressure for a federal reform decided largely without her input or with of the State has increasingly grown. First only a weak contribution in the acending introduced in the Italian political agenda phase of policy-making. Not surprisingly, by the electorally uprising Northern Italy encounters difficulties in the League, during the 1990s federalism discending phase as well. Also in this new rapidly became quite popular also among field of inquiry, then, Italy constitutes an voters. As a consequence, a first step on “exceptional case”. Building on evidence the road towards federalism has been made from several policy areas, this paper through the constitutional reform passed proposes an interpretation of the process of by the Italian Parliament on March 2001 Europeanization of Italy which puts in due and approved by Italians the following relief the intertwining of different dynamics October 7 by means of a popular in this “critical juncture” of Italian history. referendum. This reform, sponsored by the center-left parties and passed just a few days before the end of their 1996-2001 governing spell, has however fallen short Journal of Modern Italian Studies of satisfying the more ambitious Congrips members are reminded expectations of their center-right rivals and that you are entitled to reduced rate for for the Northern League, as widely pointed out individual subscriptions to the Journal of during their electoral campaign preceding Modern Italian Studies. The JMIS is the May 2001 general elections. The new published three times annually, and carries federal reform sponsored by the Berlusconi articles on Italian politics, history, culture, government further decentralizes the and society, along with many review articles Italian state though, as of now, it suffers on the state of various fields of Italian from shortcomings that make it far from studies and about 20 individual book completing Italy's federal evolution. reviews per issue. The Journal web page, Whether Italy becomes a federal state depends on several factors, among which http://www.brown.edu/Research/Journal_ public support for federalism is probably Modern_Italian_Studies/ the most important. Even if the center-left and the center -right reforms are both incomplete from a federal perspective, they interestingly reveal the existence of two Congratulations different views on how the Italian State should transform. Filippo Sabetti's, The Search for Good Government: Understanding the “The Europeanization of Italy: A Window Paradox of Italian Democracy (Montreal, of Opportunity and What Came Through McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000) has It” been designated by INFOGRAPHY as one Sergio Fabbrini and Simona Piattoni, of the six superlative sources on Italian University of Trento, Italy. politics to appear in the past thirty years. Further to that, the book was shortlisted for In the “Europeanization” debate, Italy the Harold Adams Innis Prize for the best normally represents a case of uneasy social science book in the fall of 2001. A 9 paperback edition will be available in the anyone who has a flat to let or knows of fall of 2002. accommodation send this information to the editor. We will include any Accommodation accommodation information we can gather in the newsletter. In addition, if you would Most of us have faced the problem of like to post an ad for a sabbatical trying to find accommodation while on exchange, please send it along to the sabbatical or on research leave. As a editor. service to members, it would be useful if
Internet Resources
A new feature of the newsletter will be to H-Mediterranean identify websites and Internet resources that may be helpful to members. Do not The aim of H-Mediterranean is to provide hesitate to send to the editor any researchers with information on suggestions you may have that may be of publications and congresses regarding the interest to other members. history of the Mediterranean. The discussion list aims at becoming a space Health care in Italy for debate between researchers coming from different academic fields. Instead of WHO Report on the Italian Health Care only promoting discussions about each System (English) single country, or only discussing the http://www.who.dk/country/ita01.pdf concept of Mediterranean history, the aim is to facilitate circulation and confrontation Overview of health & welfare (English) of ideas, methods, and theories. The other http://www.pitt.edu/~heinisch/ca_ital.html purpose of H-Mediterranean is to present book reviews on Mediterranean history Sistema sanitario & salute della and bibliography, in order to promote a popolazione (ISTAT) trans-Mediterranean circulation of http://www.istat.it/Primpag/sociosan2001/ information. Focus is put on recent bibliography in English, French, Italian, Ministero della salute Arabic, Turk, Spanish and Greek about the http://www.sanita.it/ history of the Mediterranean and Mediterranean countries. H-Mediterranean aims at promoting academic discussion between scholars of various parts of the region as a scientific method. The site consists of reviews, a discussion list, 10
information pages about publications, calls www.canadese.org for papers, and conferences, as well as links with the major academic institutions Addressing Italians throughout the world: in the Mediterranean region. http://www.fondazione- To join H-MEDITERRANEAN, please agnelli.it/altreitalie/ send a message from the account where you wish to receive mail, to: [email protected] Early Modern Italy
(with no signatures or styled text, word wrap off for long lines) and only this text: www.EarlyModernItaly.com
The comprehensive bibliography of works sub h-mediterranean firstname lastname, in English and French on Early Modern institution Italy is being launched in its fourth edition. Example: sub h-mediterranean Leslie With just over 6,000 titles on almost 250 Jones, Pacific State U pages of small print, the work has been
substantially augmented from the previous Follow the instructions you receive by edition. In particular, the fourth edition return mail. If you have questions or includes many available doctoral experience difficulties in attempting to dissertations on Italian history, literature, subscribe, please send a message to: music and art history from American,
British and French universities. [email protected]
The work has been expanded to 10 rubrics:
general studies and historiography - travel Italy in North America and historical geography - politics and
administration - economy and demography There are many useful sites that are aimed - behaviour and social stratification - at Italians living abroad which contain religion - philosophy, literature and information and links that may be helpful erudition - music and spectacle - art and for members. architecture – science and technology.
For instance, in the Midwest of the United For specialists of history, art history, States: literature, music and science, the
bibliography permits scholars to http://www.italystl.com distinguish between well-trod paths and
new directions, by including obscurely In Canada: published and forgotten studies. It
eliminates the need for extensive searching
11
and facilitates the elaboration of collection their fingertips. By enabling them to strategies and preparation of course determine what is available locally, it reading materials. For students, the greatly facilitates the collection of bibliography places almost the entire information. English and French-language literature at
Conferences
CFP - Frontlines: Gender, Identity and Organisers invite papers from all War disciplines including the Humanities, Law, Science, Medicine and Nursing. We School of Historical Studies, Monash welcome papers from graduate students University, Melbourne, Australia, 12th - who wish to present their research in an 13th July 2002 international forum.
Keynote Speakers: Joanna Bourke and Joy Sessions will include, but will not be Damousi restricted to, the following areas: * Literary representations of war 'Frontlines: Gender, Identity and War' is a * War in film multi-disciplinary conference that will * Indigenous experiences of war bring together researchers with an interest * Outsiders at home: migrants and the war in the social and cultural aspects of war. It experience will invite particularly an exploration of * Women and War the ways that national, cultural and * War and Masculinity personal identities intersect at times of * Shifting Boundaries - War, peace treaties major upheaval. Discussions of migrant and enforced national identity and indigenous experiences of war will be * Clinical War - contagious diseases, army encouraged as will papers that take a hospitals, psychoanalysis and war neuroses comparative approach to the social and * War as Metaphor cultural aspects of conflicts across time. All papers will be published on the web with the intention to publish a selection of
12
papers in an edited volume. Speakers will Università degli studi be expected to give papers of 20 minutes Via del Conservatorio, 7, Milano with 10 minutes question time. Abstracts of no more than 200 words should be sent by 15th February 2002 to: The research conference we propose is meant to reconstruct the long-run history The Organising Committee,Frontlines: of anti-Fascism on the European scale. Gender, Identity and War School of Such idea/ideal/ideology went through the Historical Studies,Monash University, whole of the Twentieth century. Between Clayton 3800, Victoria, Australia the two World Wars it contributed to mould the complex field of political forces Or by email to: and cultural movements committed to the [email protected] struggle against Fascist totalitarianism, while during the Second World War represented the Pole Star for the armed resistance active in several European ASMI Conference on Italian countries. But the history of anti-Fascism Colonialism and Post-Colonial Legacies does not end with the fall of its antagonist; it continues throughout the postwar period Abstract details of the papers presented at with a changed sign and rather different the Annual Conference of the Association meaning. In almost all the countries on for the Study of Modern Italy (ASMI) in both sides of the continent split by the cold London 30th Nov and 1st Dec 2001, on war, anti-Fascism took up the connotations 'Italian Colonialism and Post-Colonial of an identity symboland means of Legacies' can be found at the conference legitimation for the opposite political web-site: systems born out of the ruins of the war - were they either of a liberal-democratic or http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Italian/itconfe of a popular-totalitarian kind. To this rence.html common feature one may add the basic component of the set of values typical of the mass parties on which those political systems were being largely founded. Anti-Fascism and Construction of National Identity in Europe This conference is to be regarded as the beginning of a broader research project Istituto Nazionale "Ferruccio Parri" - engaging a group of eight or nine young I.N.S.M.L.I. researchers for a two-year period, with the precise goal of deepening the analysis of 30-31 maggio e 1° giugno 2002 Italian anti-Fascism in the above outlined Aula Magna Facoltà di Scienze politiche prospect.
13
Panels included in the conference are: depicted as particularly important in this national context, the question of sexuality L'antifascismo e gli Istituti storici della has been relatively neglected. Resistenza: identità culturale e ricerca storica Proposals are invited on any aspect of the La costruzione dell'antifascismo nella lotta role and development of the Italian family, contro il fascismo on changing notions of 'home' as a cultural, social and architectural concept and on L'antifascismo nella costruzione dei legislative, social and cultural ideas about sistemi politici del dopoguerra sexuality. Offers of papers are invited from historians (C19th and C20th), L'antifascismo tra politica e memoria anthropologists, political scientists, nell'Europa contemporanea sociologists and cultural/film/media studies specialists. Those engaged in new Resistenza e antifascismo nella storia and innovative research are particularly d'Italia: appartenenze politiche, identità encouraged to submit proposals. locali, memorie divise. Abstracts of proposals plus a short CV should be sent to Dr Perry Willson (Dept. Call for Papers: of SELC-Italian, University of Edinburgh, Scotland - [email protected]) or Dr "Gender and the 'Private Sphere' in Paola Filippucci (Dept of Social Italy: Home, Family and Sexuality" Anthropology, University of Cambridge, England - [email protected] ). Association for the Study of Modern Italy Abstracts should be about 250 words in Annual Conference 2002 length, sent as an email attachment, listing Italian Cultural Institute, Belgrave Square, name, organisation, contact address, London telephone and e-mail address and should 22-23 November 2002. include the title of the proposed paper. Although the conference focuses on Italy, Conference website address: all abstracts must be in English. All papers http://www.selc.ed.ac.uk/italian/gender/ will be given in English.
This interdisciplinary conference aims to The deadline for the submission of be a forum for debate on the role of gender proposals is 6th May 2002. in the private sphere in 19th, 20th and 21stcentury Italy, with a particular focus on the family and sexuality. Whilst scholars from a number of disciplines have written in variety of ways about the Italian family, an institution which has often been
Member Profile
My Explorations in Italian History
by Raymond Grew
A generous curiosity had economics. There was never any doubt produced it, but the invitation arrived that modern Europe would be my Janus-faced. Asking me to write about historical focus, for that seemed to me my work as an historian of modern Italy where modernity originated and where is simultaneously a temptation to the ideas, institutions, habits, and nostalgic self-indulgence and a call for problems generated were most exciting. sober self-evaluation of the sort that In fact, surrounded by talk of Freud and healthy academic psyches usually avoid Marx, the atomic bomb, modern art, right up to the mortuary door. The communism and the rebuilding of topic’s potential interest lies, I think, in Europe (at the end of my freshman year I the relative scarcity of North Americans heard George Marshall announce his who study modern Italy and in the plan for accomplishing that), much of changes that have taken place in what what mattered most centered on Europe. interests them. There is in any case a I encountered Italy in some of kind of solidarity among students of my history courses, and admiration for modern Italy, for they share the Myron Gilmore and Stuart Hughes was experience of explaining to other an important element in my adding italianisti why they do not study the graduate school as an option to consider Renaissance or middle ages (assumed to on graduation (along with journalism, as indicate weak Latin) and to other a foreign correspondent of course, and Europeanists why they were attracted to the State Department). I applied in all a state best known for its inadequacies those directions omitting only law (presumed to indicate a penchant for the school, despite my grandfather’s hopes, dolce vita of food, sunshine, and received an offer from the State beauty). Since World War II, however, Department (which began impressively the issues that engage scholars of by telegram but came to sound awfully modern Italy (and to a lesser extent the bureaucratic), from the Associated Press methods used) have shifted, reflecting (where I had done some summer work; altered perceptions of Italy and differing they even promised to wait a year if I currents in the social sciences; and those insisted on a master’s degree but warned changes offer some intellectual interest they would have no interest in someone in their own right. with a Ph.D., which made that degree My interest in modern Italy seem a courageous step), and was—just evolved out of my interest in history, and barely—admitted to graduate school. My that was in part the by-product of senior thesis (on diplomacy toward indirection. As an undergraduate I Spain) had turned out well, and I entered became a history major primarily graduate school confident that I wanted because the study of history seemed to to be an historian (although not that I legitimate learning about literature, the could succeed) and having decided to arts, and science as well politics and focus on French history. 15
At the end of my first year, after Italian National Society as my topic. The a seminar in French history with Donald classic literature in English (G.M. McKay, he told me he had decided to Trevelyan, Bolton King, William Roscoe take up Italian history and invited me to Thayer) offered a Whiggish picture in join him. He pointed out that Harvard’s which discredited obscurantism and library was especially strong in modern tyranny gave way before a combination Italian history, that Gaetano Salvemini’s of enlightened aristocrats, a rising presence had left a legacy not to be middle class, increased national neglected (Hughes, who had left for awareness, and brilliant leadership Stanford, would return later), and that coalescing in the good sense of modern Italian history was rich in liberalism and moderation—with the subjects to be investigated. Although National Society a principal instrument enormously flattered, I declined, citing of this process. Despite tantalizing my affection for France. McKay kindly details about secret messages, smuggled replied that such decisions were a matter propaganda, and spreading influence, of taste, adding that he was about to these accounts remained vague about spend some months in Italy, meeting how the Society had actually functioned. leading historians, learning about Italian The Italian literature I had encountered archives, and filling any gaps in fell into two camps. More recent works Harvard’s library. I offered to help by were distinctly Crocean. Better grounded checking Harvard’s holdings against lists and often intellectually impressive, they he sent of collections that might be attended especially to the conflict of purchased, and that began my encounter ideas. These accounts, too, saw the with Italian history. It started at a pretty Society as central but prompted low level. When McKay wrote to ask if unanswered questions about how deeply Harvard had a run of the issues of the ideas of moderate nationalism had Giustizia e Libertà published in Parigi, I spread or their practical effect. The great spent a couple of days with atlases trying body of the Italian literature, however, to find out where in Italy Parigi might was frankly patriotic and even be. hagiographic. An American easily Still, the exposure took. I soon recognized the tradition of Parson decided to add modern Italian history as Weems in tales of how men of sturdy a field in the General Examination and character rose to decisive heroism in began to read on Italy in English while times of crisis. Paradoxically, over time I teaching myself Italian by means of an would find the literature in this tradition ancient grammar that listed French, the most valuable of all. Historians eager Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian in to enroll local heroes in the national parallel columns. I still regret not having pantheon faithfully published even learned Portuguese, but knowing some minor correspondence as patriotic relics. French and Spanish helped, and before Those documents exposed conflicts, long I had mastered the past tense uncertainties, and shifting sides that sufficiently to read Italian historians, whetted the historical appetite and however limpingly. By the time I took opened issues to explore. Generals, I had decided to write a I think this reading affected my dissertation in Italian history; and my approach to the Risorgimento in several often-dated reading led me to select the ways. I had, of course, been drawn to the
16
dramatic story, although skeptical from of Fascism as an interstices in Italy’s the first of the claims made and the political history, so satisfactory to uncritical assumptions about Italians recovering from the war, was nationalism. Collectively, the gaps in the equally satisfactory for a student of the secondary literature (as compared to the Risorgimento, for it had the great historiography of France, Britain, and advantage of preventing the teleological the United States) raised questions that preoccupation that later came to color challenged a narrowly political focus, many interpretations. Thus naiveté and leading me to think more about the role ignorance also encouraged setting out on of ideas and of social tensions in the one’s own. Risorgimento. There had been, it now It remained unclear, however, seems to me, remarkably little concern that enough evidence existed to sustain for theory or method in my training. an effective analysis of the National Balance, fairness, and accuracy were Society or its historical role. As I tried to stressed, almost as if enough in make the case for such a possibility, themselves. I had absorbed the point that McKay wondered if the topic had not a historian should make a consistent and already been fully explored or, if in fact significant argument but also the it had not, whether that meant that little impression that historians simply further evidence could be found. He accomplished that on their own. The fact therefore wrote to several of the Italian that modern Italian history held small historians he had recently met. Their place in the consciousness of North replies, save one, were generally American historians reinforced cautious: It was a good topic, maybe recognition that uncovering some facts worth a try, but one for which there was was not enough and that a monograph on little documentation. Salvemini’s reply Italy had to justify itself in some larger was slightly more encouraging. sense—a risky advantage shared, I think, Welcoming such a study, he added in his by most less-studied fields of history. only specific comment that I needed to This encouraged carving out one’s own be warned: Giuseppe La Farina set of concerns, problems, and (universally described as the “anima” of generalizations somewhat independent the Society) was “a terrible liar.” At the of the established literature, which time, that seemed like an invitation; and would be unknown to most readers of I decided that even without great nuggets English. That feeling of autonomy, of neglected evidence (a somewhat partly illusory, was reinforced by the heretical thought in the 1950s), an absence of larger theoretical models. We analysis even of what was already were all aware of Marx and Marxism, known about the Society could make and that awareness certainly influenced some contribution. my own rather uncomplicated attention So I spent a year (my third in to social class, but I did not problematize graduate school) digging through the or probe the categories as one would Harvard library’s amazing riches. have been likely to do a decade later and Among all the false leads, I found as an increasing number of Italian pamphlets and proclamations published historians had begun to do. Similarly, I by the National Society and learned that was remarkably free of preoccupation it had been electorally active into the with Fascism. The Crocean conception 1860s, something not mentioned in
17
general accounts and an element that whom I did approach were almost cast a different light on the fears and unfailingly kind and generous. No one ambitions underlying its activities. Then asked what I thought I could accomplish in the rare books library I found or what sort of interpretation I was extensive if not complete runs for headed toward, although Adolfo several years of the National Society’s Omodeo discussed views of the weekly newspaper, Il Piccolo Corriere Risorgimento as if I were a learned (without realizing that no library or colleague. I benefited not only from archive in Italy had as much). While kindness but a general good feeling taking extensive (indeed, excessive) toward Americans, considerable notes, I also made lists of the members confusion about my own academic mentioned. I did so with chagrin, status, and (I now realize) some relief believing those names already well that my topic must imply respect for known to better-informed historians but Risorgimento heroes. All that was nicely realizing that I needed to learn who these summed up by the hearty archivist who people were. Later in that year, Dennis introduced me to his staff as “a Mack Smith visited Harvard. distinguished professore” all the way Thoroughly encouraging, even while he from America, spent most of day told of his difficulties in obtaining showing me around, and then explained, documents on Cavour (his book on “You see, professore, Italy has not Cavour and Garibaldi was in press), he always been just one nation….” was also inspiring. I felt admitted to a We went first to Turin. small circle of dedicated scholars. Somewhat disappointed to be assured At the end of the summer, 1954, even there that neither libraries nor my wife and I excitedly left for Italy. archives had anything on the National Her having taken an evening course in Society, sheer necessity led me to pull Italian proved particularly helpful; my out my list of names. I then discovered spoken Italian tended to slip into the past many letters and documents written by tense. All Fulbrighters were bundled off members of the Society. Soon I had a for a valuable month in Perugia; and our neat pile of folders before me; and when cohort included Dante Germino, David he saw that, Luigi Bulferetti ordered that Herlihy, Marion Miller, and Richard my table be moved next to the room’s Webster, friends from whom I continued one radiator. Day after day, I happily to learned for years. The Fulbright plowed through this material, some of it Commission was understandably quite revealing. More important, even skeptical of my plan to move across the the many documents not directly peninsula from archive to archive but relevant provided an invaluable sense of gradually relented. Although I was context. I also learned something of how armed with an impressive stack of letters the Society operated and much more of introduction, in practice I tended to about conspiratorial ambitions and use them only when access to documents discouraging realities. Working from was at stake. Otherwise, I was misinformation and odd combinations of embarrassed to ask some distinguished hope and distrust, often highly personal, scholar to interrupt his work to entertain the Society’s correspondents revealed a a callow foreign student. I still regret great deal about their underlying never having met Salvemini. Those concerns. By the time I had made it
18
through several hundred letters and a me, shelf by shelf, and adopted a few more pamphlets found in the practice so generous that it still staggers Biblioteca Civica, I had acquired a new me. As I read a cluster of letters, he understanding of the movement as well would inquire as to which ones I would as some practical details. Some of the turn to next; then, while I read, he few people who regularly frequented the opened the folders to follow, rearranging same archives and libraries showed their contents by author and date in order polite interest in what I believed I was to facilitate my work. That kind of finding, but it was less my ideas than my touching engagement was manifest also public assiduity that earned an in a number of local Società di Storia occasional tip about other sources. Patria, where the results there were After four months, we moved on usually skimpy and less time went into to Rome, where I climbed every day to actual research than in learning when the top of the Vittoriano to enter the they were open and in reassuring the eerie presided over by Alberto Maria person in charge that limited discoveries Ghisalberti and Emilia Morelli. were not a tragedy. Milan was Reassured by my youth and innocence, disappointing, not only because I failed they did all they could to ease my labors. to find the material I had hoped for but They shared intimate knowledge of their because there I encountered the only extraordinary collection, suggesting fonti insistence of substantial resistance to my that might prove useful and warning efforts. Milan’s Museo del Risogimento, against “false” impressions, without in it turned out, held the only copy any way infringing on my independence. anywhere of the last year of the They introduced us to a number of other Society’s newspaper. To be sure, the historians, shared professional gossip, paper by then had changed its name and and included us in occasional elegant the Society was dying, but the Director soirées. They were even forgiving when told me the paper no longer existed and a note written by Mazzini disintegrated only an inadvertent remark from an in my hands. Once again, the lists of assistant led me to it. We had to leave in names, now growing at an alarming three days. Museo officials said they pace, was the most useful key; and it led could not microfilm it nor allow it sent to hundreds of relevant documents, out for microfilming elsewhere. By there, at the Senate library, and in the pleading (and proposing to garner state archives. We spent more than three support from every Italian historian I had months in Rome. Among other stops, I met in the year), I won the right to hire a uncovered a considerable trove only in photographer to come to the Museo and Bologna, although there were some photograph, provided he used only tidbits in Genoa, Naples and Palermo natural light. Our last day in Milan was and quite a bit more in Florence in both spent searching for someone who would the state archive and the Museo del undertake the task. Finally, an indigent Risorgimento. (Starting in Turin and student and beginning photographer Rome had been fortunate serendipity). agreed to do it, and six months later the In Bologna, Giovanni Maioli, postal service brought a microfilm, most who had published a number of articles of which was legible. on the National Society in the Romagna, Although we departed from Italy actually went through the archives with on a sour note, playing the part of an
19
insistent American spreading money detail for Italian scholars) and that an around, it had been a wonderful year. American audience unaware of such The two of us had lived on the stipend of controversies would be impatient with a single Fulbright, learned a great deal information overkill. The potential about Italian society, seen a high resistence to my interpretations was proportion of Italy’s famous sights (we brought home by the fate of my first were grateful that so many repositories publication on Italian history, which was had awkward hours, leaving us free to also the first historical piece published tour), and, like so many others, fallen in under my own name. (For a fee of $200 I love with the country. A small travel had been commissioned a year before to grant from Harvard made it possible to write an encyclopedia article on the visit Paris and England on the way eighteenth century. It was published but home, and a few useful items were found under the name of a distinguished in libraries on those stops, too. It was the German scholar whose earlier draft of era before Xerox and still an age of that article had been accepted; he liked transatlantic ships, and we benefited mine well enough to adopt it). After I from both. We lived on the ship by returned to the States, the director of the writing bad checks, which I relied on my State archive in Florence, who had been family to cover when we landed. very helpful, invited me to write an Without Xeroxed documents, it was article on the National Society in impossible to postpone analysis by Tuscany for a new journal on Tuscan creating a portable archive to be read history that he edited. Thrilled, I set to later; and so I had had to rethink the work and produced the essay in Italian project constantly as I took notes. (with considerable help and barely Having done so, I thought that the suppressed laughter from a graduate writing would proceed rapidly. student in Italian).1 The editor wrote me Of course it did not; and when I that it was fine and would be published submitted an already fairly lengthy soon. Inexperienced enough to be dissertation, it covered only the period surprised at how much time passed through 1859 and the Society’s official before it appeared, I was more surprised dissolution. Even so, I had worked to discover that he had used the delay to through the material with excessive print an article of his own contradicting fondness (slowed, too, by now knowing mine. By conflating two movements that how to find a good deal more in the were in fact fiercely opposed, he painted Harvard library). On reading the a far rosier picture of Tuscan moderates dissertation, Crane Brinton gently and radicals joined in Cavourian remarked that he found the first chapters patriotism. “rather Proustian.” As I went off to my As I thought about reshaping and first job, I knew that I had to condense extending my dissertation to make an what I had as well as continue on with effective book, I realized that a crucial the part unwritten. I soon learned, too, element was not really a part of my how little time preparing new courses study at all. The National Society had left for writing. dissolved on the outbreak of war in By then I realized, of course, that my views would be controversial 1 "Societa Nazionale Italiana in Toscana," (requiring considerable evidence and Rassegna Storica Toscana II (1956), 77-102.
20
1859, and its purpose was fundamentally National Society. Yet, especially given differerent when it started up again in the change in the National Society, I felt 1860. An agency of propaganda and I had to ponder that transformation in some conspiracy that sought to mobilize light of the drama of unification in the local leaders in support of Piedmont north and that doing so could add to before the war, it was far more partisan understanding not only of the National and more closely tied to the Piedmontese Society but also of the unfolding of the government in its reincarnation after the Risorgimento itself. war. While attempting in central Italy An invitation to present a paper and the south to imitate its earlier at a meeting of the American Historical success in the north, its primary aim in Association provided a perfect occasion the early months of 1860 was to assure (it may say something not altogether that plebescites and elections in the north flattering about how much of my work worked in Cavour’s favor. That led to a through the years has been occasioned shrill break with more militant and more by someone else’s commission). So I set democratic nationalists, including about rethinking the history of those figures like Garibaldi and Crispi and a interim regimes (in which former movement that imitated the National members of the National Society had Society led by Agostino Bertani. This been prominent), using secondary shift opened some questions I needed to sources and correspondence, much of it resolve. Perhaps the Society was never published, and studying those interim more than Cavour’s agent (a view held constitutions that sought so earnestly to by its opponents and fostered by adopt Piedmontese law and procedure, considerable myth-making on the part of while adding sometimes significant local La Farina). I thought I had sufficient touches. The paper ultimately developed evidence to disprove that. into an article published in the Journal A more interesting and more of Modern History2. It fared much better complicated question, however, rested than the first, and it helped me identify on the role of the Society’s members in my own position on some of the larger the critical period after the end of the issues the book would address. war and before Garibaldi’s expedition to While I agreed with most of the Sicily. Many traditional accounts criticisms of the Risorgimento then presented the Society as the agent of the coming into fashion, I was not uprisings that replaced departed Dukes convinced by explanations that made the and papal officials and established Cavourian triumph largely a matter of interim governments in Tuscany, the Machiavellian maneuver. And while I Duchies, and the Romagna. It was these agreed that the Risorgimento was not a governments that wrote new popular revolution, that seemed to me constitutions and arranged rapid unsurprising. The significance of limited annexation to Piedmont, the fait accompli that tied the hands of Napoleon 2 "How Success Spoiled the Risorgimento," The III and European diplomacy. There were Journal of Modern History XXXIV (1962), 239- extensive studies of these revolts, and I 53, and subsequently reprinted in the Bobbs- had no reason to add to them. In a formal Merrill reprint series (1964); in Charles Delzel, ed., Unification of Italy (1967); Eugene C. sense, the events of that interim period Black, ed., European Liberalism (1969); and A. did not really belong in a study of the William Salomone, ed., Italian History (1971).
21
popular engagement in the Risorgimento gold medal (which I have never known tended, I felt, to be exaggerated because what to do with) and an award (which the earlier historiography had tended to became the down payment on our first obscure that fact and because of the house). It also gave the government the ideological and interpretive power in rights to an Italian translation, which lamenting a “failed” revolution. To me, was authorized (and I think completed) the standards implied for a “real” years later—shortly before the publisher revolution were unrealistically high in went out of business. Luck works both light of European history more ways, and in Italy, A Sterner Plan, generally. The National Society had remains sometimes cited but rarely garnered some cross-class support, at really read. least in urban areas, and it had done so The trip’s purpose was the start with a program more progressively of another project. Several factors liberal than the cautious, narrow practice influenced my choice. Determined to that developed in the 1860s. Still, the maintain my involvement with French compromises in the last months of 1859 history, I chose not simply to extend my struck me as more readily and widely previous work on the Risorgimento. That accepted—in short, more deeply may not have been wise (I had thought rooted—than could be explained simply of undertaking a study of Bertani’s in terms of moderate nationalists’ fearful activities on behalf of Garibaldi and a realism. The problem thus became one more democratic vision). I had also been of explaining the shift, and I settled for a increasingly drawn to the possibilities of two-pronged explanation, combining the comparative history, about which I knew contingencies of a critical moment, little. My friends were encouraging, discussed in the article, with the history although many of my Princeton of the National Society, including not colleagues reasonably considered it a only its shifts in policy and membership loose, risky, and unnecessary path to but also the malleability of ideas take. Most of all, I was influenced by a analyzed in the book, especially in the passing comment Stanley Pierson had chapter called “The Ideology That made to me years before on the steps of Evolved.” Widener Library. In answer to a With the book finished3, at last, question, I had spoken of an interest in and while it was in press, we had our France, Spain, and Italy; and he replied first chance for another year in Europe, that I would certainly have to deal with in 1962-63, this time with two small the Catholic Church. Oddly, I had never children. We learned while abroad that seriously weighed that obvious need, the manuscript of the book had been even though I was proud of a seminar given the Unità d’Italia Prize. In another paper I had written on the separation of piece of luck, I had finished just as the Church and State in France. Over the Italian government chose to years, his comment echoed in my mind; commemorate the centennial of Italian and I realized that from my faintly unification by offering a prize for a Protestant background I knew next to relevant work. That brought a handsome nothing about Catholicism. So I chose a project that could rectify that, engage my
3 A Sterner Plan for Italian Unity (Princeton: interest in Latin Europe, teach me Princeton University Press, 1963). something about Catholicism,
22
experiment with comparison, and organized. Overall, the chances of develop my growing interest in social getting at what I needed were the best in history. All of this (except religion) of France and worst in Spain. Still, what I course reflected, more than I realized, had seen indicated that with some growing trends in the social sciences. trimming and refocusing the topic had I had no wish, however, to potential. replicate the extensive work on Catholic In time, the project narrowed. I politics and conflicts between Church decided to give up independent work on and State. Nor did I want to write about Spain, hoping that a comparison of the social Catholicism on which there was Church’s social role in France and Italy already much good work. My reasoning might conclude with brief analytic was rather that I could use the available comparison of Catholics in Spain and literature to address a different question. other countries, and I concentrated on If, I reasoned, the social changes the period from 1815 to 1870 as the accompanying industrialization affected decisive phase. A fellowship enabled me all of society throughout the nineteenth to work in Paris and Rome in 1968-69, century, and if it was also true that and I did more research in those cities in Catholicism penetrated all of French, 1973-74 (now with three children, who Italian, and Spanish society, then greatly enriched our experience and Catholicism and change must have taught me a lot about aspects of those intersected in identifiable and probably societies I would not otherwise have surprising ways. In this I was influenced experienced). What I learned about the by that seminar paper, which had argued diverse roles of the Church has been that Catholics, some of them deliberately valuable in itself and has contributed to a and most inadvertently, had in fact number of papers and articles.5 Focusing helped propel France’s separation of on Catholic participation in social Church and State. The year abroad was processes is, I believe, a particularly spent in reading secondary sources and fruitful angle of vision. Nevertheless, the scouting sources in all three countries.4 initial project has never been completed, The results were mixed. Except for some although there remains in my mind a well-known works and local histories, book on the role of the Church in social the secondary sources then available were less helpful than I had hoped; local 5 histories contained many nuggets, Particularly: “Catholicism in a Changing Italy," in E.R. Tannenbaum and E.P. Noether, Modern usually well buried in treatment of other Italy. A Topical History (New York, New York issues. Obsessed with procedures and University Press, 1974), 254-73; "Catholicism politics, the official leavings in state and the Risorgimento," in Frank J. Coppa, archives seemed only sporadically to ed..Studies in Modern Italian History, (New have relevant information not already York:, 1986), 39-55; “Liberty and the Catholic Church in Nineteenth-Century Europe,” Richard known through published studies. Helmstadter, ed., Freedom and Religion in the Diocesan materials were much more Nineteenth Century (Stanford: Stanford promising, although usually less well University Press, 1997), 196-232; and “Suspended Bridges to Democracy: The Uncertain Origins of Christian Democracy in 4 I spent fruitful time in Paris, Strasbourg, Lyon, France and Italy,” Thomas Kselman, ed., and Bordeaux; Madrid and Barcelona, and forthcoming from the University of Notre Dame Rome. Press..
23
change in France that I still hope to using Walpole’s England and Guizot’s write. Without consciously abandoning France to argue that trasformismo could the topic, I kept turning to other things. be seen as a stage in the development of Fading pride and pressing shame make parliamentary systems where suffrage me want to explain further. Part of the was limited and coalitions were built explanation, such as the time and energy more on patronage than party absorbed by academic organizations, discipline.6 both national and local, is familiar to all Given these developing interests, academics and not really relevant here. I welcomed the chance to work with the Part of it has to do with comparison Comparative Politics Committee of the itself and part relates to ever-widening Social Science Research Council, interests, which I shall allude to; and part leading a project (significantly, perhaps, says something about the realities of their last) that gathered a cluster of research on Italy. historians to test the applicability of the After moving to the University of Committee’s conception of a sequences Michigan, I became involved in the of political “crises” against the history of quarterly journal, Comparative Studies individual nations. To our surprise, that in Society and History, later serving as project went on nearly nine years before editor (from 1973 to 1997). I came to a book resulted.7 Skeptical historians believe (and to write in a number of remained doubtful that the Committee’s articles) that historical comparison schema could define the path to seeking to discover something, to raise democracy, but I think all of us found new questions, or to sustain an effective the exercise a stimulating way to rethink argument needs to be focused on specific national histories. The individual essays historical problems. In that light, my offer worthwhile interpretations, and I comparative study of the Church and found the Committee’s categories change in Italy and France was ill helpful for understanding Italian state conceived. By its very nature, making by underscoring the long-term Catholicism is so thoroughly imbricated problem of legitimacy (more telling, it in all aspects of society that the seems to me, than problems of identity, comparison I had started with would in which are given greater attention) and by effect be a comparison of Italy and drawing attention to peculiarly Italian France. Such broad comparison makes a responses to issues of participation. No lively basis for an undergraduate course, schema, however, can compensate for one I enjoyed teaching, but so broad a authorial short-sightedness. My essay swath invites judgments already familiar greatly slighted the significance of (if not outright clichés) more than fresh insights. CSSH also brought me in touch 6 "Il Trasformismo: Ultimo stadio del with current work in anthropology and Risorgimento," in Vittono Frosini, ed., Il Risorgimento e l'Europa (Catania, 1970), 151- sociology; and in addition I was able on 63, a collection of essays in honor of Ghisalberti. occasion to teach a graduate course with Kenneth Organski and Roy Pierce. This 7 Crises and Sequences of Political Development growing connection with the social in Europe and the United States (Princeton, sciences affected my own work. I Princeton University Press, 1978); I wrote a general first chapter, the chapter on Italy and, experimented, for example, with using with David D. Bien, co-authored the chapter on comparison to reassess trasformismo, France.
24
Fascism, and I would handle that very my understanding of Italy has been a differently now. consistent influence. My attention was turning There are also practical hurdles elsewhere, however. Active in the newly for an American student of Italy: less founded Council for European Studies funding and fewer exchanges to help in (where Donald Blackmer and I served as getting there and, at home, fewer its first co-chairs), secretary of the students to sustain the field. For me, Modern European History Section of the France, attractive as always, was also American Historical Association, more accessible. Wanting to explore Director of the Center for Western quantitative methods, I found the European Studies at Michigan, and opportunity in a large and expensive engaged as one of the authors of a joint project between the Institute for textbook on European history, I needed Social Research at Michigan and the to think on a European scale. Doing so, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences pointed up a benefit of studying Italy Sociales in Paris. The goal was to put the that I wish Europeanists more readily extraordinary resources of the Statistique recognized: Italy provides a remarkable Générale de la France into machine platform from which to view European readable form, and that project led to a developments. The intellectual, political, number of articles and a book written social, and economic history of modern with Patrick Harrigan. An exchange Italy shares in all the major trends of between the history department at European history; and Italians have Michigan and the Ecole enabled me to tended to be keenly aware of teach there a number of times. developments elsewhere in all these Maintaining contact with Italy and areas. Less isolated than Spain or Italian affairs, from current events to Eastern Europe, less self-absorbed than current scholarship, required a different the dominant European powers, Italy can kind of effort. The Society for Italian serve as a kind of laboratory for insight Historical Studies has been a great into the major issues of modern society. source of intellectual and collegial From textbook8 to essays on the liberal support. As a graduate student, I was state and on theories of modernization taken to what I believe was its founding and to brief comments on nationalism,9 meeting, where Shephard Clough, Kent Roberts Greenfield, Howard Marraro, and Donald McKay welcomed young 8 The Western Experience, with Mortimer Chambers, David Herlihy, Theodore K. Rabb, and old, established scholars and the Isser Wolloch, (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, newly interested, a tradition that has 1974); Eighth edition, 2002 (Barbara Hanawalt been maintained ever since. The replaced Herlihy in the last two editions).. meetings of the Society have meant a lot to me, and I have even enjoyed every 9 "The Nineteenth-Century European State," in Statemaking and Social Movements: Essavs in office I have held in that organization History and Theory, Charles Bright and Susan (something I could not say with the same Harding, eds. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1984), 83-120; "Modernization Habsburg Monarchy," Austrian Yearbook, 1967, and Its Discontents," American Behavioral III, pt. 2, 484-90, 527-31; “The Construction of Scientist, 21:2 (November/December, 1977), National Identity,” in Peter Boerner, ed., 289-312; "More on Modernization," Journal of Concepts of National Identity, An Social History, 14:2 (October, 1980), 763-78; Interdisciplinary Dialogue (Baden-Baden: "Comments on the Nationality Problem in the Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1986), 31-43.
25
enthusiasm for most similar chores), transported to a half dozen Italian despite limited success in my efforts to universities, where at magnificent increase the funding available for banquets in elegant surroundings we graduate students. The Columbia were presented with medals and treated University Faculty Seminar on Modern to speeches about Italy’s humanistic Italy has been a continuing center of traditions, all of which contrasted intellectual energy. For a time in the strikingly both with what we had been palmier days of the 70s, Columbia even able to offer them and with the limited contributed to my travel expenses, so facilities their universities provided that for six years I could attend some of students. Rectors spoke of legal reforms its sessions. The opportunity to hear (and and the cooperation of politicians and deliver) papers was invaluable; and bishops during student agitation; our beyond that circle, everyone in the field eyes fell on slogans spray painted on the has benefited from the discussions, brocaded walls of official quarters. papers, and conferences that emerged My principal access to Italy from this concentration of Italian came, however, through Michigan’s specialists. teaching programs there. When Charles In Ann Arbor I enjoyed the Trinkaus joined the faculty early in the stimulus at various times of some 70s, he continued to direct Sarah wonderful colleagues who knew a great Lawrence’s summer program in deal about Italy. I learned from Samuel Florence. At the time, I was directing the Barnes, Kenneth Organski, Robert Western European Center, and we were Putnam, Louise Tilley, and Eric Wolf able to arrange for the two universities to among many others. And I did find ways run the program jointly. Later, it became to get to Italy, although in circumstances wholly Michigan’s and then eventually a that did not allow for much research. In year-round program. Teaching in and 1970 the conference of Italian Rectors directing the Florence program quite arranged for reciprocal visits with a few frequently put me in better touch with American scholars whose campuses they Italian society and politics and with visited. A formidable collection of Italian and English scholars in Florence, confident figures, the Rectors arrived in while increasing my knowledge of Ann Arbor during a strike of the Black Renaissance art and literature and of Action Movement, which was Italian police regulations and labor laws. demanding an increase in the enrollment Best of all, the Florence program of African Americans. When dealing fostered concentrated teaching on with the crisis the strike created kept the modern Italy to engaged students, University’s president from meeting something more difficult to accomplish with them at length as planned, the or justify in the States. Rectors—to my surprise—wrote him a Despite discouraging prospects letter favoring the BAM demands. They for the future of Italian studies in North faced a comparable problem, they said, America (universities are unlikely to in the growing needs of students from expand their faculties studying western southern Italy, added that they intended Europe in general, let alone Italy in to learn from Michigan’s experience. particular), there have been important The return visit to Italy by a group of recent gains. The internet lessens the Americans was very different. We were difficulty of keeping up on Italian
26
affairs, and the Journal of Modern have an important element of continuity, Italian Studies makes a wonderful, their different application in different interdisciplinary contribution to the regimes reveals their distinctive aims field, continuing, thanks to John Davis, and appeal. This project will soon the University of Connecticut’s role, become, I want to believe, my next long sustained by Norman Kogan and major scholarly commitment, although Emiliana Noether, as a center of old habits and nomadic interests (which scholarship on Italy. These opportunities have now spread to global history) along with public lectures, freely-given remain a threat. I hope completing this advice, and stimulating students have investigation it will not require another enabled me to feel like an Italianist, even lifetime. while my main energies were directed elsewhere and helped me to sustain interest in and commitment to Italian studies without a great deal to show for it. There have been some opportunities for modest excursions into aspects of Italian social history10 and for thinking about modern Italian history in comparative terms.11 I have also begun a more substantial project on what I see as patterns recurring over several centuries in the use of cultural resources in Italian political behavior.12 While these patterns
10 "Garibaldi come soggetto di storia sociale," in Aldo A. Illola, ed., Garibaldi Generale della Liberta (Rome, 1984), 551-68; “Carnival at Rome,” in Homage à Emanuel LeRoy Ladurie (Paris, 1997), 364-78..
11 "One Nation Barely Visible: The United States as Seen by Nineteenth-Century Italy's Liberal Leaders," in Emiliana P. Noether, ed., The American Constitution as Symbol and Reality for Italy (Lewiston, N.Y.: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1989), 119-34; the last section of “Comparing Modern Japan: Are There More Comparisons to Make?,” forthcoming from the Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien in Tokyo outlines possible comparisons with Italy..
12 Relevant essays are “The Paradoxes of Italy's Nineteenth-Century Political Culture," in Isser Wolloch, ed., Revolutions and the Meanings of Robert I. Rotberg, ed., Patterns of Social Capital Freedom in the Nineteenth Century (Stanford: (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), Stanford University Press, 1996), 212-45; 69-95; and “Culture and Society,” in Italy in the “Finding Social Capital: The French Revolution Nineteenth Century, John A. Davis, ed. (Oxford: in Italy,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Oxford University Press, 2000), 204-32. XXIX:3 (Winter, 1999), 407-33; reprinted in
.
Book Reviews
Karen-edis Barzman, The Florentine education, including provisions for Academy and the Early Modern State: maximizing the prestige of Florentine The Discipline of Disegno. Cambridge artists and artistic treasures for the sake of and New York: Cambridge University enhancing the state. Press, 2000, 384 pp., $80. Barzman documents how the academy operated to achieve such political The conceptual aim of The ends. She also reveals other intriguing Florentine Academy is grand, and Karen- aspects of the Accademia, such as the edis Barzman goes far toward achieving it. waning of its use by subsequent Medici, This study is an institutional history of the the evolving inclusion of, and even Accademia del Disegno, the first formal domination by, wealthy and more socially academy of art. The primary intent is to prestigious dilettante/collectors (vs. the document how the academy functioned practicing artists), its eventual use by less within a broader political context, or, socially prominent aristocratic families to specifically, how it served as an agent of enhance their own public status, and its Medicean state policy. administration by members who wished it Part I (of the book’s two) is a to become more independent, following chronological history of the institution Giangastone’s death in 1737 and until its itself (rather than of the accomplishments reorganization by Pietro Leopoldo in 1784 of its individual members) from its as the Accademia delle Belle Arti. incorporation in 1563 under Grand Duke Part II focuses on the internal Cosimo I to the end of the Medicean operation of the academy. The first chapter regime. The chapters, divided according to explicates the richness of the concept of periods of ducal rule, trace the initiation of disegno and its intellectual foundations. the academy from existing but disparate Barzman details the extent of academic guilds and fraternities into a new umbrella instruction, especially in anatomy and organization uniting members of the mathematics, and traces such practical various arts and show how it emerged to features of the academy’s operations as the serve as an organ of politics. Established as hiring of live models and even the a true school and professional society, it scheduling of dissections (in winter). The also reflected Medicean goals. Though the organization also enhanced development of academy operated without state financial connoisseurship among its amateur support, it enjoyed ducal chartering and members. The final chapter concerns the was directed by lieutenants of the dukes. social role of the academy, showing how it This ensured that the academy’s activities served as a traditional confraternity as well furthered the aims of the state. Examples as guild, one that ensured basic contractual of civic purposes included the academy’s protections for commissioned works and lead in public celebrations such as the appropriate funereal observances for its annual Candlemas or the irregularly held individual members, for instance. She thus “Forty Hours” devotions. Above all, the documents the institution’s administrative academy served as the conduit for structure. Medicean advancement of culture and 28
Barzman relies extensively on the example, exploitation of the academy for academy’s archival records, conserved in political propagandistic purposes fits into a Florence’s Archivio di stato. She does a well-established pattern of Medicean truly remarkable job of excavating the life ‘image building’ that had so masterfully of the institution, illuminating the specifics been initiated by Lorenzo the Magnificent of its many and widely varied practical a century before Cosimo I’s incorporation. affairs. This is not a work of only Also, despite Barzman’s excellent use of theoretical presumptions; it persists in the academy’s archival records, the demonstrating the validity of its assertions limitation of those documents is that they through reference to particular actions, demonstrate essentially how the institution commissions, events, or other material was set up to function and how it did affairs, which can only be achieved operate in certain cases. To prove a through such careful, close reading of the broader, deliberate integration of the archives. An “Appendix of Supporting academy into Medicean civic policy would Documents” will prove valuable as a necessitate an expanded reliance upon the printed source for other scholars. This period’s general political archival records collection of eleven documents (spanning as well and would entail examination of over fifty pages of text) includes, for how use of the academy coincided (or not) example, the academy’s founding statutes with Medicean use of other state and the Grand Ducal decrees limiting the instruments. The book’s conclusion might export of Florentine art. well thus be reinforced, or the actual use of Despite the very bright luster of the the academy might be revealed to be less work, there are a few important points with than what perspective from the academy’s which some readers may take issue. own records intimate. Historians and political scientists interested Likewise, the guild activities of the in how the academy related to its broader academy deserve elaboration through close context (vs. art historians interested in the comparison with other guilds operating academy itself) will find less within Florence during the same period. comprehensive contextual analysis (vs. Other Florentine societies unrelated to art - focus) concerning the “Early Modern such as the scientific Accademia del State” (per the second pillar of the title) Cimento (mentioned but not developed) - than they may desire. Barzman’s could also serve as points of comparison. perspective tends to be modern looking The Medici were indeed proficient in back to the early modern, interpreting the appropriating organizations, and academy as a precedent for later shifts in explication of the academy’s political role society. This, naturally, is always a vis-à-vis other organizations that may have legitimate aim for historians, but to have fulfilled similar objectives could have focused on features of the academy in light helped to strengthen the book’s general of the academy’s own predecessors would thesis. have provided even greater context and, as These points are raised not as this reviewer would anticipate, in a way wishes for a ‘different book’ but as ones that would reinforce her argument about that some readers of this conference group the political designs of the academy. For may realistically expect. Those readers will
29
nonetheless do well to rely on Barzman as the past twenty-five years have informed a source for their own further comparative the scholarship (concepts linked to Michel research. In sum, Barzman has provided an Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu—‘the gaze’ excellently organized and written, highly- and ‘symbolic capital’—abound in the illuminating study of the Florentine articles themselves). The book is organized Accademia di Disegno - one that both into two main parts, the first dealing with details the fullness of its internal Italian villas and gardens and the second organization and reveals, within some dealing with their French counterparts. limits, how it actually functioned in early There are one hundred sixty-seven black modern Florentine society. and white illustrations, and over ninety pages of rich endnotes following three Alan Cottrell hundred twenty-six pages of text. There is Department of History also a short index helping locate proper American International College names in specific articles, but it neither refers to the endnotes nor includes key concepts (‘symbolic capital’ for example is absent from the index). There is no bibliography. Mirka Beneš and Dianne Harris (eds.), The section on Italian gardens Villas and Gardens in Early Modern Italy opens with Claudia Lazzaro’s piece on the and France. Cambridge: Cambridge history of the representation of Italy as a University Press, 2001, xx, 428 pages, $85. garden, beginning in classical antiquity and carrying through to the early modern The stimulating articles in this period. Next, Butters analyzes Pratolino, elegant volume all analyze gardens and constructed by Grand Duke Francesco de’ villages as crucial venues for the Medici between 1568 and 1575. Pratolino interactions of early modern French and was characterized by the commandeering Italian elites between roughly 1550 and of peasant labour for its construction. 1800. A collaborative project that grew out Butters shows how this domination figured of a core of conference papers delivered at into the garden’s overall design and Dumbarton Oaks in 1995, the volume is a decoration, connecting it to the alchemical clear demonstration of the degree to which theme of transforming base matter into the history of cultural landscapes has noble matter. There are two articles on moved beyond the disciplinary boundaries seventeenth-century Roman estates, the of art history and architectural history. It first by Beneš on ‘estate-villas’: a new also provides a useful introduction to past kind of garden (typified by the Villas and current scholarship on the Pamphilj and Borghese) in the Roman representation and practice of the landed suburbs. Beneš argues that the new papal power of the early modern aristocracy. The families who constructed these sprawling editors’ introduction to the volume traces gardens constructed them with reference to the historiography of the field, highlighting a specific Roman spatial mentality. This especially the ways in which critical- mentality created connections between theoretical trends in the humanities over pastoral elements in the garden (and the
30
pastoral scenes painted by the likes of beds and patterned textiles in the latter - Claude Lorrain that adorned the walls of and analyze them as royal tools of the villas) and the huge tracts of land domination over gender, court, territory, owned by these families in the Roman and international fashion. Hilary Ballon Campagna, thus legitimating these new documents the construction and families with respect to the old Roman architectural strategies employed at Vaux- barons. Tracy Ehrlich’s article on the le-Vicomte, showing that this estate Borghese family villa at Mondragone complex was less singular than scholarship pushes these themes further, reading the has suggested. Finally, David Hays Borghese’s celebration of explicitly portrays Louis de Carmontelle’s irregular agricultural landscapes (including stands of garden at Monceau as an example of “bold parasol pines) as an effort to appropriate nationalism” holding its own against the classical themes of the noble nature of influence of English-style natural gardens agrarian production. Elisabeth Blair in late eighteenth-century France. MacDougall’s article on Charles Emanuel All of the essays in this volume fit II of Savoy’s Venaria Reale was first into the recent historiography of early published in 1994 and attempts to show modern political culture in which princely that the duke’s hunting palace and gardens representations of power and the strategies were both an imitation of its contemporary, of privileged groups to distinguish Versailles, and a showcase of specifically themselves and replicate social distinction Savoyard decorative themes. Harris’ over time are recurring themes (Louis contribution is a fascinating examination Marin’s Portrait du Roi, 1981, is of the scenographically-inspired distortions frequently cited). Unfortunately, this included in Marc’Antonio Dal Re’s series historiography tends to deny political of eighteenth-century prints of Lombard agency to non-elite groups, and while the villas. Harris shows that while Dal Re’s essays in this volume generally bear this vistas flattered the villa owners in various tendency out, this is perhaps unavoidable, ways, they were not always physically given the volume’s specific topic. accurate. However, some of the essays (Lazzaro, Sheila ffolliott’s (she does spell her Butters) do also point to ways in which the last name with a small ‘f’) essay on lives and interests of common people were Catherine de’ Medici’s regency and its also features of the early modern cultural representation in literary and visual landscape. sources leads off the second part of the Another older historiographic trend book. ffolliott makes sense of a surprising reinforced by this volume is its nation- visual reference to Diane de Poitiers in a centred approach. The editors admit that print celebrating Catherine as the the essays could have been grouped mythological regent Artemisa, by drawing according to a variety of possible thematic upon the history of court politics and categories. They opted, however, for ‘The iconography. The articles by Elizabeth Italian States’ and ‘The French Court’, a Hyde and by Chandra Mukerji both take division which they found to be a “simpler elements of material culture - flowers in structure afforded by geographical sorting, the former case and “embroidered” garden instead of forcing these multifaceted
31
studies into discrete categories whose In a social interaction, how does an boundaries were often too confining and actor “know” the other person with whom whose divisions appeared too contrived” he/she is interacting: “know” his/her (19). The editors apparently assume that dialogue partner? An actor cannot take a ‘Italy’ and ‘France’ are objective blood sample or put a stethoscope up to the categories permitting minimal editorial ear of his/her dialogue partner in order to distortion. Assumptions such as this limit “know” that person. In a social interaction the ability of the volume to contribute to an an actor can only know a dialogue partner emerging trans-national historiography of in terms of the image - the mental early modern Europe seeking to place construction - that the actor can put political structures and boundaries in together from whatever overt signals the historical context. For example, dialogue partner emits. The actor’s MacDougall’s essay refers to “the French construction, then, becomes the guide for origins of [Piedmont’s] ruling family, the the actor’s actions relative to his/her Savoy,” and the “French seat” of that dialogue partner. The actor takes action family, Chambéry. Her claim that Charles relative to his/her dialogue partner on the Emanuel II designed his Venaria Reale basis of the actor’s personal construction palace in imitation of Versailles seems to of that dialogue partner. Using that rely on a priori assumptions about the construction, an actor builds an grandeur of France and the weakness of anticipatory narrative to guide ensuing post-Renaissance Italian states: she herself interaction. Those anticipatory narratives provides [apparently mistranslated] delineate an expectation for outcomes. evidence (from the Savoyard ambassador Depending on whether the narrative’s in France) of French appropriation of anticipated outcome has (or has not) been Savoyard landscape ideas. achieved, the actor may then judge that These, however, are very small his/her construction of the dialogue partner shortcomings to a nicely presented, may be taken as valid. extremely interesting set of essays. I have One can claim that revolutions fail already incorporated ideas from them into because the revolutionary - as actor - fails my teaching of early modern history. to assemble a useful construction of the people who are affected by the Matthew Vester revolutionary’s actions. A revolutionary, West Virginia University for example, might proclaim to the peasant workers, “We shall relieve you of the exploitation to which you are subjected by the power holders.” The revolutionary actor has built a mental construction of the John Dickie, Darkest Italy: The Nation peasant worker as a person who regards and Stereotypes of the Mezzogiorno, his/her self as a victim of the baron’s 1860-1900, New York: St. Martin’s Press, exploitation. Using that construction he 1999, 209 pp, $45. builds the narrative about the ways in which the implementation of his reforms will result in equitable distribution of
32
resources. The peasant worker, however, Italy were served by promotion and views the baron as the representative of the promulgation of stereotypes that could be god-chosen monarch. Thus, when the used to “know” the “typical” Southern revolutionary attempts to diminish the Italian and Sicilian. The inability of the power of the baron, the peasant worker Southern Italians to embrace the plans for resists the effort of the revolutionary, and progress, as outlined by the elites of the responds to the revolutionary’s slogans by new nation, could be understood if one disconfirming the expectations of his were willing to ascribe a particular set of “saviour.” The revolutionary must then features to those reluctant subjects. alter his mental construction of the peasant Southern Italian could be regarded as actor whom he is attempting to influence. Norman/Arabic types, rather than as The interaction is further complicated if Western Europeans. By applying the racist the dialogue partner does not have the theories in vogue during the last half of the psychological system that allows him/her 19th Century, an observer could then to assemble a self role definition that will assume that Southern Italians embodied allow him/her to respond in ways that the unique sets of biological and psychological revolutionary expects the dialogue partner essences. They could be ascribed the basic to respond. features of ‘over-emotionality’, ‘violent’, An analysis of this complex social ‘cruel’, and ‘morally unprincipled’. When psychological process undergirds John these “essential features” were not Dickie’s book about the ways in which immediately put into overt action, stereotypes had been used as the observers could assume the Southern constructions of the leading actor’s in the Italians behave in ways that allowed one to revolutionary political upheaval created by ascribe to them the features ‘pleasure the activists who brought about the seeking’, ’picturesque’, ’impressionable’, unification of the many separate political and ‘self-centred’. entities which had been incorporated into Dickie advances his analysis beyond the nation of Italy. After Italy’s final demonstrating the incessant dissemination unification, in 1870, large blocks of the of this stereotype as an explanation of the people who had been the subjects of the reluctance of the Southern Italian to fall into Bourbon Kingdom of The Two Sicilies did step with the putative march toward not express their predicted gratitude for modernity. He builds on another assumption having been relieved of their subjugation about human cognitive functioning; namely, to that putatively backward regime. They a cognitively effective mental construction resisted, for many different reasons, the becomes more effective if a contrast invitation to regard themselves as citizens construction can be elaborated of a new nation whose leaders intended to simultaneously. From this assumption demonstrate to the world that Italy could Dickie advances the claim that the be an equal partner to the nations of prevailing stereotypes of the post-unification Western Europe. Southern Italian served as a contrast Dickie draws on facets of Italy’s construction for the ideal, patriotic Italian. social and political history to demonstrate The ideal Italian would behave in ways that that the purposes of the leaders of the new would allow one to ascribe to him/her the
33
attributes ‘intelligent’, ‘patriotic’, ‘socially be especially effective in South Italy oriented’, ‘modern’, and ‘brave’. By because the people, according to the establishing the utility of the stereotype of stereotype, shared the attribute of the Southern Italian as primitively ‘impressionability.’ Dickie concludes his passionate and morally unprincipled the discussion of stereotypes developed during image of the ideal Italian as modern and the “war” on brigandage: “For the patriotic morally principled would become more classes, banditry was a powerful stereotype clearly defined. of the South because its combination of Dickie has written a series of essays romanticism and brutality, of exoticism and in which he illustrates the ways in which the squalor, encapsulated the Mezzogiorno’s stereotype of the Southern Italian and own ambivalent position between the Italian Sicilian were developed, disseminated and national space and the badlands beyond” (p. used, during the period 1860 to 1890. In a 51). lead essay Dickie describes the use of In separate essay, Dickie adduces stereotypes during the new Italian army’s evidence to show that well-educated “war” against the brigands who operated in writers readily adopted the stereotype as the former Kingdom of The Two Sicilies. they conducted their research and put forth The war provided a backdrop against which explications of “The Southern Question.” the thought leaders of the new Italian state As social scientists, many of the analysts could frame the contrast between “The New attempted to apply cultural relativist Italian” and the benighted Southern Italian. positions. Explanations of the origin of the The image of the brigand as a passionate stereotype were frequently grounded on primitive had been well established through identification of poverty and powerlessness folklore as well as through the numerous as conditions that bred violence and social texts that purported to report on systemic amorality. Nevertheless, analyses lawlessness in Italy’s South. The thought implicitly abandoned cultural relativism by leaders of the new state could present the adhering to the position that the members of the army as the contrast establishment of the new Italian state stereotype: the ideal Italian citizen. The would move the society toward press regularly reported the atrocious achievement of universally positive social behaviour of the brigands. The general organizations. In an intellectual public could justify the repression and atmosphere in which ideological counter terror of the army. At the same time, confusions could be overlooked, the the orders issued to members of the army stereotype could live on as a means of tried to convince the soldiers that they explaining why Southern Italians were should act “honourably” toward the targets impervious to such “progress.” of their campaign. Dickie describes the Additionally, by accepting Lamarckian issuance of strict regulations about how a concepts, which allowed for social brigand was to be executed. Among other alteration of inherited characteristics, procedures, he was to be shot in the back as analysts could hold out hope that the a means of emphasizing his derogated educational and political institutions would position. Officials, working from the bring about changes that could be passed stereotype, assumed that such ritual would on through genetic transmission.
34
In a third essay, Dickie documents to the unity of the nation. Yet it had also the ways in which a popular publication, perpetually to assert the superiority of the Illustrazione Italiana, consistently national culture whose virtues it published articles that elaborated and proclaimed over the darkly different maintained the stereotype. The writings in culture of the masses and the provinces” this magazine, Dickie shows, regularly (p. 119). The masses invalidated the portrayed the people of Southern Italy as authenticity of the nationalistic stories that picturesque, impressionable, but basically the publishers of the journal desired to fearsome. At times, the use of the compose and affirm. The propensity of the stereotype’s attributes would serve to bring masses to provide that invalidation could the Southern Italian into close proximity to be explained by a simple cognitive device. the patriot. When Naples was racked by a As exemplars of the stereotype they were disastrous cholera epidemic, in 1884, King people whose essential attributes prevented Umberto visited and stayed in the city for them from appreciating and acquiring the some time. Illustrazione Italiana carried a attributes of patriotic Italians! picture of the king on the cover and By special analyses of one of the devoted a double page spread to a report of prominent leaders of the new nation the that visit. The illustration showed a sample thought leaders could nourish hope that the of the people of Naples in poses of attributes of exemplars of the Southern adulation and supplication. The king, Italian stereotype could be turned toward obviously, could do little to relieve the fortifying the stereotype of the patriotic suffering of the people. The Italian. Francesco Crispi, born in Sicily, “impressionable” Neapolitans are shown, frequently offered autobiographical nevertheless, as adoring, patriotic subjects. sketches in which he asserted that he In other editions of the magazine, writers embodied the attributes of the stereotypical frequently lay out the attributes of the Sicilian, but that he had brought those stereotype of the people of the exotic attributes under control and had turned orient: concentrated wildness, latent them toward achieving the goals of the ferocity, haughtiness, filthy, and new Italy. Following Crispi’s own ostentatious. Readers could readily process example, enemies and friends could chose the direct references and allusions to the to launch either encomiums or diatribes by historical and contemporary connections lacing descriptions of Crispi with attributes between Sicily and the Muslims of Africa. that coalesced to the descriptions of the When the Sicilian peasants and sulphur stereotypes. On the one hand, for example, miners joined the fasci rebellions, during his ardour propelled him into an the 1890s, it could be claimed they did not adventurous life. On the other hand, Crispi do so on the basis of their brains, but on was described as being like almost all his the basis of their stomachs, such that their fellow islanders in that he was impetuous imaginations prompted them to and tenacious. Cartoonists and columnists overheated, impassioned responses. In the readily availed themselves of the cognitive end, notes Dickie, “The Illustrazione connections between Crispi, the Arab Italiana had a double anxiety. “It wanted orient, and Sicily. One cartoonist blatantly to turn all it encountered into a testament portrayed Crispi, in Arab headdress, riding
35
a great horse over the prostate bodies of his Western culture seems to have admirers. The stereotype could serve many disappeared. This is especially true of the purposes! Roman heritage and none more so than in Whether or not one believes that Italy, where Mussolini’s overblown Dickie has provided sufficient evidence to rhetoric of Romanità ensured that Italian support his overall propositions about the politicians would not evoke the Age of development and uses of the stereotype of Augustus again. There are those who the Southern Italian, his documentation claim, however, that the significance of should leave a reader convinced that the Roman culture and history ended long stereotype had a wide circulation and had before this, with the French Revolution been accepted as a construction that one and the ensuing age of modernity. The end might readily apply to the “typical” of the Napoleonic Age ushered in an era of Southerner. Dickie leaves little doubt about Hellenophilia, which rejected ancient the way that use of the stereotype could Rome and turned to Greece for its model. explain the perceived failures and These essays, the fruits of a series of shortcomings of the new nation. seminars given by the Department of Dickie’s text raises, but gives little Classics at the University of Bristol in the hint about, other matters that relate to the early 1990’s, sets out to question this explanatory power of the stereotype. How claim. In her introduction to the book, did the use of the stereotype spread outside Catherine Edwards points out that Ancient the boundaries of Italy to other parts of the Rome continued to influence such diverse world? Did non-Italians find it useful to groups as historians, poets, and British extend the use of the stereotype to cover Imperialists throughout the nineteenth Northern as well as Southern Italians? Do century. observers continue to regard the stereotype The essays are diverse, ranging as valid? from history to psychology to narratology. Holding this disparate collection together James C. Mancuso are three broad themes mentioned by Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Edwards in her introductory chapter. The State University of New York at Albany first is that the example of Rome could suit any political movement in post- revolutionary Europe. The British, for example, have identified both with the Empire and with the Empire’s enemies, Catherine Edwards (ed.), Roman Carthage. Some have looked to Republican Presences: Receptions of Rome in Rome for inspiration while others, like European Culture, 1789-1945, Cambridge Mussolini, Hitler and Napoleon preferred and New York: Cambridge University the Imperial model. Even the Imperial Press, 1999. xii, 279 pp. ISBN 052159197 model, however, could be used for varying X hardback. purposes. As Marla Stone points out in her essay on Fascism and the Roman Empire, Since the end of the Second World evocation of Augustus’ Rome was used at War the ancient world’s authority on different times to justify policy shifts such
36
as the conquest of Ethiopia and the anti- the presence of the past in T.S. Eliot’s Semitic laws of 1938. Stephen Benn’s Wasteland, the world’s most famous essay on Edward Gibbon and Francois- modernist poem, argues that one finds the Marius Granet argues persuasively that palimpsest in Eliot’s verses. History in the these men used images of Rome to Wasteland is archaeological, not linear. advance two antithetical ideas of history. A third theme is that of the anxiety For Gibbon, the past was present in the provoked by the contemplation of Roman ruins of the Capitol even though it was ruins. Edwards tells us that Lord Byron now used by bare-footed friars. had found Rome appealing because of its Conversely, French painter Granet mysteries such as those associated with the depicted monasteries and churches to show Tomb of Cecilia Matella on the Appian how the past was absent in Napoleonic Way. In Chloe Chard’s essay, Roman Rome. Even in Nazi Germany, evocation ruins are frequently equated in Anglo- of Roman history produced debate. Volker American travel literature with the Loseman’s contribution to the collection feminine because of their ambiguities and argues that Germanists inspired by Alfred the power they have to disrupt. According Rosenberg saw the Roman Empire as a to Chard, ancient sites have the ability to negative symbol of racial pollution and provoke disturbing personal memories in decadence, while the Fuhrer himself those who contemplate them. In another viewed it as a model for his own empire - essay, John Lyon describes how the young especially in matters of architecture. Henry James was profoundly shamed A second theme present in several when confronted with the majesty of of the essays concerns the new visions of Rome’s past because he did not possess the history embodied in that most erudition to comprehend it when he first characteristic aspect of Roman topography: visited the city in 1869. For James, Roman the palimpsest. The famous quotation by sights were not to be analyzed but Sigmund Freud in Civilization and its appreciated as “moments of direct visual Discontents equating Rome with the experience” (p. 145). human psyche crops up frequently in this Hopefully, Edwards’ volume will volume. In Rome, an archaeological vision encourage scholars to investigate the of the past predominates which has presence of the Roman tradition in our inspired new ways of conceiving that past. culture more fully. Readers of this journal In his essay “A sense of place”, Duncan will be disappointed that only two articles Kennedy quotes Wolfgang’s Goethe’s deal with Italy. Maria Wyke’s “Screening famous dictum that, in Rome “one reads Ancient Rome in the New Italy” shows history quite differently” (p. 20). The result that the early film industry in Italy is a conflation of past, present, future produced many epics centred on Ancient uniquely found in Rome’s topography. Rome, which formed the background to According to Stephen Benn, Gibbon used Italy’s conquest of Libya in 1911. Even “catechresis”, a rhetorical device which though these films - the most famous lumps together inappropriately matched example being Cabiria - used complex terms in order to construct an ironic view plots and ambiguous meanings, they of the past. Charles Martindale’s article on justified Italian colonialism by displaying a
37
Roman/Italian Africa. The only other Hopkins divides his text into four article pertaining to Italy is Marla Stone’s chapters, followed by over one hundred aforementioned essay on the centrality of pages of appendices, notes, bibliographies, the Augustean bi-millenary celebrations in and index. The first chapter describes the 1937 in Fascism’s self-representation. Still, decision to build the church, the design Italianists will be intrigued to discover how competition, and the site selection process. a legacy created on the Italian peninsula is On 22 October 1630, the Senate responded still “present” in our cultural and political to the plague then ravaging northern Italy makeup. by resolving to build a new church dedicated to the Virgin, one of the city’s Paul Baxa two patron saints (along with Saint Mark). University of Toronto In Venice, Mary’s lunar associations took on an explicitly maritime character, and during the sixteenth-century state devotion to the Virgin had increased. An important Marian icon, the Madonna Nikopeia, had Andrew Hopkins, Santa Maria della been brought to Venice from Salute: Architecture and Ceremony in Constantinople in 1204 and bolstered the Baroque Venice, Cambridge: Cambridge city’s claim to be heir of the Byzantine University Press, 2000, xiii, 271 pp., $90. Empire. The Salute church, however, was the first “permanent state monument to the Santa Maria della Salute was one of Virgin” (7). The site chosen for the church the four most important churches built in on the Dorsoduro next to the Somascan Italy during the 1630s and was the church and seminary of the Holy Trinity masterpiece of the Venetian architect placed it in the centre of a visually-linked Baldassare Longhena. The most network of other churches that all played compelling argument of this book for important roles in the Senate’s annual readers more interested in early modern ceremonial cycle. The Somascans - a Italian politics than in the intricacies of Venetian order without ties to Rome - were architectural history is that Longhena officiating at the Salute church by 1636. In designed the Salute church with specific the competition for the design, Longhena, ceremonial purposes in mind, in order to an established architect, offered a plan that satisfy the church’s patron - the Venetian was boldly innovative and grandiose and a Senate. Longhena’s “primary reputation that assured the senators of his consideration,” according to Hopkins, was ability to complete the project. He was to build a church “to suitably awarded the contract on 13 June 1631. One accommodate visitors on the annual feast of Hopkins’ chief contributions in this day” (156-57) associated with the Salute: book is his discovery that Longhena 21 November, which was both the day on revised his original plan for the church which the Senate declared the 1629-31 during the winter of 1631-32, in order to plague officially over, and the Feast of the accommodate better the feast-day Presentation of the Virgin. ceremonies for which the church was commissioned. He widened the
38
ambulatory, redesigned the sanctuary, and crown and to the rosary. Hopkins looks at increased the number of flights of stairs the impact of the Pantheon on other leading up to the façade from three to five. centralized circular churches in northern Chapter two examines the Italy in the late sixteenth and early architectural features of the church in seventeenth centuries, emphasizing the detail. Hopkins divides the interior of the inclusion at the Salute both of an church into nine spatial units and describes ambulatory for processional purposes and the arrangement of each, judging which a sanctuary permitting the comfortable elements are architecturally successful and seating of dignitaries. Longhena's which create “inconsistencies” and production is also situated with respect to “discord.” He provides a construction the work of the Venetian architects history of the church based on expense Sansovino, Sanmicheli, and Palladio. accounts required by the Senate, noting for Longhena was aware of how Palladio had example that 1.2 million wooden piles designed the Redentore church (1577-92, were driven into the ground for the also constructed in response to a plague) so foundation between March and November that on feast days the host could be carried 1633. As the dome of the Salute was being around the church through side altars, constructed in 1656, a decree of the Senate without passing through the crowded reaffirmed the status of the church as central space of the church, and so the “’united, and incorporated, by the authority Salute church incorporated this feature. On of the most Excellent Senate, with the the other hand, while the façade of the church of San Marco, so that it would Redentore created a magnificent aspect become a member of her’” (p. 61). The when approached from the front, the unity of the altars in the church was due to Istrian stonework did not continue to the its commissioning by the state and the sides of the church, views of which were ability of the architect to design them at the consequently less spectacular. Longhena same time. These altars, according to built the Salute so that its glorious effect Hopkins, constituted a pantheon of could be observed from every angle, Venetian religious figures; one honoured including from the perspective of St Anthony, an increasingly important ceremonial processions crossing the Venetian saint, and the church itself Bacino. reminded visitors of the coincidence The last chapter of the book looks between the Feast of the Annunciation in more detail at the church's place in the (March 25) and the traditional date of the ceremonial life of the Republic. The city's foundation. The sculptural program Salute, which had become “an extension of focused on the Virgin, including, among the ducal chapel of S. Marco” (p. 134), the sculptures on the drum of the church, was one of the thirty-six annual ducal the female characters of the Old Testament visitation destinations in the city. who prefigured Mary. Longhena's construction permitted these The third chapter analyzes the visitations to be made with suitable influences behind Longhena's design, decorum: the Signoria and Senators could beginning with the use of the rotunda form enter the church and be seated without as a concetto referring to the Virgin's having to disrupt the order of the
39
procession, there was a retro-choir for the In 1982, MacGregor Knox published Somascans behind the high altar, and the Mussolini Unleashed, 1939-1941: Politics side doors and ambulatory permitted the and Strategy in Italy's Last War. In that five thousand members of the Scuole who work, Knox (Stevenson Professor of processed in and out of the church International History at the London School following the low mass heard by the of Economics and Political Science) dignitaries to do so smoothly. challenged the ‘Italiani brava gente’ The book is wonderfully illustrated stereotype that helped console Italians and with thirteen colour plates, thirty-six black others after World War II. Now, nearly and white plates, and over one hundred twenty years later, he returns to fascist twenty other illustrations. The first Italy's foreign policy and wars. appendix is a register of the ninety most Common Destiny is a work of important documents relating to the comparative history and analysis. Knox church’s construction, the second is a has thus rendered a signal contribution as catalogue of seventeenth-century images of comparative analysis of this type is sorely the church, the third is an excursus on the lacking in the Italian historiography (an original sanctuary design, and the fourth is essay on this curious omission would be a comment on Venetian ceremonial books. most welcome.) Knox's familiarity with the In addition to the notes, index, and selected archives in Germany, Italy and the United bibliography, there is a critical States is extensive and his command of the bibliography of works by architectural materials is impressive. Why, he asks, did historians relating to the Salute church. the Italian military effort fail on all fronts while the Germans fought “to the last Matthew Vester cartridge”? The answer, he concludes, has West Virginia University to do less with “failed generic concepts such as 'fascism'” than with a diabolical and “unique synthesis of Prussian-German military tradition and Nazi revolution.” In fact, Knox goes all the way back to the MacGregor Knox, Common Destiny: French Revolution to explain fascism and Dictatorship, Foreign Policy, and War in national-socialism as expressions of “mass Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, politics.” Curiously though, ideology is Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, often missing from his analysis. Here the 2000, 262 pp. ISBN 0-521-58208-3, $28.00 focus is on traditional foreign policy and military doctrine. MacGregor Knox, Hitler's Italian Allies: Three of the essays (chapters 2-4) Royal Armed Forces, Fascist Regime, and appeared previously in historical journals the War of 1940-1943, Cambridge: and have been extensively Cambridge University Press, 2000, 207 pp. revised. Contrary to some recent work by a ISBN 0-521-79047-6, $25.00 handful of revisionist historians and political scientists, Knox argues that war was inevitable not just from Nazi Germany but Fascist Italy as well. War was the only
40
way to complete the fascist revolution. But to a general failure of military culture war, as Knox amply demonstrates, whether found during the First World War (p. 174). in Ethiopia, Spain or the rest of Europe, failed to change Italians into fascists. Stanislao G. Pugliese Although published separately in Hofstra University 2000, Hitler's Italian Allies originally was planned as a chapter in Common Destiny. If Common Destiny argues that war was inevitable, Hitler's Italian Allies argues, from its first sentence, that “defeat was Luciano Cheles and Lucio Sponza (eds.), inescapable." This defeat was embedded in The Art of Persuasion. Political a failure, not of ideology, but of military Communication in Italy from 1945 to the culture and institutions. Indeed, Hitler's 1990s, Manchester: Manchester University Italian Allies is a long essay that minutely Press, 2001 ISBN 0-7190-4170-8, $30. details the myriad failures of the Italian military establishment. Although Knox This collection of 18 essays does not says so explicitly, the reader is explores a broad variety of communication left to infer that even if Italy has not been tools that, since the Risorgimento, have under a fascist regime for twenty years, its been used in Italy as means of persuasion. military successes in the Second World The essays are concise, very informative, War would have been few and far between. and well written. They present excellent The larger reason rests with the country's analyses of both ‘traditional’ aspects of failure to accept the rationalization and political communication such as political systematization associated with modernity. ads and posters, and less explored ones Added to this was a severe lack of natural such as music, fashion, and satire. All the resources. The failures of the military were essays help understand how the ‘art of complete: conceptual, organizational, and persuasion’ (e.g. political communication) technological. To give one absurd can be seen as an attempt to influence the example: Knox shows that Italian creation of an Italian identity. warplanes were often more dangerous to The editors open the volume with a the Italian pilots and crews than to the concise and useful introductory chapter, in enemy. To this litany of failure, one could which they walk the reader through the add a failure of imagination and creative most significant moments of modern thinking. In a society that rewarded Italian history. They argue that since the conformity, seniority, and complacency, years of Risorgimento Italy has been a radical or innovative thinking was rare, country unified in territory but not in especially in military circles. The contrast identity. Although also the liberal regime with Nazi Germany could hardly be made efforts to forge a strong identity, it greater. Not much of this is debatable; but was during the Fascist era that political Knox does offer a new interpretation: the communication was used to persuade failures of the Italian military in the millions of Italians in the strength of their Second World War were not due to the country and their identity. After the fascist ‘ventennio’ but can be traced back collapse of the Fascist regime a search for
41
a new identity began. Attempts to forge conservatives that the Christian such identity in a country that had been Democratic government sponsored a both morally and physically destroyed by powerful propaganda campaign (examined the war came from actors inside and in an essay by Fabrotta). Films and outside the country. Ellwood’s essay, for documentaries celebrated the example, highlights the influence that the government’s successes at economic and U.S. had on the economic reconstruction social level in order to gain public process through the Marshall Plan. A big consensus and promote an ‘Italian identity’ component of the plan implementation around conservative values. However, the strategy was to rely on a large-scale campaign was a general failure since, by communication campaign, which through not depicting the real world, it failed to films and documentaries aimed at reach the people and communicate with persuading Italians to embrace the them in an effective way. In general, American economic model and refuse the political parties and other political actors in Soviet one. In so doing, the persuasion the post-war period played on the fears and campaign became a full-scale effort to gear insecurities of the Italian people. This was public opinion in support of the Christian evident during the first parliamentary Democrats and against the Communist elections in 1948, which were fought on party. the grounds of what meant to be “real” Other actors such as the Catholic Italians. Political parties of both the Left Church played an active role in support of and the Right focused on such theme in the Italian government and its conservative their campaigns, as Cheles shows in his values. In Great Britain throughout the essay on political posters. Religious 1960s, the Church promoted and themes were widely present in the first conducted an intense campaign for the parliamentary elections and contrasting thousands of Italians that had emigrated views of the world became the object of there in the 40s and 50s. The goal of such persuasion in political posters of the campaign was to form a strong following elections. identification between the ‘patria’ and the During the Cold War two political Catholic faith. This way, not only any subcultures (a conservative and a leftist Communist influence would be limited, one) polarized Italian politics. The but also contacts with the ‘foreign’ society emergence and persistence of such were largely minimised. On the merits of subcultures in Italy is the key to such campaign, Sponza concludes that understanding the political impasse that distant from a country that they understood dominated Italy from the 1950s until the only through the eyes of the Catholic early 1990s. A few essays in this volume Church, these immigrants “remained seem to suggest that the two subcultures almost as if in a time capsule … and … became, for many Italians, the answer to suffered a double dislocation”: from their their search for an identity. For example, own country and from their host country as political identity was reinforced through well (p. 72). the use of politichese, which, as McCarthy On the domestic front, the fear of shows, was a convoluted and abstract Communism was so widespread among lexicon used by politicians of the First
42
Republic to communicate with their San Remo represented the triumph of followers. Likewise, Pratt highlights the nostalgic songs whose texts celebrated the presence of political “codes” in past rather than promoting change. The conversations with citizens of the small dominance of this “middle ground” music, town of Montepulciano in the 1970s. Both as Portelli defines it, remained untouched essays demonstrate that everyday life in until the 1970s, when some alternative Italy was characterized by a strong music genres emerged from intellectuals identification with one of the two and politically involved singers. subcultures. Party identification was also The end of the Cold War put an end reflected through what Giorgetti defines to four decades of politics that used “dress-codes.” Especially for left-wing political communication as a tool to create supporters, specific clothes were used to patronage and political impasse. In the make political statements and show their early 1990s, as the political referents of the support for their party and the values that it two subcultures disappeared, the search for represented. a new “Italian identity” started again. Now, The reinforcement of political old tools of political communication took identities was the main goal of the press. new forms. As Italian voters became more From party newspapers to political satire, volatile and less partisan, the political written communication has, in general, lexicon, as McCarthy reminds us, became reinforced political identities rather than more direct and simple but also less providing “independent” information. meaningful. Gestures and “il look” have Isnenghi points out that most newspapers become important components of political in Italy have been traditionally communication as well. Pozzato points out conservative and, generally, politically the increased importance given to clothes skewed. This largely explains why and physical appearance. This change was newspaper readership has never been high primarily due to the emergence of in Italy, compared to other European television as a medium of political countries. Moreover, the reading of communication. Giorgetti also suggests newspapers reflected more the need of that as political activism started to weaken, readers to show their political affiliation “the craving for normality was experienced than their desire to be informed. On a at all levels of society … for politicians similar note, political satire in Italy has and people alike, the impelling traditionally targeted governing parties. preoccupation came to be the projection, Through an analysis of the periodical through the medium of clothing, of a Cuore, Lumley argues that its satire particular image, namely il look” (p. 284). provided a mean for its largely left-wing That “change” had become the key readers to identify with the culture of the word of the Second Italian Republic was Left. Whereas the culture of the Left was clear at many levels of political provocative and revolutionary, the one of communication. Cheles shows that during the Right was largely traditional, and the early 1990s political posters - the most hence it used communication tools to traditional campaign communication tool reinforce the status quo. This was evident in Italy - started to focus on the good looks for example in music, where shows like and physical traits of politicians rather than
43
on political issues as in the past. Other in a country that has been historically so means of campaign communication, such diverse in traditions, food, dialects, and as television ads, also drastically changed history is a very hard one. The Second in the early 1990s. Pezzini argues that Republic has not fulfilled this quest. On whereas ads used to focus on issues and the contrary, it has shown how Italians are party image, more recently they have vulnerable to “persuasion.” Many forms of stressed the image and character of communication that proved to be effective political leaders. The new emphasis on in the past are not powerful any longer. images, looks, and gestures emphasises the Whereas some old forms of persuasion candidate-centred nature of recent Italian have changed, new ones have been campaigns. introduced which different results. The Political change has also required broad time span covered in the volume new symbols, songs, and rituals. Kertzer gives the reader a good understanding of analyses the reform process carried out by the political and social reasons behind the Communist party and National political communication in Italy. Studies Alliance in the early 1990s. Both parties on this subject have been traditionally introduced new symbols in order to scarce, have mostly focused on single legitimize their change in the eyes of both aspects of political communication, and disenchanted voters and loyal supporters. often had a limited longitudinal scope. Kertzer concludes that, especially at times More recently, changes in the Italian of political change, rituals are powerful political system and the presence of tools for communicating with voters and Berlusconi in national politics, have drawn followers. Their use or lack of thereof can wide attention to the nature of promote or hinder a smooth transition. communication in Italy. In the last 10 Giglioli comes to a similar conclusion by years, much scholarly work has been analysing the Cusani trial as a degradation produced on this subject. However, by ritual that helped Italians to judge their simply focusing on political campaigns politicians and legitimized political change (mainly national elections), those studies at a very critical time of transition. have been limited in scope and nature. As The remaining essays show the this volume has demonstrated, political importance of political communication as communication in Italy touches many art of persuasion. It is the case of Eco’s aspects of everyday life. Persuasion via essay on the language of meetings, the conversations, images, clothes, music, and piece by Argentieri on the PCI’s newspapers, can be obvious but also propaganda campaign in the 1950s, and subtle. Especially in Italy, where the search Moss’a analysis of terror texts in the 1970s for an identity is still pressing, people can and 1980s. be subject to persuasion through many By presenting such a diverse and different tools. This study has indicated the insightful account of political many possible avenues that persuasion can communication in Italy, this volume take and therefore it represents an represents an exceptional tool for those important guide for future studies on the interested in studying Italian history, subject of political communication. politics, and society. The quest for identity Finally, the volume presents an impressive
44
and very detailed chronology of facts and strong communal allegiances and family events about politics, economics, social ties. Contrary to the views of social capital and cultural life and the media of the last theorists, she argues that familism, fifty years in Italy as well as a very Catholicism, and localist sentiments are extensive bibliography divided by subject. compatible with civic values and ‘normal’ politics. Valentina L. Padula The analysis is based on a non- University of California, Santa Barbara random survey conducted in 1994 of workers at large factories in Sesto San Giovanni (Milan), and of artisans, small entrepreneurs and blue and white-collar workers in Erba (Como). The selection of Bull, Anna Cento, Social Identities and these towns for the fieldwork was Political Cultures in Italy: Catholic, premised upon their capacity to represent Communist and ‘Leghist’ Communities the solidarist, Communist and inter- between Civicness and Localism, New classist, Catholic political subcultures, York and Oxford: Berghan Books, 2000, respectively. Sesto, renowned for its large- 272 pp., $60. scale industry, trade union militancy, and leftist political character, had recently Until the collapse of the Italian experienced a period of de- party system in the early 1990s, the industrialization and social change. The country’s political development had been Christian Democratic Party had been considered an anomaly in Western Europe. dominant in Erba, until the Northern The ‘pre-modern’ features of its League and Forza Italia usurped its institutions - immobilism, institutionalized position in the early 1990s. corruption and personalistic patron-client In the first section, Cento Bull networks - coexisted with the hallmarks of challenges the views of Banfield, Almond socio-economic modernity - large-scale and Verba, Putnam, Ginsborg and Sapelli, industrialization, secularization, who have depicted familism and liberalization, and apparently waning particularism as phenomena largely attachments to sub-national affiliations. restricted to pre-modern societies in the The end of the Cold War and the collapse South. The survey results show that of traditional ideologies, however, exposed northern Italy can be both civic, yet the resilience of territorial sub-cultures, ‘unmodernised’ in the sense that family localism, small-scale industrialisation, and and friendship ties, Catholic values, and strong kinship ties. In this analysis of localism persist. Her analysis of the social social identities and political culture in two identities of 888 respondents reveals that areas of northern Italy, Cento Bull kinship, friendship and social networks challenges convergence assumptions that remain strong in both communities, that modernization must proceed along a linear people who enjoyed these ties were more, and uniform path. Italy’s modernization and not less likely to join horizontal was not distorted, as its critics would associations, and that they were as likely to allege, but congruent with its history of hold solidarist as familist values. Disputing
45
Putnam’s conflation of horizontal community does not preclude the associationism with civic-mindedness, cultivation of ‘uncivic’ attitudes about Cento Bull concludes that Catholics are no ‘outsiders’. An interesting, but troubling less civic than lay individuals. Some inter- pattern emerges in that individuals under community differences were noted, as the age of 30 were more inclined to Catholics in Erba were more likely to support the repatriation of extra-EU participate in apolitical associations and to immigrants and to oppose helping read the local press, while lay individuals immigrants find work and housing than in Sesto were more likely to join political their older cohorts. associations and to read the national press. The second section shifts to an Both Toqueville and Putnam have pointed examination of social networks, political to newspaper readership as an indicator of attitudes, and party allegiances. In both civic vitality. Yet, in both areas, Catholics areas, kinship and friendship networks were more avid readers of the local press influenced political opinions and electoral which suggests that Catholics can be both behaviour. Contrary to the expectations of ‘civic’ and localist. Ginsborg’s assertion convergence theorists, subcultural that familist values hinder horizontal traditions did not impede an openness to associationism was partially confirmed. change since respondents supported the Familists were less prone than European project and institutional reforms individualists or solidarists to join granting more regional autonomy. apolitical associations, but were more Modernization theories regarding the likely to participate in political incongruity between Catholic ideals and associations than people with individualist economic reform were also discounted as values. the author found that Catholics in both The local sub-cultures were localities favoured privatisation initiatives. explored through an analysis of the Self-reports of actual and intended respondents’ geographic mobility, voting behaviour in administrative and territorial and institutional allegiances, and national elections held between 1987 and opinions about extra-EU immigration and 1994 paint a picture of partisan alignment the integration of immigrants from in Sesto, where a majority of respondents Southern Italy. While there were strong continued to support the parties of the left. affinities for the nation-state in both areas, However, leftist parties did suffer electoral they were rivalled by a more rapid growth losses throughout that period, a in allegiances to the commune, Europe and phenomenon which Cento Bull attributes the world. Most national institutions, to a shrinking industrial constituency and including political parties, the government to defections of female and younger and Parliament were assigned negative respondents to new parties (i.e. the ratings. The data also reveal that Northern League, the Greens or the associationism and civic-mindedness National Alliance). In Erba, a process of coexist with anxieties about immigrants in partisan dealignment and realignment Sesto, and about southern Italians in Erba. appeared to be underway between 1987 The author observes that while localism is and 1994. Support for the Socialist Party compatible with civicness, the civic and the parties of the Catholic centre
46
plummeted, with defections flowing to the survey data drawn from just two localities Northern League, and later, to Forza Italia. in one region. While the author The empirical analysis concludes with the acknowledges the limitations of the presentation of an identikit of PDS research methodology, readers are asked to (Democratic Party of the Left) and DC/PPI overlook this and accept that familism and (Christian Democrat/Italian Popular Party) Catholicism are compatible with civic and Northern League voters, in which their engagement. They probably are, but the respective supporters are depicted as research strategy lacks the same embedded in their local subcultures, but persuasiveness as Putnam’s more rigorous distinguished by their varying levels of examination of these same questions in attachment to solidarist, familist and Making Democracy Work: Civic individualist values. Traditions in Modern Italy. The book concludes with a Brief comparisons of survey data reassessment of the linkage between social drawn from two small manufacturing towns capital and democratic institutions, and - Erba and Annonay, France, and two ongoing proposals for federal institutional industrial suburbs (Sesto and Vénissieux in reforms. When social capital is linked to Lyon) found that region-specific cultures localism, it can exacerbate exclusionary prevailed over cross-national similarities, attitudes, as is evidenced by the growth of despite the socio-economic comparability of the Northern League in that period. Cento towns. This was interpreted as evidence Bull also questions the wisdom of supporting divergence perspectives on importing models of institutional reform modernization processes. Unfortunately, the that are insensitive to country-specific low response rates in France made it conditions, suggesting that political and problematic to draw too much from these fiscal federalism must be supplemented by intriguing findings. a solidarity pact to protect less developed The author uncovers fascinating regions (readers might note the similarities evidence about the electoral volatility of with Canadian and German federalism). females in both localities, raising questions This work is an interesting and about whether similar patterns are intelligent contribution to the extensive occurring in the Catholic northeast and in literature on the persistence of local sub- the South. The interpretation of the data is cultures, and the compatibility of localist sound, but the same cannot be said for its sentiments with economic restructuring presentation. The raw SPSS data output and the civic community. Since these should have been transformed into more trends have been empirically verified attractive tables. I would also quibble with elsewhere, Cento Bull’s conclusions on the inexplicably unbalanced response this count remain on solid ground. categories for the questions about However, claims about the immigration (three categories correspond inappropriateness of applying Anglo- with varying levels of agreement and one Saxon inspired social capital theories to the corresponds with disagreement). Italian context are less defensible, I recommend this work as an especially when they are founded upon a accessible and thoughtful supplement to cross-sectional analysis of non-random analyses of large-scale voter surveys, and
47
as a promising, but not persuasive, Globalization and Territorial Identities, challenge to those who cling to outdated Hants UK: Avebury Publishing Company, conceptions that modernization must pp. 35-59. involve the eradication of territorial sub- cultures, and that individualist and secular values can only be associated with civic engagement.
Albert Russel Ascoli and Krystyna Von Livianna Tossutti Henneberg (eds.), Making and Remaking Department of Political Science Italy: the Cultivation of National Identity University of Calgary around the Risorgimento, Oxford-New York, Berg, 2001, 332 pp., $22.50.
References Il tema dell’identità nazionale, di recente, sembra essere tornato a ricoprire Putnam, Robert D. with Robert Leonardi un ruolo centrale nel dibattito storiografico and Raffaella Y. Nanetti (1993) Making sull’Italia contemporanea. In particolare Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in l’attenzione degli storici si è Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton progressivamente spostata dal processo di University Press. ‘State building’, peraltro ampiamente studiato, al tema del ‘Nation building’ Biorcio, Roberto (1997) Padania parzialmente ancora tutto da verificare. Promessa: la storia, le idee e la logica Questa rinnovata sensibilità verso il tema d’azione della Lega Nord. Milan: il della nazione, del resto, è comune tanto Saggiatore. alla storiografia italiana che a quella straniera attenta al coso italiano. La Diamanti, Ilvo (1995) La Lega: Geografia, raccolta di saggi a cura di A.Ascoli e di storia e sociologia di un nuovo soggetto K.Von Henneberg, infatti, conferma a politico, nuova edizione. Rome: Donzelli pieno titolo tale tendenza, contribuendo in editore. modo originale al dibattito in corso. In particolare i saggi raccolti nel libro Making Mannheimer, Renato (1991) “Chi vota and remaking Italy si ripropongono di Lega e perché?” in Renato Mannheimer affrontare il tema dell’identità nazionale (ed.), La Lega Lombarda. Milan: partendo da una prospettiva parzialmente Feltrinelli, pp. 122-158. nuova. In primo luogo la ricerca è impostata in una dimensione Moioli, Victor (1990) I nuovi razzismi. interdisciplinare che affianca ed integra i Rome: Edizioni associate. temi ed i metodi propri della storiografia tradizionale. In secondo luogo, per quano Strassoldo, Raimondo (1992) “Globalism indirettamente, la ricerca si apre in una and localism: theoretical reflections and prospettiva comparata, tentando di inserire some evidence,” in Z. Mlinar (ed.), il tema della nazione italiana in un più
48
generale contesto relativo al concetto di raffigurazione e l’interpretazione del mito nazione stesso ed al suo affermarsi della nazione e delle sue origini, fosse più storicamente nel mondo. sfumato ed ambiguo di quanto non sia La storia d’Italia, quindi, da un riscontrabile a livello di èlites politiche- punto di vista dell’esistenza di una amministrative. Per certi versi, quindi, specifica identità nazionale, viene riletta ed sembrerebbe riconfermato lo iato esistente analizzata a partire dalla cultura espressa tra stato e società civile, da cui sarebbe nel corso di due secoli di storia. Meglio scaturita l’incapacità di creare un forte ancora la cultura diviene un osservatorio canale di collegamento, di cui l’identità privilegiato da cui osservare l’intero nazionale doveva essere espressione. processo di costruzione dello stato unitario, In Italia, infatti, secondo gli autori, privilegiando l’aspetto di ‘nation building’ il mito della nazione avrebbe conosciuto rispetto a quello più propriamente politico- una serie di radicali e talora antitetiche amministrativo, per quanto, entrambi legati interpretazioni, scontratesi e succedutesi a doppio filo. L’analisi delle maggiori nel tempo, espressione delle diverse èlites formi espressive che hanno contraddistinto culturali, a loro volta legate a profonde la storia d’Italia nel corso del processo spaccature politico-sociali ed economiche. unitario, infatti, vengono utilizzate per Tuttavia, questa debolezza di fondo, lungi analizzare i modi, i tempi, e le motivazioni dall’essere un limite, rappresenterebbe e che stavano dietro alla volontà di creare testimonierebbe della vitalità dell’identità una comune identità italiana a supporto del nazionale sempre pronta a rimettersi in processo unitario avviatosi in età discussione ed ad accompagnare i risorgimentale. In particolare i vari saggi cambiamenti inevitabilmente collegati con del libro, in una dimensione diacronica che il processo di modernizzazione. In altre ripercorre gli ultimi due secoli, mettono a parole, il pluralismo di fondo, inteso non fuoco le differenze esistenti in seno alla come anomalia deviante, ma come risorsa cultura italiana nell’interpretare e nel peculiare rappresenterebbe il vero punto di raffigurare il mito della nazione. Una forza dell’Italia. Al di là dei vettori di forza eterogeneità di fondo, tuttavia, che, tra politica e cultura, quindi, l’eterogeneità contrariamente a quanto sostenuto in e la frammentazione della società civile da passato dalla storiografia, non sembrerebbe vincolo finiscono per trasformarsi in avvalorare il concetto di eccezionalità del risorsa, rimediando e temperando i caso italiano riguardo al tema della dualismi e le fratture ideologiche profonde nazione, ma piuttosto una sua peculiarità, esistenti a livello di sistema politico. capace, proprio per questo, di ricondurlo e Proprio su questo terreno, al di ricollegarlo a pieno titolo con la contrario, mi sembra che ci sia ancora tradizone europea. L’analisi del tema molto da lavorare per cercare di definire dell’identità nazionale affrontata a partire meglio e di dettagliare quella sottile zona dalla capacità di produrre cultura, di confine tra politica e società civile, inevitabilmente sposta l’attenzione verso la spesso ambigua ed indefinita. In società civile. In questo caso i vari saggi particolare la peculiarità del caso italiano mettono in luce come all’interno delle finisce per essere testimoniata èlites culturali, nel corso dei decenni, la dall’esistenza di una serie di identità
49
collettive e non da una sola tradizione corso della storia preunitaria e unitaria nazionale per quanto diversamente risultano imprescindibili per una esatta interpretata, spesso in antitesi tra loro. Allo interpretazione del processo di ‘Nation and stesso tempo le relazioni esistenti tra State building’ in Italia. società civile e stato, come sua giuridica organizzazione, per quanto filtrate Saverio Battente attraverso il dispiegarsi del tema della Università di Siena nazione, analizzata in chiave culturale andrebbero ricomprese in un più ampio contesto attento proprio ai modi di essere del binomio Stato-Nazione. Nel corso dei secoli, infatti, troppo spesso ampie fasce Mark Gilbert and Gianfranco Pasquino della popolazione non sosno state in grado (eds.), Italian Politics: The Faltering di riconoscersi nell’idea di stato nazionale Transition, New York: Berghahn, 2000, xi ufficiale, proponendone, al contrario, + 276 pp. interpretazioni diverse ed antitetiche, frutto di una dissimile identità culturale, sociale e This volume, the latest in the politico-ideologica. Inoltre riemerge invaluable Istituto Cattaneo annual series, collegato al tema dello Stato-antiStato il covers the year 1999. In terms of quality dilemma della primarietà della nazione and informative content, it is a very good rispetto a quest’ultimo o viceversa. In altre example of the series. The articles provide parole si può parlare di nazione senza the summaries of events and significant stato, oppure di stato senza nazione, details that students of Italian politics need; puntando rispettivamente, sebbene in even in the age of the Internet, they are modo sintetico e riduttivo, la responsabilità necessary guides to the quantity of material per l’anomalia italiana sulla politica o available on Italian politics and policy. The piuttosto sulla società civile, in entrambe i topics covered reflect a judicious selection casi confondendo. Solo riconoscendo la of major events of the year. Five articles peculiarità del caso italiano, sebbene in deal with elections, referenda, and the paragone ad un modello predefinito di general political situation (Philip Daniels riferimento, si può analizzare la storia del on the European elections, Mark Donovan processo unitario, non come on the referendum on the electoral system, semplificazione, ma al contrario, proprio Gianfranco Baldini and Guido Legnante on come riconoscimento dell’eterogenietà the municipal elections, Gianfranco esistente, vincolo e risorsa allo stesso Pasquino on the presidential election; and tempo. Il libro in questione sembra the editors’ introduction on the year in muovere in questa direzione, sebbene, politics). One article (by Véronique Pujas) come del resto gli stessi autori premettono, traces legislation on party funding and non in modo esaustivo, ma come inizio di political advertising. Jean-Louis Briquet una ulteriore ricerca in tal senso. Anomalia assesses the acquittal of Giulio Andreotti e peculiarità del caso italiano, quindi, si in his two major trials, and Osvaldo Croci inseriscono in un contesto in cui il ruolo discusses Italy’s involvement in NATO’s delle diverse identità collettive esistenti nel bombing of Serbia. Finally, three
50
contributions address the economy and arguing that Italy’s participation in the economic policy: Dwayne Woods on NATO bombing campaign was not Olivetti’s takeover of Telecom Italia, an(other) instance of subservience to the Michael Contarino on the Patto di Natale United States. (1998) for development and employment, In a few cases, however, the reader and Vincent Della Sala on regional policy would have liked to have a little more for the South. While articles on the background. Dwayne Woods’ excellent different parties are missing this time, this discussion of Olivetti’s takeover of ground will undoubtedly be covered in Telecom goes into some of the context, future volumes. One might also have such as the troubled privatization of expected something on overall economic Telecom, but does not mention the break policy in the first year of the euro, but the between Mediobanca and Fiat, nor does he editors may have judged this topic name or discuss the major shareholders of somewhat anti-climactic. Olivetti other than Roberto Colaninno Contributors to a volume such as himself. However, his intuition that the this face a dilemma stemming from the takeover did not signal an unqualified short space (12 to 17 pages of text) triumph of the “new,” Anglo-Saxon, allocated to each article: they can shareholder-dominated capitalism has been concentrate on the broad context - borne out by subsequent events. On the theoretical, comparative, or historical - or other hand, Michael Contarino’s forecast they can place the emphasis on the details that the Patto di Natale augured well for of the events. While a felicitous the future of concertation under the combination of the two is the ideal, this auspices of the centre-left has not fared so may not be possible in so few pages. Given well. In this case, perhaps a more detailed the unique and important function of the analysis of the meaning of the Pact itself Review, it would seem that where would have been in order, in addition to necessary the dilemma should be resolved the framework of a comparison with the in favour of a factual account of significant Rhenish model of capitalism. Jean-Louis developments, albeit informed by an Briquet writes persuasively that the judges’ overall perspective. This is what most of legal reasoning in the Andreotti trials was the contributors to this volume have done, different from that of political scientists, in and the reader is thankful for it. For spite of the fact that each profession uses instance, Véronique Pujas eschews a material produced by the other. Here also general discussion of the problem of more details on the DC-Mafia relationship conflict of interest in favour of a lucid would have been welcome, although the presentation of the evolution of legislation length of the article again places definite on party financing and the debate on the limits on what the author can do. These par condicio. Baldini and Legnante follow small matters of emphasis do not detract, the same course, providing valuable however, from what are, in the whole, background on the reasons for the left’s excellent articles. defeat in the Bologna municipal election. A few contributions (e.g. on the Osvaldo Croci achieves a happy marriage presidential election and the referendum) of detailed analysis and broader focus, are informed by the framework implicit in
51
the sub-title - the view that Italy is Republic is concentration on constitutional evolving (or should be) from the engineering and the habits of the classe consociational, proportionalist political politica as opposed to the substantive system of the First Republic towards the political problems that divide and weaken Westminster model of alternating stable both the left and the right. For the left, this majority governments, backed up by a is finding a distinctive response to majoritarian electoral system. In part, this economic globalization; for the right, is simply a useful framing device to unify achieving unity in the face of the same the contributions to the volume. However, issues. No one knows whether, if the this teleological conception bears an energy and political ingenuity that were uncomfortable resemblance to the broad expended on the Bicamerale had been consensus in the economics profession spent on preventing the fall of the Prodi around various neo-liberal “reforms.” government, the result would have been Indeed, economists like Alesina have any different, but with the benefit of argued that stable majority governments hindsight it seems that this would have are the most conducive to the been a more effective contribution to the implementation of these reforms. It is future of democratic government in Italy. somewhat ironic that a drive towards the On the other hand, in this concentration on Westminster system is under way in Italy institutional questions political scientists at the same time as it is being diluted and are, in the manner of good interpretivist subjected to increasing criticism in its anthropologists, reflecting the mind-set of home. Arend Lijphart illustrated in his first the politicians they study, as Gianfranco version of Democracies how Britain had Pasquino demonstrates in his study of the already departed from the Westminster presidential election. But it is clear from model in several respects (interestingly, his the failure of most of the voters to turn out example of the “pure” Westminister for the 1999 referendum on the electoral system, New Zealand, has since opted for system that for them the major issue facing PR, partly because its system was indeed the country is not institutional reform. too pure, and because it had facilitated a Even though the framework of the very wrenching neo-liberal experiment). “transition” is open to debate, this volume Subsequently, the U.K. Parliament has offers beginning students and seasoned adopted PR for the Scottish and Welsh scholars both necessary information and assemblies, and the Jenkins Report has ample food for thought about the current recommended it for Westminster as well. phase of Italy’s political development, and In his second version, moreover, Lijphart’s is a must for both university and private Patterns of Democracy presents evidence libraries. of the superior performance of consensual as opposed to majoritarian democracies. Grant Amyot Of course, few would follow La Queen’s University Palombara’s Democracy: Italian Style in defending the malcostume and immobilism of the DC regime. Perhaps the real problem with many critiques of the First
52
Emily Braun, Mario Sironi and Italian clearly drawn to the anti-Positivism and Modernism: Art and Politics under ardent nationalism of La Voce. She Fascism. Cambridge: Cambridge maintains that Sironi's near mental collapse University Press, 2000. xv+316 pp., 145 and difficult personality attracted him to illustrations, 16 colour plates. these strands of thought. Not surprisingly, Sironi quickly gravitated to Futurism and Emily Braun has written an moved to Milan in 1915. Braun argues he informative and compelling study of the was not a "classic" Futurist, however, most famous of Fascist artists, Mario because he joined the movement after 1914 Sironi. Through a perceptive analysis of and was ultimately most interested in the Sironi's artistic oeuvre and writings, she nationalist and anti-bourgeois ideology of details both his personal biography and his Futurism. Like the other Futurists, artistic development and reveals his critical however, he advocated intervention and role in creating a Fascist "religion of state" joined them in the war effort, first as a through art. As Braun sees it, Sironi's body member of the short-lived Lombard of work from the end of World War I Battalion of Volunteer Cyclists and later as through the fall of Mussolini demonstrates an officer in the Veneto. his central role in fabricating the myths Sironi and the other Futurists were central to the Fascist state and in providing radicalized by the war and quickly drawn the visual vocabulary of fascist aesthetics to the Fascist movement. Braun shows that and cultural life. Indeed, Sironi's work even though he was not a "fascist of the exemplifies how the Fascist regime used first hour," he certainly emerged early on the Italian avant-garde and aesthetic as a key supporter of the new movement. modernism to advance its authoritarian By 1921, he became the "official political politics. caricaturist" for Il Popolo d'Italia. Braun Born in 1885 in Sassari, Sironi was demonstrates that Sironi's role in raised in Rome. His father died soon after developing a Fascist aesthetic began his birth, but Braun notes that his well- almost immediately after he embraced the educated mother opened the family home movement. Seeing no contradiction open to prominent young artists and between his early and later work, Braun writers, including Filippo Tommaso devotes considerable analysis to Sironi's Marinetti. Although Sironi attempted to stark urban landscapes of specific follow his father's engineering career, he working-class neighbourhoods in Milan. quickly abandoned university to study Painted in the early 1920s when Sironi still painting and drawing with a number of had ties to Futurism, they teemed "with a prominent Roman artists, including sense of suppressed violence" (p. 62) that Giacomo Balla and Duilio Cambellotti. seemed to announce the impending Fascist They helped forge Sironi's early Socialist revolution. Braun argues that the political sympathies and his belief that art occasional trucks that appear in these should have a "social purpose" (p. 21). monumental landscapes resemble the Fiat Braun notes that in the years before 18BL model truck used by the ‘squadristi’ World War I, Sironi was keenly interested and that they "serve as potent symbols of in the works of Nietzsche and Wagner and civil disorder" (p. 63).
53
Sironi left Futurism for Fascism in buildings. Mural art fulfilled Sironi's the early 1920s. After a brief examination vision of a political and mythical art that of Sironi's Melancholy as "an allegory of "could speak to the masses" (p. 159). the modern condition" (p. 68), Braun Compositions like Sironi's Charter of discusses Sironi's links to the Novecento. Labour, a monumental stained-glass Founded in October 1922, the Novecento window for the Ministry of Corporations, emerged as the Fascist presumptive reveal how he employed and balanced reincarnation of the Quattrocento. Sironi Expressionism and classicism, as well as and Margherita Sarfatti, the key members the Italian past and future to achieve this of the group, sought "to launch a cultural objective. Later works in the 1930s, renaissance and evolve a new style of including the mosaic Fascist Work and his visual expression for Fascist Italy" (p. 91). own essays in La Rivista Illustrata del Braun argues that Sironi's goal to link Popolo d'Italia, demonstrate Sironi's modernism and nationalism was evident in uncompromising support of mural art in a series of portraits he painted after 1922. the fashioning of the Fascist myth. Even Sironi also played a key role in though his work became the target of anti- creating Fascist propaganda. As modernist art critics and others, he caricaturist and illustrator for Il Popolo continued to receive key commissions in d'Italia, he played a critical role in the 1930s. depicting the myth of the Fascist As Braun points out, Sironi has revolution and in developing the key been interpreted in a variety of ways since elements of Fascist iconography. Braun his death in 1961. The overall trend has shows that many of the images he created been sympathetic and downplayed his in exhibitions and public art in the 1930s association with Fascism. Braun has were first developed for Il Popolo d'Italia conclusively demonstrated, however, his in the 1920s. The cartoons, for example, unwavering support of Fascism and shown are masculine, severe, and blunt and filled that his art and career are inextricably tied with "ultranationalist" content. With the to the movement and the regime. emergence of the cult of the Duce in 1926, Sironi also created covers for La Rivista Susan Carrafiello Illustrata del Popolo d'Italia that portrayed Wright State University Mussolini as a monumental leader ready to build a new Italy. This iconography was then carried over into official exhibitions, most notably the Mostra della Rivoluzione nd Fascista of 1932, that Sironi himself Harry Hearder, Italy: A Short History, 2 believed to be "the first realization of edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Fascist art" (p. 146). Press, 2001, 294 pp. Ultimately, though, Sironi was not content with political cartoons or Questo libro dello scomparso temporary exhibitions. He believed that a Hearder tratteggia i primi due millenni true fascist style had to be embedded in della storia d’Italia in modo chiaro, imposing and permanent spaces of public sintetico ed accessibile al vasto pubblico.
54
Si tratta, come si può ben immaginare dalle per il suo modello sociale, per il suo modeste dimensioni dell’opera e dalla eccellere nell’ arte militare, nell’achitettura lunga e complessa storia che l’autore si è e nell’ingegneria. apprestato a raccontare, di un lavoro di Si prosegue poi, nei successevi due divulgazione non indirizzato al pubblico capitoli, ad analizzare il Medio Evo. Così specializzato. Ciò non toglie però che, per se il basso medio evo con le dominazioni chiunque voglia avvicinarsi alla storia barbariche vede un’Italia ripiegata su se d’Italia e conoscerne i suoi personaggi stessa, l’alto medio evo invece, con la chiave all’interno dello spaccato nascita delle città stato e la vasta economico e sociale in cui si sono mossi, il produzione artistica di personaggi come libro rappresenti un utile veicolo e di Giotto, Cimabue, Dante Alighieri, Petrarca piacevole lettura. e Boccaccio, ben rappresenta il passaggio A muovere l’autore alla stesura di dal Medio Evo al Rinascimento (pp. 82- questo libro è stata l’idea di raccontare, 89). A questo periodo della storia d’Italia è come è spiegato nella prefazione, una dedicato il quarto capitolo: quello del “storia positiva” che si discostasse da una Rinascimento è il secolo che assembla certa tradizione storiografica britannica crescita economica e una sofisticata sempre un pò “patronizzante” nei finanza creando le basi per il “capitalismo confronti dell’Italia. Non c’è altra nazione moderno” (p. 102), è quello in cui europea, riconosce Hearder, dove il Cristoforo Colombo “scopre” l’America processo di civilizzazione si sia svolto con facendo sì che il baricentro del mondo si tanta continuità come in Italia. Un grado di sposti dal Mediterraneo, è quello cilviltà certo inframmezzato da dell’Umanesimo cui, la produzione su “ripiegamenti” ma pur sempre larga scala del libro (sempre a Venezia, caratterizzato da un ritorno a “picchi di primo esempio di produzione di massa) dà eccellenza”(p. 1). un’enorme divulgazione. È con lo scopo di mostrare questa I secoli sedicesimo e continuità che “tanto colpisce lo straniero” diciassettesimo sono quelli delle invasioni che discende il taglio che viene dato al straniere e della Controriforma, e sebbene libro. Il primo capitolo introduce il lettore sottolinea l’autore, “sia stata in voga l’idea al periodo classico dove si va dall’Italia di negare che l’Italia abbia sofferto di preistorica all’Impero Romano. Qui si un’eclissi culturale” la verità e che nel riconosce ai Romani il merito di avere diciassetttesimo secolo “la capitale unificato l’Italia sia politicamente che culturale d’Europa si spostava dall’Italia culturalmente. È con la Repubblica alla Francia” (p. 136). Ed è con il Romana che viene introdotto in Italia il diciottesimo secolo, con la dominazione concetto di sovranità popolare, ed è sotto la austriaca, che l’Italia torna ad essere dominazione Romana che il latino diventa esposta alle correnti culturali europee e il la lingua dominante. Non solo, ma la maggiore aspetto positivo della storia Roma repubblicana e Imperiale offrirono italiana di questo secolo “rimane il suo al resto dell’Europa un modello di contributo all’Illuminismo” (p. 145). civilizzazione per gli anni a venire, per Si arriva così al Risorgimento dove l’influenza del latino e della sua letteratura, il posto di maggior rilievo è riservato a
55
Mazzini “il primo a perseguire nell’ambito grazie al dibattito introdotto da questi di un movimento l’indipendenza degli studiosi (pensiamo a R. De Felice, E. italiani dallo straniero, l’unità politica della Gentile, P.G. Zunino, N. Zapponi) che penisola e la libertà individuale” (p. 165). oggi è cresciuta una maggiore Ma l’unità procede sotto il segno della consapevolezza che l’identità italiana non Monarchia e tra gli uomini dell’Italia unita può ammettere una storia che accantoni un ruolo speciale viene riservato a Giolitti “ciò che ci appare buono da ciò che ci “per il suo programma radicale di riforme appare meno buono: che è una premessa sociali ed istituzionali che diedero all’Italia impossibile per una qualunque identità una coscienza democratica e sociale” (p. condivisa” (E. Galli della Loggia, 211). L’identità italiana, Bologna, Il Mulino, È con l’avvento del Fascismo che il 1998, p. 164 ). Se questo libro ha dunque il cammino dell’Italia verso la democrazia si merito di trasportare il lettore in una storia blocca bruscamente. Ricalcando le orme avvincente e densa di figure mitiche per la della più classica interpretazione che va da civiltà occidentale ha dall’altro il limite di Croce a Bobbio, da Mack Smith a De reiterare quell’incomprensione verso Grand, il Fascismo è qui interpretato come l’Italia del tempo presente già ampiamente movimento “reazionario” privo di sua diffusa nell’immaginario dello straniero. “ideologia positiva” (p. 224). Anche per Hearder il Fascismo arrivò al potere grazie Antonella Veccia agli errori delle altre forze politiche, al Oxford Brookes University raggiro, all’ingenuità di chi lo seguì, e il consenso in assenza di un’ideologia fu guadagnato con la violenza e la propaganda. Questo modo di guardare al Joanna Cannon - Beth Williamson (ed.), Ventennio, porta così l’autore ad affrontare Art, politis, and civic religion in central la nascita della Repubblica e della Italy, 1261-1352, Aldershot: Ashgate, democrazia in Italia secondo un modello 2000, 317 pp. che vede nell’anti-Fascismo e nel mito della Resistenza il fondamento dell’identità Il volume costituisce il primo democratica del tempo presente. Le numero dei Courtauld Research Papers, vicissitudini dell’Italia della prima e della collezione di saggi scritti da ricercatori del seconda Repubblica (queste ultime Courtauld Institute of Art di Londra. Come esaminate da Jonathan Morris) sono così premesso dai due curatori, i contributi sono affrontate dando quasi per scontato che il frutto di ricerche di diversa natura (MA Fascismo con il suo collasso non lasciò un dissertations, tesi di dottorato, vuoto ideologico e che la storia piu recente courseworks), ma contraddistinte da una si possa raccontare a prescindere dalla grande originalità che colma gli eventuali “parentesi Fascista”. limiti connessi alla loro tipologia. I sette I limiti di questa interpretazione saggi promuovono nuove interpretazioni di sono stati largamente sottolineati negli alcuni manufatti artistici prodotti tra il ulimi venti anni da una storiografia spesso 1261 e il 1352 (rispettivamente anno di tacciata di revisionismo, ma è proprio realizzazione della Madonna del Bordone,
56
presso la Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Servi a Anche il saggio di Pelham offre Siena, e dell’affresco di Guidoriccio nel un’interpretazione del programma Palazzo Pubblico della stessa città), complessivo della tomba-altare di Guido prevalentemente nella Toscana medievale. Tarlati, “warrior bishop and supreme Il saggio di De Wesselow offre una political leader” (p. 76) di Arezzo. La sua rilettura complessiva della decorazione realizzazione viene letta come frutto della della Sala del Mappamondo presso il stretta collaborazione tra artisti e Palazzo Pubblico di Siena, interpretata committenti, e come segno del come “an integrated schema in both visual protagonismo di questi ultimi nelle scelte and themetic terms” (p. 19) che, a partire tematiche sottintese all’opera. Concepita dalla costruzione dell’edificio (avvenuta come esemplificazione del ruolo spirituale nel 1330), celebra la grandezza del comune e politico svolto da Tarlati in città, il senese e la fama di Guidoriccio, suo complesso scultoreo diviene simbolo delle signore. Rispetto alle spiegazioni virtù di Guido e, al tempo stesso, del buon tradizionali, De Wesselow considera governo e della fusione sacro\profano da elemento portante dell’intero programma lui realizzata nell’amministrazione artistico la grande ruota del mappamondo municipale. La celebrazione dell’uomo che un tempo girava al centro della parete coincide con la celebrazione della città e ovest della sala: attorno ad essa si delle sue istituzioni, mentre la statua sarebbero sviluppati dipinti e pannelli equestre che Pelham ritiene si trovasse a raffiguranti la progressiva espansione completamento della struttura funeraria territoriale cittadina e la sottomissione a viene individuata quale elemento Siena dei castelli circostanti. L’autore fondamentale e centrale dell’intera legge il grande affresco di Guiriccio a simbologia racchiusa nella tomba. cavallo, che domina la scena e che L’importanza attribuita alla sovrastava la ruota, come prosecuzione decodificazione di quest’ultima da parte della mappa simbolica Siena-mondo e dei cittadini spiegherebbe, per l’autore, come culmine del significato patriottico e anche la scelta di coniare le iscrizioni in secolare della decorazione. L’aggiunta in vernacolare, in modo da essere facilmente essa, nel XV secolo, dei dipinti laterali di comprese dai devoti in preghiera per san Vittorio e san Ansano, patroni della l’anima del defunto e per il destino futuro città e simboli della giustizia e della della città. religione, modificò la valenza complessiva La simbologia racchiusa nel dell’insieme, affiancando l’elemento Reliquario del Corpo Santo di Orvieto è religioso a quello civico e offrendo una analizzata da Freni che, dopo aver nuova chiave interpretativa della parete. lungamente descritto i rimandi e le L’intento celebrativo della decorazione connessioni esistenti tra le scene del non venne sminuito dalle modifiche miracolo di Bolsena incise nella teca e le apportate nel tempo, ma piuttosto differenti versioni dell’episodio fornite da rafforzato dall’introduzione di nuovi narrazioni e testi coevi, sottolinea la elementi e simboli relativi alla sfera funzione primaria svolta dal reliquario cittadina. nella processione del Corpus Cristi cittadina. Nucleo di una cerimonia in cui
57
“religious and civic spheres were diviene strumento per la trasmissione di inextricably interlocked” (p.134), valori e ideali a cui improntare il presente e l’adorazione del reliquario lungo le strade il futuro della comunità urbana. di Orvieto accompagnava la Mia offre nel suo scritto spunti rappresentazione dell’organizzazione originali per l’interpretazione della gerarchica della città: i rappresentanti del Madonna del Bordone, dipinto che la clero, insieme con quelli del comune e critica generalmente ritiene segno di delle gilde, divenivano parte di una gratitudine della città di Siena per la composizione razionale in cui nulla era vittoria riportata a Montaperti contro lasciato al caso, mentre lo sfilare della Firenze, e qui invece proposto quale frutto processione per le vie cittadine imprimeva della devozione dell’ordine dei Serviti nei di sacro lo spazio urbano, quotidianamente confronti della Vergine. Questa nuova segnato dalle attività economiche e interpretazione, che rimanda ad una sfera mercantili. Il popolo era chiamato ad strettamente religiosa, nasce dalla rilettura assistere a questa rappresentazione di di elementi il cui significato era stato dato potere e, al tempo stesso, a condividere la ormai per acquisito: il termine “bordone”, manifestazione di forza della città che ad esempio, viene ricondotto dall’autrice visse l’esperienza del miracolo e che non tanto ad un cognome o ad un tipo di attorno al suo ricordo, e aldilà delle proprie stoffa, quanto piuttosto ad una specifica divisioni interne, ogni anno si riuniva ad melodia intonata nella liturgia indicare la propria coesione ed armonia. ecclesiastica, mentre l’aquila stilizzata sul Il saggio di Richards esamina la velo della Vergine viene letta come creazione del mito di San Ranieri, patrono simbolo religioso e d’appartenenza e simbolo della città di Pisa, celebrato nella all’ordine, più che come riferimento alla struttura funeraria realizzata nella sua fazione ghibellina cittadina. Smontata la cattedrale e nel ciclo di affreschi del tradizionale interpretazione politica del cimitero civico. Entrambe le opere dipinto - anche mediante l’analisi della costituiscono, per l’autrice, documentazione comunale relativa alla sua rappresentazioni visive delle numerose e commissione e del contesto socio-politico diffuse narrazioni relative alla vita del in cui la corporazione operava-, Mina santo: di esse, la tomba-altare approda ad un suggestivo esame privilegerebbe la valenza agiografica e dell’opera, la quale incarnerebbe “not the devozionale, mentre gli affreschi shifting politics of the commune, but the sottolineerebbero gli ideali di penitenza e eternal politics of the divine” (p.259). carità e le varie tappe della conversione del Il breve saggio di Heal offre, infine, Ranieri mercante. Le fasi della sua una rapida descrizione del contributo esistenza finiscono in questo modo col apportato dal culto della Vergine alla divenire modello di vita da offrire alla definizione dell’immaginario mariano cittadinanza e da porre ad exemplum della senese: descrizione volta soprattutto ad possibile armonizzazione di sacro e evidenziare la funzione di promozione e profano nell’esperienza di ogni individuo. valorizzazione svolta dalle comunità Il culto di Ranieri, interpretato come religiose nella produzione di manufatti, e “construction of Pisan society” (p.202), nella successiva elaborazione e diffusione
58
delle pratiche rituali e cultuali ad essi civiche. L’analisi del sovrapporsi di connesse. mondano e ultraterreno conduce, inoltre, a I saggi contenuti nel volume sondare la fusione delle appartenenze offrono notevoli spunti e idee sul binomio politiche e religiose che attraversarono la arte/città in un’area specifica dell’Italia città medievale e che si rifletterono in medievale. Il loro maggior pregio deriva personaggi chiave della vita e delle dalla formulazione di ipotesi interpretative vicende comunali. Essa, infine, chiarisce la basate su fonti e documenti di diversa valenza identitaria svolta dal manufatto natura. Gli autori non si limitano ad un artistico, che in ogni tempo celebra e esame prettamente tecnico-artistico delle commemora poteri specifici, e offre ad essi opere, ma ne ripercorrono le vicende dal la possibilità di auto-rappresentarsi momento della commissione a quello della all’interno e all’esterno della comunità fruizione, ricorrendo a materiale cittadina. archivistico notevolmente differenziato. Grazie all’esame di libri contabili, ricevute Simona Troilo di pagamento, corrispondenze pubbliche e European University Institute private, essi suggeriscono nuove attribuzioni e periodizzazioni dei manufatti, illustrando le dinamiche socio- economiche che ne determinarono la Trevor Dean, transl. and ed., The Towns of produzione. Al tempo stesso, confrontando Italy in the Later Middle Ages Manchester fonti visive e testuali -cronache, canti, and New York: Manchester University preghiere- gli autori evidenziano i rimandi Press, 2000, pp. x+252, $ 74.95 (cloth), $ esistenti tra immagine e scrittura, 29.95 (paper) consentendo una miglior definizione della valenza politico-religiosa implicita alle This volume, part of a series of scelte tematiche intraprese dagli artisti. collected thematic medieval sources, offers Grazie alla metodologia impiegata, i saggi 108 documents (including some sets of provvedono chiaramente alla descrizione short excerpts) that deal with the public delle strategie comunicative usate nella life of northern Italian cities in the late diffusione di messaggi che legittimarono thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The poteri facilmente identificabili. editor does not discuss his criteria for Il libro, nel complesso, arricchisce choosing the collection’s start and end di nuovi contenuti il tema dell’indistinto dates, and the volume includes document confine tra sacro e profano nell’arte from 1226 to 1422, but the great majority medievale, e del rappresentarsi e come from the period between 1280 and sovrapporsi delle due dimensioni nello 1380. While the starting point coincides spazio urbano. I casi qui proposti risultano roughly with the increased availability of esemplari di questa convivenza, riferendosi records, the end is somewhat more essi a virtù civiche celebrate in luoghi sacri arbitrary, and presumably depends on e a festività religiose vissute in ambiti Trevor Dean’s conception of the meaning secolari, nonché a cittadini (eroi\mercanti) of “Middle Ages.” In his short santi, e a santità (Madonne\miracoli) introduction, Dean also defends his choice
59
of focusing on northern and central Italy, prefaces) read easily and smoothly, and are by arguing that cities in the southern accompanied by bibliographical references kingdoms were not as fully autonomous as to relevant secondary literature. The the northern and central communes. In collection therefore should be quite useful fact, the collection includes only two short and accessible for classroom use, which is excerpts on Brindisi, and one document presumably the main destination of the each on Rome, Chieti, and Naples; hardly volume. any of the documents deal with Piedmont Dean’s main framework for his or Friuli, or with anything south of Umbria overview of these texts comes from the (and the map is anachronistically labelled). works of Philip Jones, arguably the most The sources are intended to address influential historian of the late medieval primarily the public life of cities. Thus, Italian urban world. As with many similar there is much here on economic life, public collections, a slight “flattening” effect (as religion, social conflicts, institutional and Dean himself calls it) results from the political developments, and public policies accumulation of documents from different and regulations on education, places and times. Dean strives to minimize consumption, family life, and public this, and he emphasizes three overarching spaces. There is considerably less, and in elements of change or rupture: the some cases hardly anything at all, on art increased concern with, and fight against, (except for public projects), private heresy beginning in the late thirteenth religion, intellectual or cultural life, or century; the effects of the plague on the sexuality, and there is relatively little on economy and social tensions; and the crime. Consistently with the choice of decline of communes with the concurrent topics and of public life as the focus, most rise of despots and lords and the later of the selected texts come from chronicles consolidation of regional states. Overall, and statutes, and several from fiction or this is thus an intelligently conceived and poetry, while there is very little from presented collection. notarial or census records. The collection differs substantially, therefore, from older volumes, such as Gene Brucker’s Society Tommaso Astarita of Renaissance Florence. Georgetown University The documents are arranged in five sections, dealing respectively with the urban environment and space, and urban social services; civic religion and the fight against heresy; the urban economy; social Ugo Spirito, Memoirs of the Twentieth groups and conflicts, including laws and Century (Translated from Italian and attitudes affecting women and Jews; and Edited by Anthony G. Costantini), political structures and institutions. Each Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi, 2000, XV, section is preceded by a helpful 201 pages, ISBN 90-420-1242-0, Euros 34. introduction, and each document is prefaced with a brief explanation of its Ugo Spirito's Memoirs of the origin and character. The texts (and all the Twentieth Century might better have been
60
entitled Memoirs of the Twentieth Century including the Second World War is also as Shaped by Me. In a style largely remarkably absent from any of Spirito's autobiographical, it is divided into two discussion. For someone who makes sections: Autobiography and Encounters continued and varied reference to a and Clashes. The first is an account of his multitude of purportedly incontrovertible life and work. The second is still largely facts, Spirito is strangely unwilling to autobiographical, but involves descriptions allow the details of Mussolini's day-to-day of his encounters with figures such as politics to influence his thinking about the Benedetto Croce, Giovanni Gentile, and period. Spirito is of course not alone others. As a work of autobiography, these among intellectuals in allowing himself to memoirs are self-serving and occasionally forget the everyday violence of the paranoid. Philosophically and historically twentieth century dictators. There was no they lack any discernible rigour; they make shortage of left-wing intellectuals who little or no attempt to prove that events viewed Stalin as a genuine socialist happened as Spirito depicts them. As with visionary (curiously, Spirito also believes the philosophical issues, he neither argues this) and many German intellectuals like for nor justifies any claim that he makes. Martin Heidegger felt that Adolf Hitler The memoirs are, as Professor Myra Moss would bring about the genuine revolution acknowledges in the foreword, a of German existence. The few times that 'somewhat' distorted and impressionistic Spirito does raise the question of violence, view of Spirito's life and of Italian fascism. it is in relation to himself. For the most She maintains therefore that they need to part, any violence discussed is that done to be treated not as historically accurate him, not to others. He sees himself as descriptions of persons and events, but having been persecuted both by members rather as an account of the feelings, moods, of Mussolini's fascist government for his and reactions of an intellectual who played communist tendencies in adopting a a role in the rise of fascism in Italy. Bolshevist, corporatist view of Fascism Perhaps so, but I suggest that the and then for fascist tendencies by the purge impressionistic and distorted nature of the commissions of 1944-45. He was indeed memoirs is a lot more serious then the censored by the fascist ideologues with introduction suggests, resulting in a whom he competed. But note that his number of problems. 'persecution' was to be relocated to a First, there is a curious blindness to university position in Sicily. He was not the violent nature of the movement that he even prohibited from publishing. supported. Spirito speaks glowingly of Furthermore the purge commissions of Mussolini's attempts to transform, 1943-44 found him not guilty of the charge discipline, and unify Italy. But he totally of promoting fascism and subsequently overlooks Mussolini's willingness to upheld this acquittal on appeal. To call tolerate murder (e.g. the Matteotti affair) either of these cases persecution is at the and to use his fascist thugs to intimidate very least an exaggeration. and destroy the press and political Second, the book is full of large, opposition generally. Mussolini's unjustified, and often vague, claims. recklessness in foreign policy prior to and Furthermore, Spirito has a habit of
61
ignoring criticisms of his philosophy do, then you have to speak more rigorously uttered by his contemporaries. For about them than Spirito does. In any case, example, on page 91 he remarks that accepting for the moment that there are Giovanni Gentile had referred to his book such things as facts, nobody (including La vita come ricerca [life as a search] as Spirito) is interested fundamentally with fundamentally flawed and eventually the facts alone anyway. What really counts provided a long explanation of this. But is the way in which facts fit into systematic Spirito neglects to describe either the interpretations, and interpretations can criticisms or his refutation of them. The always be contested. This problem in the closest he comes is to refer the reader of conception of facts emerges most clearly in the memoirs to an article in which he his treatment of letters. He treats texts as explains his reasons for not answering facts, as if their content is self-evident. In Gentile. Other examples are legion, like the chapter on Benedetto Croce, for the following: "Accordingly, positivism example, he provides complete letters has been the true driving force behind this virtually without commentary as if their revolutionary century, well beyond its meanings were worn on their sleeves. This historical definition" (p. 19). This is a renders his already dubious association of provocative claim, but it is merely asserted Croce with fascism even more suspect, as rather then supported. Or again "even so, he provides no interpretive schema, which certain seminal exigencies were kept alive might convince a reader. or were rekindled through the assertion of Third, for an author who claims to fresh objectives" (p. 19). Which have come to doubt the possibility of exigencies? What objectives? He never knowing it all, Spirito is surprisingly tells us, then or at any other point in the happy to speak of the essence of an entire book. The book is full of sentences and century. He speaks of the century as a claims such as these. It is not just difficult whole and allows his personal encounters to judge their truth. It is often difficult to with the century to shed light upon its determine whether anything is being said essence. What he calls the state of at all. Spirito makes repeated reference to unawareness seems to involve the "the facts" and claims that these facts impossibility of developing a universal, cannot be refuted. But he is never clear all-encompassing view of reality. The precisely what they are (see, for example, multiplicity of perspectives he claims pp. 42 and 95). In any case, there is a obtain is so vast that no account of the confusion about facts, which is that if universe is possible. We are unaware, if indeed there is such a thing as a fact, and if you like, of what really is. And yet he x is indeed a fact, then there is nothing to frequently talks about phenomenon in refute. Statements about facts can be terms that seem universal and complete refuted, i.e. we can deny someone's claim and therefore in some sense he is aware of that x is a fact. But facts are whatever they them. are and are not what they are not Finally, the book is extremely (according to the old Anselmian saw). One fatalistic. Spirito characterizes himself and does not necessarily have to commit human beings in general as being like oneself to an ontology of facts. But if you marionettes dancing to the tune of an
62
invisible historical hand. Luck is the philosophy and politics and worried about dominating feature of the story he tells. As some of the rather enormous failures of Spirito would grant, luck is a capricious philosophers during the fascist period. It is taskmaster. The problem here is that telling here that the book has some interest for one's story in terms of luck also has a way me. of obviating issues of moral culpability. Consider again the case of Martin Yet this raises a curious kind of Heidegger. It is fascinating and instructive contradiction in the book. Individuals are to compare the two to determine which unaware of the things they do, they are points, if any, they might share. Such dominated by events beyond their control, commonalities might serve as clues to help and yet Spirito is almost willing to take us understand the ways in which credit for educating Mussolini as a philosophical positions might suggest or revolutionary, describing Mussolini as even entail totalitarianism. Although having imbued his (Spirito's) philosophy Spirito's memoirs lack the rigour of and thereby functioning as a true anything Heidegger wrote, there are at revolutionary. By his account Spirito plays least superficially a great number of things simultaneously no role and one of the most in common. For example, both are important roles in the events of his day. He committed to philosophies of openness, can both take credit for fascism and deny variability, indeterminacy, and difference. responsibility in one breath. Now, the Prima facie one might be tempted to think points about contingency and that the commitment to such concepts is unpredictability are nothing new and have incompatible with fascism and been echoed by some of the finest thinkers totalitarianism because these ideologies are of the twentieth century. But granting them paradigmatically opposed to difference and entails nothing about freedom of choice, tend to define political legitimacy in terms culpability, and the like. His view of the of single racial or economic norms, intellectual is of someone simultaneously divergence from with constitutes a kind of active and submissive, a view that is moral and political sin. Yet both entirely intuitive and, as so often in the philosophers saw no such opposition and book, simply asserted to be true rather then indeed claimed that their philosophies demonstrated. provided the background assumptions for This is not to say that I think the their political activity. Heidegger saw in book is wholly without interest. Historians Hitler the opportunity for the re- and psychologists may find interesting establishment of an organic anti- things hidden within his claims and it may individualistic agrarian German help to understand the mindset of some community. Spirito saw the opportunity for fascist intellectuals (at least minimally it the overcoming of individualism in the will help us to understand him). However, fascism of Mussolini's Italy. I am not an the wild and arbitrary nature of the expert in Spirito's philosophy, so it may philosophical claims in the Memoirs well be the case that his other works entails that his work will be of little display an intellectual rigour almost interest to most philosophers save perhaps entirely absent from this series of memoirs. those interested in the relations between If this is the case, then the translator and
63
editor have not done Spirito's philosophy any favours in releasing this book rather than a more rigorously argued work. For this reason I believe the primary interest of the book to be historical, as long as we read it with the warning of the foreword kept firmly in our heads. It is highly impressionist and distorted, and each sentence needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
Richard Matthews Department of Philosophy Memorial University of Newfoundland
64
MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION/RENEWAL FORM Conference Group on Italian Politics & Society Name & Title: ______Affiliation: ______Mailing Address: ______(Street Address) ______(City, State, Postal Code, Country) Tel: E-Mail: ______Fax: ______
Types of Membership (in U.S. funds): One Year Two Years
Professor/Associate Prof. Non-academics/Institutional Members $30. $50. Assistant Profs./Instructors $18. $30. Others $12. $20.
With this application, send check or money order payable to: Richard Katz, Dept. of Political Science, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD 21218-2065, USA, e-mail: [email protected].
I membri residenti in Italia sono pregati di rispedire questa domanda e comunicare l' indirizzo a cui desiderano ricevere Italian Politics and Society a Sonia Stefanizzi, Istituto di Sociologia, Università Luigi Bocconi, Via Gobbi 5, 20136 Milano. Tel. (02) 58365407; Fax (02) 58365439; email: [email protected] La quota associativa potrΒ essere pagata anche tramite accredito bancario sul conto corrente no. 5287730 (ABI 06230) (CAB 01627) Cassa di Risparmio di Parma e di Piacenza, Sede di Milano, Via Armorari 4.
Recommendations for prospective new members:
Name: Name:
Affltn.: Affltn.:
Addr.: Addr.: