The crisis of the Italian state: then and now

Abstract

The article argues that Patrick McCarthy's Crisis of the Italian State was a book of great value by an author who was a partisan in the struggle to reform the Italian political system. The book's argument that lasting reform of Italian politics is only possible if middle class Italians begin to act as citizens, rather than as clients who regard the state as a source of potential largesse, has proved to be a far-sighted one, although at the time it seemed simplistic. Many of Italy's current troubles stem from the failure of Italy to go beyond the ‘overworked state’.     

Piero Gobetti and the Liberal Revolution in Italy

Abstract

Piero Gobetti, who died at an early age in 1926 after a severe beating by Fascist squadristi, is one of the most remarkable figures in twentieth‐century Italian culture. A writer and thinker with deep political commitment, Gobetti launched the reviews and journals during the political crisis in Italy between 1918 and 1925 which provided a meeting point for the otherwise dispersed forces of the Italian Left. The republication of his essay ‘The Liberal Revolution. An Essay of the Political Struggle in Italy’ ‐ the fifth edition since it first appeared in 1924 — has reopened the debate on Gobetti and provides an opportunity to consider Gobetti's ideas outside the context of the often politically motivated interpretations that have been placed on them.     

Signore e signori d'Italia: Una storia delle buone maniere

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the boycott against the Pentecostal presence and proselytism which took place in Italy between 1935 and 1955. The Italian State and the Roman Catholic Church were allied in opposition, worried by the increasing success of Pentecostal proselytism all over Italy and, in particular, in the south. In April 1935, the Fascist government issued a decree (the so-called Circolare Buffarini-Guidi) which banned all religious activities of the Pentecostals, arguing that their religious practises were dangerous for the safety of the population and for the continuity of the ‘Italian race’. This decree, despite the fact that it was clearly illiberal, was active until 1955, eight years after the signing into law of the Republican Constitution, which guaranteed full religious freedom. My article wants to look at how this continuity on such a crucial aspect was possible despite the profound changes that followed the Second World War in Italy.     

The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the initial phase of the Italian Racial Laws: reactions and strategies (1938–1940)

ABSTRACT

This article aims to reconstruct the activities of the Board of Jewish Deputies, the central representative body of British Jewry, in support of the Italian Jews affected by the Fascist Racial Laws of 1938. By analysing the institution’s documents and examining the most widely read Jewish newspaper in the U.K., the Jewish Chronicle, this research investigates how the initial phase of the Italian anti-Semitic campaign was received in Great Britain, and what measures were put in place by British Jewry in their attempts to help the Italian Jews. The Jewish historian, Cecil Roth, played an important role during this phase, in active collaboration with the leadership of the Board and the staff of the Jewish Chronicle, gathering as much information as possible on Italy and its history in order to shed light on the events that were taking place during the first years of the Racial Laws and until the entrance of Italy into WWII (1938–1940). The involvement of certain members of the Foreign Office with links to the Board, and the shared goal of helping Italian Jewry, was also fundamental in this period.     

Transatlantic Catholic responses to Fascist anti-Semitism: the Racial Laws of 1938 in the Jesuit press of America and Civiltà Cattolica

ABSTRACT

This article examines the Catholic responses to the Fascist Racial Laws in a transatlantic and comparative perspective. It looks specifically at two foremost publications of the Jesuit press in Rome and New York: Civiltà Cattolica and America, respectively. The comparative approach helps to comprehend the variety of factors behind editorial choices: readership, political context, Vatican directions, censorship, and silence. Jesuits on both sides of the Atlantic interpreted the anti-Semitic turn of the Fascist regime as an imitation of Nazi Germany and with the persistent hope that Italian policies would be milder and more ‘civilized’. The shaping of the myth of the ‘good Italian’ was an early process in which Church voices, including the Pope himself, took a significant part. This article argues that despite contextual differences, both Jesuit publications demonstrated a transnational pattern of Catholic relation to the Jews: endorsing Pius XI’s statements, they spoke out against racism but did not extend their condemnations to a full rejection of anti-Semitism in its religious and secular components. The disapproval of Italy’s Racial Laws was not a defense of the Jews of Italy.     

Italy’s unification and its discontents: Giovanni Verga’s Cos’è il Re?

ABSTRACT

The article, ‘Italy’s Unification and its Discontents: Verga’s Cos’è il Re, focuses on the mental confusion of the protagonist, Cosimo, which becomes symptomatic of the southern rural masses’ disenfranchisement from the unification process. Verga’s political disillusion with the new state, for which he fought, comes to the fore, underlining how the Savoy kingdom’s constitution was no guarantee of a real improvement for the rural masses. Verga’s story contrasts the Savoy king, whose power is limited by the constitution, with the Bourbon Monarch’s Corpus Mysticum, as described by Ernest Kantorowicz, whose power is absolute, like that of Jesus Christ. The story denounces, then, the paradox that the Bourbon monarch, in his paternalistic governance, was better for the impoverished rural masses than the constitutional Savoy king. Moreover, Italy’s unification under the Savoy sovereign further developed a national discourse that systematically racialized Southerners because of their subaltern position within the nation.     

Youth as a metaphor: an interview with Carmen Leccardi

Abstract

What are the specificities of youth in Italy as a group? How are they received in civil society and beyond? What kind of approaches have characterized the study of youth in Italy throughout the last decades? In this interview, the editors of this Special Issue open a conversation with Carmen Leccardi, a leading scholar in the field whose work has impacted the study of Italian youth not only in Italy but also internationally. Leccardi investigates these issues diachronically, following and commenting some salient aspects of Italian history that have had an impact on how the lives of young people have unfolded, among them social movements, policies and labour market fluctuations. Revisiting and updating the notion of uncertainty in young people’s lives, the interview concludes that youth can be considered as a metaphor particularly able to capture contemporary social changes.     

Delegitimation provided by the constitutional pact in the First Republic

Abstract

Far from being a value shared by the country’s political parties, republican Italy’s constitution has given rise to confrontation depending on the interpretations given to it in the main phases of transition of the country’s political system. Antifascism as a fundamental statute of public life, on the one hand, and the great parliamentary system framework, on the other, established the boundaries of democratic legitimacy. Although this process contributed to strengthening the country’s democratic foundations, particularly with regard to the risk of a possible authoritarian swing in the aftermath of World War II, it also affected a political dialectic strongly conditioned by the delegitimizing element underlying the constitutional charter. Attempts at institutional reform as well as opposition to any understanding between the two parties that benefited the most from a literal interpretation of the constitution, that is, the Christian Democratic Party and the Italian Communist Party, often ran the risk of being demonized. This led to a kind of short-circuit which, in the long run, eroded the democratic fabric itself, feeding the spiral of mutual delegitimation that marked the political life of the country in these republican years.     

The exiles of the Risorgimento: Italian volunteers in the Portuguese Civil War (1832–34)

Abstract

Between 1832 and 1834 during the civil war against the partisans of absolutism in Portugal about a hundred Italians fought as volunteers in the Portuguese liberal army. These Italians were motivated to participate by a Romantic culture of war that was strongly rooted in the liberal nationalism of the Italian Risorgimento, but above all, the decision to fight as a volunteer abroad was the result of an international movement of political solidarity with Portuguese liberalism in the early 1830s with which the Italian liberals came into contact during their political exile in France and in Belgium. For the Italian, fighting as volunteers in Portugal proved to be a decisive political experience which deeply shaped their own political ideas of the nation that the volunteers would subsequently draw on in their different political and professional roles in Italy where they became ministers, diplomats and generals of the Kingdom of Italy.     

Italian history and gli italiani nel mondo,part I

Abstract

Italian historians have not yet seriously grappled with the emigration of twenty‐seven million Italians as an interpretative theme. This article reviews the methodological challenges to such an undertaking. Existing works suggests that ‘Italy‐outward’ research strategies, exploration of Italian connections to its ‘diaspora’, and attention to labor recruitment and militancy, and return migration are promising approaches. Since most interpretation of Italian migration still occurs within the histories of receiving nations, Part I also provides a review of the historiography on Italian immigrants in the English‐speaking world, to be followed in Part II by a comparable review of Italians living and working in France, South America and central Europe.     

From Universalism to Nationalism: Italian Freemasonry and the Great War

Abstract

During the period from 1914 to 1915, prior to Italy’s entry into the First World War, Freemasonry was a powerful force in Italian public life with a strong presence in every part of the nation and in the most vital organs of the State (parliament, public administration, the armed forces). Between them, the Grand Orient and the Grand Lodge of Italy counted 25,000 members and more than 500 lodges. Freemasons played a critical role in the campaign to mobilize Italian public opinion and political parties in support of Italy’s intervention in the war as an ally of France and Great Britain. To do so, they abandoned the movement’s traditional cosmopolitan and pacifist stances and adopted instead the objectives of the nationalists, a shift that would be consolidated during the war. Nonetheless, from 1917 onwards Italian Freemasons joined their counterparts in other European countries to press for the creation of a League of Nations to promote a new post-war universal order premised on the peaceful coexistence of independent and democratic nations. In examining the initiatives taken by Italian Freemasons in this period, this article focuses on the principles that inspired them, the language they adopted and the forms of communication and mobilization they used.     

Italian history and gli italiani nel mondo,Part II

Abstract

Italian historians have not yet seriously confronted the emigration of 27 million Italians as an interpretative theme. Part II of this two‐part article studies Italian migrants’ experiences in France, South America, Switzerland and Germany, comparing ‘Latin’ and ‘Germanic’ receiving areas to the English‐speaking world discussed in Part I. A focus on these other sections of the Italian diaspora challenges some fundamental interpretations of historians of Italy about emigration: Italian migrations to these areas were neither limited to the late nineteenth century, sparked by the economic crises of those yean, nor a product of the ‘problem of the Mezzogiomo’. Italian historians have special opportunities to study return migration to Italy, and to interpret Italy's own evolution into a multicultural receiving country, by comparing it to the models of multi‐ethnic nations where Italian migrants once settled around the world.     

Italian Colonialism in Africa as a Connected System: Institutions,Men and Colonial Troops

ABSTRACT

In the last two decades studies on Italian colonialism have shown remarkable vitality and many positive results. But in spite of this undoubted progress there still remain some limitations of approach that prevent any real outstripping of the interpretive schemes hitherto used. The research being conducted largely follows the nation state paradigm: the Italian colonies are viewed and studied as essentially independent entities, devoid of relations with the surrounding territories and, above all, between each of these and the others.

This article offers an interpretive scheme that stresses the intimate relationship among the Italian colonial possessions in Africa, their status as a system, by moving away from a representation that has always favoured a rigorously individualised treatment of Italy’s colonies. It emphasises three main levels of interconnection: administrative structures, officials and colonial troops. While the first two were also common to other colonial entities, the extreme recourse to the mobility of colonial troops was a distinctive feature of the Italian version and the main factor of interconnection among Italy’s territories.

Our analysis also enables us to better understand the place violence held in Italian colonialism. Along with analyzing the deportations, massacres and use of gas, we must consider the uninterrupted cycle of campaigns that from 1911 to 1941 Italy inflicted on its colonies. For the most part, wars were delegated to colonial troops who for thirty years, moving from one colony to another, made war and violence a fundamental aspect of the Italian colonial experience.     

Acqua minerale di Sangemini: the Italian mineral water industry finds a place at the table

Abstract

Water is an important part of most Italian meals, and Italians are amongst the largest consumers of bottled mineral water in Europe. This article looks at the development of the mineral water industry in Italy from the nineteenth century to present by focusing on the case of Sangemini mineral water from Umbria, Italy. In particular, this article looks at how medical findings became part of a popular hygiene and health discourse that was central to developing a market for mineral water in Italy. Contrary to other international markets, bottled mineral water is still consumed in Italy for its health and nutritional benefits today.     

Micromorphological Study of Concotto Surfaces Protected by the Avellino Eruption in 3945 ± 10 cal. BP at the Early Bronze Age of Afragola Village in Southern Italy

ABSTRACT

The term Concotto refers to fragments or patches of hard heated clay that derive from living surfaces, walls, and ovens. Concotto fragments are found throughout the Italian peninsula and date from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. Current studies express contradictory opinions about whether or not the Concottos on living surfaces represent intentionally constructed surfaces or the secondary products of the contact between hot embers and sediments. This study uses micromorphological analysis to investigate the function and composition of Concotto surfaces from several domestic structures at the Early Bronze Age village of Afragola in southern Italy. Afragola is an exceptionally preserved agricultural village that was covered by almost 1?m of volcanic ash during the Vesuvius eruption in 3945?±?10 cal. BP. The Concottos at Afragola are hard, red surfaces that are typically associated with burned materials. Micromorphological analysis reveals that the Concottos were intentionally made by laying down patches of clay and then heating them to create a hard, flat surface. This study explores the potential uses of the Concotto as cooking surfaces during the Early Bronze Age of southern Italy.     

The Democratic Party and the restructuring of the Italian party system

Abstract

Out of a quickly performed merger between the Left Democrats and the Daisy, a new party has made its appearance in Italy: the Democratic Party (Partito Democratico – PD). In the summer of 2007 three candidates, Walter Veltroni, Rosy Bindi and Enrico Letta campaigned in order to convince sympathizers and supporters of that, yet non-existing party, that they were worthy of the office of Secretary of the PD. The election of Veltroni contributed to the already existing tensions within the centre-left governmental coalition that led to the demise of Prodi's government and to early elections. In April 2008, though receiving 33 per cent of the vote, the Democratic Party suffered a serious defeat. This article explores the reasons of the defeat and analyses its consequences on the restructuring of the Italian party system and the future of the Italian political system. Unless the Democratic Party is capable of finding an adequate organizational model and of expanding its electoral support beyond the areas of the traditional entrenchment of the former Communist party, the centre-right seems destined to guide Italian politics for some time to come.     

Prostitution and infection: transnational and comparative perspectives on Italian health policy (1922–1958)

ABSTRACT

In 1958 the Italian parliament abolished controlled prostitution and closed the case di tolleranza – brothels licensed and supervised by the state. Justified in the nineteenth century as a means to combat venereal diseases, discussions surrounding the state-regulated prostitution became increasingly complex after the Second World War. This article will focus on the presumptive chief argument, the brothels’ benefit to public health. Using a historical comparison, it will identify this factor’s role in the continuation or abolition of the regulated system and any aspects unique to the Italian case. To take full advantage of the comparative approach, countries have been selected that permit an entangled historical comparison that is both synchronic and diachronic: Whereas the change in prostitution regulations occurred after the Second World War in France and Italy – the same era – we must jump back to a different period, the pre-war years, for the German case.     

Giuseppe Antonio Borgese and Italian propaganda abroad

After the outbreak of war, public and private institutions in Italy embarked on various propaganda projects without coordination. It was not until Vittorio Emanuele Orlando became prime minister (from 30 October 1917 to 23 June 1919) that the first serious efforts were made to organize propaganda abroad. G. A. Borgese, a contributor to the Corriere della Sera, took an active role in the defense of Italian intervention in the war and was assigned various missions abroad, commissioned by the editor of the newspaper and, after this first experience, by the army and naval authorities, and by Orlando himself. His unpublished report Dello spirito pubblico in Francia, written at the end of his mission to Paris in March and April 1917, describes Italian propaganda efforts in France and French public opinion on Italy and the Italians, making it an important text that reveals both the problematic relations between Italy and France and the mistakes and shortcomings of Italian propaganda.     

Publications

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a fabric study of the late Roman coarse wares (3rd century–6th century A.D.) from the Roman coastal town of Potentia (Porto Recanati) Marche, Italy). The petrographic analysis established the presence of several imported coarse ware classes, originating from the eastern Mediterranean to northern Africa. Of particular interest are the Adriatic common wares, which allow us to examine and define the extent, scale, and configuration of ancient trade within Adriatic Italy. While it is difficult to trace trade routes, items transported as a secondary commodity, like regional coarse wares, can help in reconstructing ancient economic interaction. The burnished coarse ware discussed here documents the ancient N-S trade routes from the Po region to the central Adriatic. Moreover, the identification of a northern Italian ware in central Adriatic Italy shows that this burnished coarse pottery had economic value and was part of a wider distribution network within the Adriatic.