Pius IX in 1846-1848 - the Liberal Pope?

The paper discusses the first years of the pontificate of Pius IX (1846-1878), when the newly elected head of the Catholic Church was perceived as a “liberal Pope”. On the one hand, in 1846-1848 Pius IX was the Pope who carried out reforms and announced an amnesty. On the other hand, in the same period he criticized rationalism and created censorship commissions. The paper is another attempt to answer the question whether Pius IX was indeed a “liberal” Pope at the beginning of his pontificate. Special attention is given to the Pope’s policy during 1847. It was the time when the Papal States’ population expected the continuation of the reform process. The paper raises the question of Cardinals’ impact on the Pope, as well as on the pace of reform in the Papal States. Another key issue is the response of Pius IX to the revolutionary movement in Italy. The author concludes with the significance of the Pope’s refusal to struggle against Austria for the further development of the process of Italian Unification.

La prego di voler gradire una mia Carta dei prodotti alimentari…

The Authors examine some elements of the work of the great cartographer Benedetto Marzolla (1801-1858) who, together with Carlo Afàn de Rivera, represents the best among the intellectuals and technicians that the Kingdom of Two Sicilies yielded before the Italian unification. This contrasts with the commonplace outlined be the Savoyard-Risorgimental propaganda which describes Naples and the Kingdom as a country inhabited by incapables, depraved and lazy persons. The Authors resume the theme of the Map of Nourishing Products, an excellent work not only because it describes the terrestrial and marine nourishing productions, but also for the connection with many agrarian landscapes and relative trades. Moreover, the Authors present the Map of Excise Duty (1830) another work of Marzolla together with Valentino, never known or considered by cartography scholars. This map does not seem to be cited inside the catalogues or inventories about Marzolla’s production, compiled by Valerio or by others authors in the frame of the analysis of the Royal Topographical Office of Naples (ROT), especially along the second half of the XIX century. The “modernity” of Marzolla manifests not only in consideration of anti-historical comparisons with actual excellent or “organic” food products, but for the analogies with the original proposals of Brunet, Ferras and other academics of the Maison de la Géographie. Unfortunately, Italian geographers have devoted little attention to this field of study.

Transcultural Italies

The history of Italians and of modern Italian culture stems from multiple experiences of mobility and migration: between the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century 27 million Italians migrated, and 60 to 80 million people worldwide now see their identity as connected with the Italian diaspora. Since the time of Italian unification a series of narratives about mobility has been produced both inside and outside the boundaries of Italy by agents such as the Italian state, international organizations, and migrant communities themselves. The essays in Transcultural Italies interrogate the inherently dynamic nature of Italian identity and culture. They do so by focusing on the key concepts and practices of mobility, memory, and translation. The essays represent a contrapuntal series of case studies that together offer a fresh perspective on the study of modern and contemporary Italy. The aim of the volume is to advance the transnational turn that is presently reshaping the field of Italian Studies and Modern Languages. The essays in the volume explore the meanings that ‘transnational’ and ‘transcultural’ assume when applied to the notion of Italian culture.

L’Antirisorgimento nel dibattito pubblico dell’Italia repubblicana

During the celebration of the 150th anniversary of Italian unification in 2011 three disparaging views of the Risorgimento were publicly expressed: the first by ultraconservative Catholics, the second by the neo-Bourbon movement and the third by the Lega Nord. This article analyses their cultural roots, evolution and mutual relations, with a particular focus on the neo-Bourbon movement, the most active during recent years.

Canons of the Risorgimento then and now

This chapter interrogates the political valency of the operatic canon. The case study is familiar, Giuseppe Verdi’s Nabucco, but rather than the opera’s political status (re-confirmed in a recent noted performance of the opera in the context of celebration of the 150th anniversary of Italian unification), the emphasis here is on its canonic status, which is both multiplicitous and contentious. In particular, its presence in the influential canone del Risorgimento proposed by Alberto Banti is revealing of certain aspects of operatic canonicity more generally: the difficulties inherent in characterizing reception in the theater, the significance of memory and “rememberedness” in canonic thinking, and the importance to the operatic canon not only of instantiation but also of participation. This chapter is paired with Mark Berry’s “‘Blow the opera houses into the air’: Wagner, Boulez, and Modernist canons.”

Mass alphabetization in Sicily after the Unit. Testimonies from the Archive of State of Catania (1861-66)

This work, part of a broader project on “Literacy and Development in Southern Italy from Italian Unification to the Giolittian Era (1861-1914)”, analyzes, through the sources of the State Archives of Catania, the connection between the processes of modernization and literacy in the South, during the first years after the extension of the Casati Law, looking at the modalities, effectiveness and effective fulfillment of schools institution, by the Catania hinterland Municipalities, as a primary element of economic and social progression of the territory. At the same time, particular attention is given to the role of local ecclesiastical institutions in primary education.

Features and problems in the construction of the postunitary Italian banking system

The study of the evolution of Italian economy experienced, in recent years, new interpretive hypotheses, themselves based on the use of more updated series of historical data, The latter have brought scholars to reconsider, especially taking long-term viewpoints into account, the path Italy followed in joining the global economic system. Therefore, both Italian and international historiography have striven to highlight the most favorable elements, as well as the limits and the contradictions accompanying the nevertheless robust growth Italy experienced during the last 150 years. All this began for Italy as it joined, during the later 1800s, the productive mechanisms of the Second Industrial Revolution, fully maturing during the Golden Age. To fully understand such a path it is necessary to integrate, following a comparative, systemic and interdisciplinary approach, the behavioral analysis of some specific industrial sectors with the so-called system prerequisites to development including, and in an important position at that, the construction of the financial market and the shaping of the banking system. Within such a context, studying the period between the Unification of Italy and the “end of the century crisis” appears particularly important, as it is during this phase that some of the lines through which the model Italy used to join the process of the Second Industrial Revolution were shaped. Such a situation will challenge the future reforms, themselves a prelude to the takeoff Italy experienced during the Giolitti era.This contribution intends to highlight some features of the buildup of the Italian banking system within the framework of Italian nation building, between 1861 and 1893. In order to do that, besides offering an analysis of the political, economic and financial situation of the time, it examines the path, the uses and the crossings of capital which, starting with the financial movements recorded between the end of the 1860s and the beginning of the 1870s between the Centre-North of Italy, Germany and Austria and then pouring into the activities of the Banca Tiberina, based in Rome and one of the main protagonists of the growing phenomenon joining banks and companies during that time. Therefore, this work of mine does not only focus on the descending parable the Banca Tiberina experienced (something well known in economic historiography, especially when examining the end of the century crisis) but rather more on the whole three previous decades, from the beginning to the expansion phase.Therefore, a composite framework emerges, striving to keep the features of the political, social and economic features of Italy with those events being only apparently local and between these and the evolution of the banking system after the Italian Unification.

Postscript

The “Postscript” outlines the history of Japanese institutions created in Italy in the years following the Italian unification to make the case for the need to account for this Japanese fascination in the context of Italian history. The foundation of these institutions points in the direction of a lesser known historical trajectory that modern Italy had been pursuing since its foundation. The Postscript suggests that while the colonial enterprise was moving the geopolitical interests of the country toward the African continent, a parallel non-violent movement of diplomatic, cultural and commercial exchanges took place with Japan, reaching its peak during the period of the Axis Alliance. A possible explanation of why the notion of these two countries as international partners seems almost counterintuitive today is identified in the post-war period of ‘Pax Americana,’ which removed the material evidence of this alliance. Yet, the chapter ends by noticing a positive overarching approach toward Japan that resisted historical change.