8 recensioni :02Bartoli copy 2/12/10 3:53 PM Page 164 RECENSIONI Science is a fine, wondrous book. STEPHEN PENDER University of Windsor Augustus Pallotta. Alessandro Manzoni. A Critical Bibliography. 1950-2000 . Pisa-Roma: Fabrizio Serra editore, 2007. Pp. xv, 467. ISBN978-88-6227-011-3. and Luciano Parisi. Come abbiamo letto Manzoni. Interpreti novecenteschi. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2008. Pp. xviii, 236. ISBN 978-88-6274-024- 1. € 18,00. Perusing The program of a recenT gaThering of ITalianisTs, I expecTed To find rela - Tively few references To Manzoni, possibly one session dedicaTed To his works, maybe a handful of papers inserTed inTo oTher sessions. InsTead, I found noThing. NoT one session, noT one paper. Don Alessandro sadly seems To have exhausTed even his own TwenTy-five readers To whom he refers self-deprecaTingly in The open - ing chapTer of The Promessi Sposi . Perhaps The Two publicaTions under review here will help To revive inTeresT in Manzoni and his wriTings. BoTh are excellenT volumes and jusTifiably win Their place in The libraries of ManzonisTi. Alessandro Manzoni. A Critical Bibliography. 1950-2000 represenTs a True labor of love. AugusTus PalloTTa, an American ITalianisT who has published ofTen on Manzoni, has worked assiduously and carefully To produce an exhausTive, infor - maTive, and incredibly valuable research Tool for Manzoni sTudies. He has chosen To concenTraTe on The criTicism of The lasT half of The 20 Th cenTury because he believes ThaT “[T]ogeTher wiTh far-reaching social, economic and poliTical changes, The posTwar years mark The end of a liTerary culTure largely idenTified wiTh BenedeTTo Croce”. (xiii). CollaboraTing wiTh a number of American scholars, among whom The laTe Glenn Palen Pierce, PalloTTa has prepared an English lan - guage resource ThaT is as Thorough as a work such as This could possibly be. The hundreds of enTries follow a sysTemaTic organizaTion ThaT groups Them inTo logical secTions: collecTed bibliographies of Manzoni’s works, biographies, Colloqui and leTTers, ediTions of Manzoni’s wriTings (furTher subdivided inTo CollecTed Works, PoeTry, Essays). The bulk of The volume is dedicaTed To criTical sTudies of Manzoni’s works Themselves (in secTions assigned separaTely To poeTry, plays, essays, Fermo e Lucia , and I promessi sposi ). The laTTer secTion dealing wiTh his mosT famous work is also subdivided inTo secTions focussing on individual characTers). LasTly, in The final secTions of This bibliography, PalloTTa lisTs and describes works dealing wiTh Manzoni’s relaTionship To oTher wriTers, and works TreaTing The criTical recepTion of Manzoni abroad. Each record in The secTions is enTered alphabeTically raTher Than chronologically. Each is followed by subsTanTial and informaTive criTical appraisal, faciliTaTing greaTly The work of scholars who will use This volume. MulTi- — 164 — 8 recensioni :02Bartoli copy 2/12/10 3:53 PM Page 165 RECENSIONI chapTer works are included, and The conTenTs of each chapTer individually described. An index of The conTribuTions made by each conTribuTor is inTeresTing, alThough noT sTricTly necessary. A second index, lisTing all The criTics whose arTicles and books have been described in The volume, is Thorough and mosT helpful. AT The end of his preface, PalloTTa himself hinTs aT The major drawback of This oTherwise splendid volume. He refers To compuTer problems, “a sign of our Times”(xv). This work, I believe, would prove so much more valuable if iT were also published elecTronically. ArTicles and works from 1950-2000 ThaT have been inad - verTenTly overlooked here could be added; furThermore, The work could be con - Tinued beyond The year 2000. Manzoni meriTs more Than TwenTy-five readers; an elecTronic resource incorporaTing PalloTTa’s praiseworThy efforTs and going beyond is surely The leasT Don Alessandro deserves. Come abbiamo letto Manzoni offers us a criTical anThology raTher Than anno - TaTed bibiliography. Luciano Parisi has chosen Ten 20 Th -cenTury Manzoni criTics, scholars and commenTaTors, dedicaTing a chapTer To each one: Ferruccio Ulivi, Cesare Angelini, Jacques GoudeT, S. Bernard Chandler, AlberTo Caracciolo, Ezio Raimondi, Paolo Valesio, Anna BanTi, PieTro Piovani and NaTalino Sapegno. WiTh The excepTion of BanTi, These are familiar names in The field of Manzoni criTicism in The laTTer half of The 1900’s. Anna BanTi, a formidable conTribuTor To The world of feminisT liTeraTure, appears precisely for her feminisT aTTiTudes. In BanTi’s wriTings, Parisi appreciaTed how This precursor of ITalian feminism alludes ofTen To Manzoni, one of her personal favouriTe wriTers. BanTi’s sympaThies go noT To Lucia, buT To GerTrude, whom she describes as a woman of conTrasTs and even violence, never fully innocenT nor fully guilTy, unhappy in her concealed Tears, and burned by her pride (p.167). BanTi reveals herself somewhaT of a Manzonian iconoclasT; in facT, This laTTer elemenT helped To shape Parisi’s volume as a whole. In deTermining which of The Manzoni scholars To include and, much more arduous and complex, which To omiT, he decided To dedicaTe “ i capiToli del libro ad inTerpreTi seri, inTelligenTi, ma non necessariamenTe ai migliori; di [preferire], nella scelTa dei miei proTagoni - sTi, quelli che permeTTevano più facilmenTe alle voci discordanTi di emergere, o che accenTuavano in qualche caso le proprie posizioni esasperandole ma rendendole così più evidenTi” (ix). The volume follows Two ThemaTic paThs: The firsT five chapTers focus on criTics who examined Manzoni from a specifically religious poinT of view, and The laTTer five on Those who considered him from varying perspecTives. These include, for insTance, his pluridiscursiviTy (which, according To Raimondi, whose observaTions reveal Their BakhTinian influence, makes of The auThor a represenTaTive of moderniTy), The eroTic and de-eroTicized elemenTs in his wriTing, Manzoni’s (proTo)-feminism, The dichoTomous philosophical Tension beTween universalism and parTicularism and, finally, Sapegno’s sociopoliTical examinaTion of Manzoni who, afTer all, has deliberaTely chosen To wriTe The sTory of Two members of “genTe meccaniche, e di picciol affare”, as he refers To Renzo and Lucia in his novel. While mosT of The discussions in This volume revolve around The Promessi sposi , There are examples and references To oTher works, as well as To oTher 20 Th -cen - Tury criTics. Parisi wriTes wiTh an auThoriTaTive and confidenT voice, offering his — 165 — 8 recensioni :02Bartoli copy 2/12/10 3:53 PM Page 166 RECENSIONI own reflecTions on The Topics under discussion. His prose, while scholarly, has per - sonal Touches, and one inTuiTs in iT his admiraTion for The criTics he has chosen, as his chapTers on Anna BanTi and Bernard Chandler, in parTicular, demonsTraTe. On The laTTer’s work, he commenTs ThaT for Chandler “inTelligenza e scrupolo filologi - co in lui coesisTono sempre, e la sua ricerca può ispirare leTTure conTrasTanTi pro - prio per la fedelTà assoluTa che ha nei confronTi di un auTore complesso.” (74). The same may be said also of Parisi’s fine and fundamenTal work in This sTudy. BoTh volumes under review will undoubTedly prove imporTanT supporTs To scholars who, Through Their own sTudies, hope To inviTe new readers To Manzoni’s faiThful group of TwenTy-five. ANNE URBANCIC Victoria College, University of Toronto Cristina Della Coletta. World’s Fairs Italian Style: The Great Exposition in Turin and Their Narratives, 1860-1915. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006. Pp. 351. ISBN 0-8020-9115-6. $70. CrisTina Della ColeTTa is on a mission: To diversify, in her own words, “The WesT’s monoliThic and univocal ‘discourse of Empire.’”(4) World’s Fairs Italian Style: The Great Exposition in Turin and Their Narratives, 1860-1915 responds precisely To This perceived gap in hisTorical research, namely The persisTenT omission of ITaly when discussing inTernaTional and universal exhibiTions. Della ColeTTa focuses on ITaly in The laTe nineTeenTh and early TwenTieTh cenTuries; however, secTions of her invesTigaTion do exTend geographically To major European, American, and colonial ciTies. The auThor invesTigaTes how ITaly’s World’s Fairs Took noTe from and com - peTed againsT, albeiT on a smaller scale, The World’s Fairs of iTs more indusTrialized counTerparTs, in oTher words, The more economically and poliTically developed counTries of BriTain, France, and The UniTed STaTes. In 1861 Massimo D’Azeglio expressed ITaly’s desire To “make ITalians.” Della ColeTTa conTends ThaT These World’s Fairs had a significanT role in forging The ITalian naTional idenTiTy Through The promoTion of a defined seT of bourgeois val - ues all wiThin The discourse of ITaly’s burgeoning imperialisTic aims. The fairs prop - agaTed a very precise image of ITaly Through a hisTorical display of a highly ideal - ized pasT, convenienT comparisons wiTh oTher culTures in which ITaly prevailed as superior, and iTs porTrayals of a brighT fuTure characTerized by innovaTions in sci - ence and Technology. WiThin This gianT consensus-building machine, however, were greaT inconsis - Tencies. Della ColeTTa examines boTh The naTionalisTic and imperialisTic eThos of The ITalian World’s Fairs and The manner in which The very scripTs ThaT were supposed To promoTe This masTer narraTive of progress and imperial superioriTy already con - Tained wiThin Themselves evidence of opposiTion, resisTance, and desTabilizaTion. The capiTal of The newly unified ITaly was iniTially Turin in 1861-65, followed by a brief six-year sTinT in Florence, before being permanenTly Transferred To Rome in 1871. Della ColeTTa focuses on The 1911 World’s Fair ThaT was held in each of — 166 —.