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Alceo Valcini: a witness of Polish History before and during the World War II (1933- 1946). Alceo Valcini was the Warsaw-based correspondent for the Italian daily "Corriere della Sera" during the years 1933-1946. Valcini encountered great difficulties with the editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Aldo Borelli, who was not interested in following the political life of Poland except for Poland's clashes with the Soviet Union. Valcini managed to publish his articles as long as they stressed the influence of Mussolini's fascism on Polish political life or if they dealt with Soviet political interference in Central Europe. Valcini was to be replaced by another journalist as correspondent from Warsaw because of his own pro-Polish views and scarce enthusiasm for the aggressive stances of Nazi Germany towards Czechoslovakia and Poland, but he nevertheless managed to witness Hitler's aggression against Poland. His stories were the first accounts of German persecution of the Polish Jews and Warsaw's civil population, although they had no chance of publication on the pages of the increasingly pro-Nazi "Corriere della Sera". Valcini took notice of everything that happened in Poland between the outbreak of the war and the end of July 1944. In 1945, Valcini collected his memoirs in a publication entitled The Calvary of Warsaw, in which he gave a graphic account of life in the city under German occupation. Valcini witnessed to the uprising in the Jewish Ghetto and to the activities of the Polish Secret State. His book was translated into Polish in 1970, after having undergone heavy editing, possibly as a result of intervention by the Communist censors. In any event, Valcini turned out to be one of the very few Italian journalists who – in writing about World War II and the Nazi occupation of Poland – did not fall prey to Goebbel's Propagandaministerium, unlike the much more celebrated reporter Indro Montanelli.

This research project stems from two different sources: an interest in the connection between literature and identity (both personal and national) and an interest in the recent desire of reappropriating Bram Stoker as an Irish author that can be noticed both in academia and in the wider public. In the past, Stoker was often included in anthologies of British writers without mentioning his being Irish, sometimes being even explicitly described as an English writer. In fact, he was a hundred percent Irish, in spite of the long time spent in London and of being continuously in touch with British social elites (most of all thanks to his work at the Lyceum Theatre with Sir Henry Irving): his Irishness is evident both in his self-declared interest in Irish themes (he described himself as a "philosophical Home-Ruler") and in some of his fiction. This research concentrates on finding Irish elements and themes in his novels, short stories, articles and personal diaries, using them for a threefold purpose: first of all shedding more light on his Irishness; secondly, connecting his work to his biography; and, last but not least, expanding the knowledge academia has of his work, both fictional and non fictional, so that he may be seen as a full-rounded author, not just as the author of Dracula. Three novels and other materials have been selected for the analysis. The novels are The Snake's Pass (1890), which is Stoker's first and the only one to be set in Ireland; Dracula (1897), an unavoidable milestone in his literary production; and The Lady of the Shroud (1909), more overtly political and written towards the end of his life. Finding Irish elements and themes in The Snake's Pass is not difficult, as it is full of Irish characters, legends, place names, customs, etc. In addition to these easy-to-spot elements, this novel also offers a first glimpse of Stoker's idea of community and of what steps should be taken for the development of a rural area. In The Lady of the Shroud, similar solutions are applied to an imaginary land in the Balkans, which can be identified with Stoker's homeland, since the ideas about culture, identity and development here presented are quite similar to the ones expressed in The Snake's Pass and in some articles about Ireland written in the same years as The Lady of the Shroud. As regards Dracula, the connections, similarities and differences with the other two novels may help understand this famous novel more deeply than in the past and keep under scrutiny the development of Stoker's political ideas over time, since these three novels cover the two decades in which he devoted himself to writing on a more regular basis. Together with the novels, a short story has been selected ('The Primrose Path', which deals with emigration and alcoholism), two long articles dealing with Ireland ('The Great White Fair in Dublin' and 'The World's Greatest Shipbuilding Yard'), Stoker's private diaries, which have been recently made available through print, and other writings (e.g. an address to the Philosophical Society at Trinity College Dublin). Reference is also made to other novels, short stories, articles and private correspondence. All these materials provide more material for the analysis, which means not only collecting more evidence of his Irishness but also improving the analysis of the novels with factual information from his non fictional writings. As for methodology, major texts have been adopted for each topic (e.g. Diarmuid Ó Giolláin's Locating Irish Folklore. Tradition, Modernity, Identity for folklore or Roy Foster's Modern Ireland. 1600-1972 for history), but also texts, like for instance Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities and Homi K. Bhabha's Nation and Narration, that are not directly related to Ireland but provide the tools to compare the ways in which communities and identities are formed in the real world with the ways they are formed in Stoker's fiction. One last tool used for the analysis of his fiction is his biography, which has been recently investigated (for instance by Paul Murray in 2004) more closely than in the past. As we know, Stoker was immersed in Irish life until he left for London, working for public administration at Dublin Castle and being a prominent member of Dublin's social life (for instance, he was one of the few people in the history of Trinity College Dublin to hold both the position of President of the Philosophical Society and that of Auditor of the Historical Society, he was a regular at the Wildes' literary salon on Merrion Square, he was a well-known athlete in local sports competitions, etc.). After he left Ireland, he continued being interested in Irish life and politics, as is clear from his discussing Irish problems with W. E. Gladstone, his participation in the National Literary Society founded in London, and so on. Together with his personal diaries, his biography, in addition to performing the obvious task of providing information about Irish aspects in his life, can also be a useful tool for shedding more light on his fiction.

Cities are places where a renewed social activism is growing in unprecedented ways. Inside a wide spectrum of different urban collective movements, many practices are "informal" actions of re-appropriation: practices that challenge property and normative regimes in the attempt to recover a multiplicity of spaces that have been dismissed by modernity. These practices are islands of resistance but also incubators of new imageries: organizational experiments that are potentially able to build the city even out of an institutionally recognized framework; symbolic and material tactics of spatial sense-making; a net of molecular and minute writings that transgress the text of the planned city; the result of a capillary battle with power mechanisms. These forms of social mobilization can potentially increase the environmental and social quality of life in urbanized environments. But they need to be supported. In this perspective they represent a crucial challenge for institutions. What role could institutions play in this respect? What kind of tensions need to be explored between social practices and institutional powers? Can public policy promote urban inclusion by legitimizing these self-guiding society expressions?

Analysing two quite rarely considered Max Weber's essays on social inquiry and on the problems of social psychology the Author places them within the coordinates of weberian historical research about ethics and the spirit of capitalism. These two essays of 1908-09 anticipate many of the principal themes emerging in the successive methodological and political writings of Max Weber. At first Weber discusses the bias between qualitative and quantitative sociological research in or-der to determinate the role of subjective motivations inside the objective conditions of capitalist domination. The analysis of the relationship between entrepreneur and workers becomes conse-quently an important pointer to understand in which way Weber concretely intends the social re-lationship and the sources of power and authority. The weberian reconstruction of social life in the factory meets in fact the possibility of the interruption of the association based on a disci-plined obedience. As registered by Weber in the two categories of Macht and Herrschaft in this situation changes the perception to be submitted to an anonymous power and emerges the pres-ence of a personal domination.

The analysis of two Renaissance constituents is proposed, well-discussed during the sixteenth century: simulation and dissimulation. Through the study of some preceptistic works, there is a reflection not only about the sphere of exteriority of such behavioral practices, but also on their political origins and their insertion into the private life of the individuals, helping them to achieve «amorous happiness», as Piccolomini says. This is an attempt to trace the common thread between the political writings of Machiavelli and Guicciardini with La Raffaella, di Piccolomini, highlighting the achievable objectives through the practice of such habits. ; Si propone l'analisi di due costituenti rinascimentali ben approfonditi nella precettistica e trattatistica del Cinquecento: la simulazione e dissimulazione. Attraverso lo studio di alcuni trattati precettistici, riflettiamo non solo sul fatto che nel Cinquecento queste pratiche comportamentali fossero riconducibili alla sfera dell'esteriorità, ma ragioneremo anche sul fatto che esse, mutuate dalla politica, si riversassero nella vita privata dell'individuo aiutandolo a raggiungere la «felicità amorosa», per dirla come Piccolomini. Si tenta di tracciare il fil rouge che collega gli scritti politici di Machiavelli e Guicciardini con La Raffaella, di Piccolomini, mettendo in luce gli obbiettivi conseguibili attraverso l'uso di tali pratiche comportamentali.

Until recently, Philodemus' treatise On Household Management (Περὶ οἰκονομίας, PHerc. 1424) has been mainly used as a source for the reconstruction of early Epicurean economic thought (especially of Metrodorus' writing Περὶ πλούτου). Over the past few years, however, scholars have called attention to Philodemus' creative (yet philosophically orthodox) readaptation of Epicurean ethical and social theories to the needs of contemporary Roman society. Following this scholarly line, the present paper reassesses a passage from On Household Management (col. XXII.9–48) which has so far been interpreted as an unoriginal repetition of Metrodorus' arguments, and situates it in the cultural context of the late Roman Republic. By comparing Philodemus', Cicero's, and Cornelius Nepos' approaches to the issues of virtue, wealth, wisdom, and the ways of life, the paper confirms the dating of Περὶ οἰκονομίας to the period after 50 BCE – a dating which was first proposed by Guglielmo Cavallo on merely paleographic grounds. Indeed, Philodemus' claims about the value of practical and theoretical knowledge, his use of previous philosophical traditions (such as the Peripatos), and his choice of poignant historical exempla, all point to the work's embeddedness within the late Republican debate on political engagement, biographical literature, and evergetism.

My paradigms in this respect were Lady Anne Clifford and Alice Anne Thornton. They produced texts that have not even been mentioned or considered for centuries, but that have recently been partially rediscovered and appreciated by critics. My intent was to show how cultural factors and ideologies of the time influenced literary production, and to analyse the reasons that led these authors and their texts, first to oblivion, and later to recovery and canonization. When attempting to give a coherent answer to these questions, I kept in mind the background of Renaissance cultural memory and ideology, with particular regard to notions of femininity. Women writers are "mothers of the text", creators of new horizons, expert connoisseurs of the ideologies of their time, but also lonely, isolated, subjected women, ready to record their memories in voices that try to rise above a thousand other voices. ; The reasons that led women to overcome the injunction against cultural expression, including autobiography are one of the most relevant topics of my thesis. We know that many female characters were marginalized, if not made virtually invisible in many cultures and ideologies. That's why I tried to unveil the "counter" itinerary of women's writing from oblivion to canonization. ; English writers then began to deal with secular autobiography in the seventeenth century. Though excluded from the political scene and from public social life, Early-modern women writers seemed to be able to add something new and significant to the memorials and autobiographies of their own contemporary authors. When a woman wanted to be considered a member of a community whose experience was worthy of memory, she was confined by her own culture and family situation in the role of daughter, wife and mother, and she was seen almost exclusively as the subject of stories of religious experience, visions, trances, ecstasies. However, in the late seventeenth century, autobiography began to depart from an exclusively religious background and from the narrative account of the lives of men, and women began not only to record events related to male lives, but also to explore their identity and their own experiences in autobiographical form. Autobiography acquired the modern meaning of personal, introspective, secular writing, and, suddenly, the texts written by daughters, mothers and wives began to be recognized as real contributions to a genre in constant evolution. ; This doctoral thesis deals with the problem of canonisation and/or exclusion of women's writings from the literary canon of the English Renaissance. More broadly, it deals with issues of memory and cultural transmission. The first part of the thesis focuses on memory in different disciplines and on studies of memory in the contemporary critical arena. I tried to give an overview of the most recent progress in this field of study. The following chapters deal with issues of oblivion and recognition (up to the canonisation) of English women's writers in the Renaissance.

Petrarch between Literature and Political Power Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) was not only an outstanding poet and scholar of his age, but also an interesting example of a public intellectual ante litteram, at least he appears to be so from the writings he left to posterity. His works in Latin, in particular, provide a strong critical commentary on the political issues of his time and about civilisation and history in general. Petrarch loved to live close to the centers of power and to maintain good relationships with influential political personalities; nevertheless, he managed to avoid getting involved in practical political activity or being recruited as a secretary or courtier. Despite not being of noble birth, he succeeded in being accepted into the most prestigious social circles and, at the same time, maintained sufficient independence and freedom to dedicate his time to literature. In his works he tried to impose ancient Rome as a social model and Roman heroes as exemplars of individual qualities; he also tried to convince the political powers (especially the Italian maritime republics and the Roman Emperor) to re-establish Italian dominance, to as great an extent as possible, within the borders of the Roman Empire. Petrarch sought to quell the violence of Italian political life and restore the papacy to Rome, with the aim of opposing French power in Europe.

This article is the text read at the presentation of the book Le Biblioteche di Luigi Crocetti, saggi, recensioni, paperoles (The Libraries of Luigi Crocetti, essays, reviews, paperoles), AIB, 2014, edited by Laura Desideri and Alberto Petrucciani.Luigi Crocetti (died in 2007) was one of the most eminent personalities in the Italian library world of the last fifty years. Some of the most significant milestones of his career are: Director of the Laboratory of Restoration at The National Central Library in Florence, after the flood of the Arno river in 1966; Director of the Library and Archives Department of the Tuscany regional government; President of the Italian Library Association (AIB), Director of the Gabinetto G.P. Vieusseux. Crocetti was also leader of, or influential partner in, the major projects and programs developed in Italy during his professional life, including: the DDC 20 Italian Edition, the project SBN (the Italian Library Network), Editor of the journal Biblioteche Oggi , as well as collaborator in various journals and publishing activities. The numerous writings of Luigi Crocetti, published throughout his professional life, register punctually the evolution of libraries and librarian profession in times of major technological, cultural and social changes. Nevertheless Crocetti's writings are not only an historical record of a perceptive (and committed) observer; they also constitute a collection of profound reflections and inspiring input for further discussion on the role of libraries and of culture in the society. Gifted with uncommon erudition, Crocetti shows an extraordinary ability to interpret the current reality and for see the future with a remarkable farsightedness. His writings touch on all aspects of the profession, from book preservation and restoration to public libraries, from cataloguing and indexing to library cooperation and networking, from national libraries, archives and museums, to user services. It is quite evident that Crocetti is aiming to an audience far beyond librarians, to include policy makers, managers, intellectuals and all those who have contact with libraries; in a final analysis he addresses to all citizens, being convinced that "culture is for everyone" and that "libraries must by their nature be deeply immersed in the overall cultural flow". Innovation and renovation of the professional mentality are recurrent themes in the writings of Crocetti. The Author - fully aware of the international debate and attentive to technological change - identified in the progressive loss of contact between libraries and cultural tradition one of the weak points of the Italian librarianship. According to his view, this situation emphasized the 'bureaucratization' of libraries and librarians, which is a major cause of the erosion of their intellectual function. "The Italian librarianship - notes bitterly Crocetti - is rich in the past and poor in tradition". It is a controversial issue, like many others (too often passed over by the professional debate) highlighted by Crocetti in his writing with clarity and equilibrium, like the true intellectual he was, able to rise above the interests of their own sector, but also capable of representing the aspiration to renew the librarian profession in the global dimension of our times. ; Il testo di questo articolo è stato letto dall'autore in occasione della presentazione del libro "Le Biblioteche di Luigi Crocetti, saggi, recensioni, paperoles". 2014. A cura di Laura Desideri e Alberto Petrucciani. Roma: Associazione Italiana Biblioteche.Luigi Crocetti (scomparso nel 2007) è stata una delle personalità più eminenti della biblioteconomia italiana negli ultimi cinquant'anni, durante i quali ha ricoperto importanti cariche quali: direttore del lavoratorio di restauro della Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, dopo l'alluvione dell'Arno nel 1966; direttore del Dipartimento Archivi e Biblioteche della Regione Toscana; presidente dell'Associazioene Italiana Biblioteche, direttore del Gabinetto G.P. Viesseux.Crocetti è stato inoltre coinvolto in progetti ed iniziative sviluppatisi in Italia nel corso della sua carriera professionale: l'edizione italiana della CDD 20, il progetto SBN, la rivista Biblioteche Oggi, di cui fu editor, e altre collaborazioni editoriali. I numerosi scritti di Luigi Crocetti, pubblicati nel corso della sua vita professionale, registrano puntualmente l'evoluzione delle biblioteche e della professione bibliotecaria in un periodo di cambiamenti tecnologici, culturali e sociali. Ciò nondimeno, gli scritti di Crocetti non sono solo la registrazione storica di un osservatore perspicace e impegnato; essi costituiscono anche una raccolta di riflessioni profonde e di suggerimenti per incoraggiare la discussione sul ruolo delle biblioteche e della cultura nella società. Dotato di erudizione non comune, Crocetti mostra una capacità straordinaria di interpretare la realtà attuale e di guardare al futuro con lungimiranza. I suoi scritti toccano tutti gli aspetti della professione, dalla conservazione e restauro del materiale librario alle biblioteche pubbliche, dalla catalogazione e indicizzazione alla cooperazione bibliotecaria, dalle biblioteche nazionali agli archivi, ai musei, fino ai servizi all'utente. E' chiaro che Crocetti si rivolge a un pubblico ampio, non limitato ai bibliotecari, ma aperto invece a politici, manager, intellettuali e chiunque abbia un interesse nelle biblioteche; in un'analisi conclusiva si rivolge a tutti i cittadini, nella convinzione che "la cultura è per tutti" e che "le biblioteche, per loro natura, devono essere immerse nel ciclo culturale". Innovazione e rinnovamento della mentalità professionale sono temi ricorrenti negli scritti di Crocetti. L'autore - consapevole del dibattito internazionale e attento alle innovazioni tecnologiche - identifica uno dei punti deboli della biblioteconomia italiana nella progressiva perdita di contatto tra le biblioteche e la tradizione culturale. "La biblioteconomia italiana - fa notare amaramente Crocetti - è ricca nei fasti passati e povera in tradizione". Il tema è controverso, come molti altri (troppo spesso ignorati dal dibattito professionale) sottolineati da Crocetti nei sui scritti con chiarezza ed equilibrio, da intellettuale quale egli era, capace di essere superiore al mero interesse di settore, e capace allo stesso tempo di rappresentare l'aspirazione al rinnovamento della professione bibliotecaria nella dimensione globale dei nostri tempi.

Il campo 29 is the debut as novelist of Sergio Antonielli. It was published in Milan in 1949 by "Edizioni Europee" and in 1976 by "Editori Riuniti". The novel tells the personal experience of imprisonment in British Raj during the Second World War with other ten thousand Italian officers. Through the analysis of the text and documents from the archives of the author, stored in the Centro Apice, I would like to discuss the techniques of composition that make this work a peculiar case in the post-world war literary system. Antonielli, forcing himself to overcome the tragedy suffered, commits to the writing a dual purpose: to avoid mere "documentarismo" without overindulging in the romance, and to take the advantage of the exceptional nature of his experience to create a work that exceed all individual and historical contingencies. In respect of these moral and stylistic imperatives, the writer refuses the autobiography and choices a choral intonation, different from sentimental style, typical of other writers involved in the literature of war. His critic studies and the introductions, written by author for two editions, show distinct interpretations about his work and about typical methods and category of neorealist literature: document, diary, autobiographical novel. The story does not give way to political disquisitions or to sentimental parenthesis, but it consists of representation of the life in prison camps. A "city of prisoners" comes alive, where coexist vices and virtues of the normal society, and where the war is banned.

Sul finire del soggiorno fiorentino, dopo pochi mesi dalla seconda edizione della "Vita militare", Edmondo De Amicis pubblica sull'Italia militare, periodico che avvia la sua carriera letteraria, un contributo singolare: "Ugo Foscolo Ufficiale". È la prima versione, oggi quasi dimenticata, dell'articolo poi riedito nei "Ricordi del 1870-'71" e denominato "Il Capitano Ugo Foscolo". La metamorfosi del titolo è solo il sintomo epidermico di una revisione che scompagina il contributo tanto nella facies linguistica quanto nel contenuto, secondo la prassi di perpetuo labor limae dei propri scritti appresa nel salotto Peruzzi. Il presente contributo contestualizza le due versioni dell'articolo nella biografia linguistico-letteraria di De Amicis, analizzando i mutamenti e i motivi degli stessi in relazione agli scopi, ai pubblici e alle sedi di pubblicazione. ; After the second edition of "Military life in Italy" and at the end of his stay in Florence, Edmondo de Amicis published an opinion article, "Ugo Foscolo Ufficiale", in "L'Italia militare", the magazine where he began his literary career. It is an almost unknown first version of another article entitled "Il Capitano Ugo Foscolo" contained in "Ricordi 1870-'71". The title change was only a superficial sign of the revision regarding content and linguistic aspects, an inheritance of Emilia Peruzzi's writing lessons. The study aims to contextualize these two different versions of De Amicis' article within his literary and linguistic biography. It also analyzes the changes between the versions regarding their scopes, readers and types of editions.

The article examines and publishes in the Appendix a document kept in the Archive of the Archbishop of Pisa, known until now only in a partial transcript, because was for a long time not available. The relevance of this document lies both in its materials and graphics characteristics , but also in its unique content, which presents a cross section of political and social life of the entourage of Bishops in the city and county in the first half of the Twelfth century. In fact, it shows the different sides of an inquest (inspectio) conducted in the diocese of Pisa by an anonymous investigator appointed by the Archbishop of Pisa Hubert in 1137. The numerous stages of the inquest were probably recorded in some files and then, with the help of judges (and law experts) and the graphic abilities of the episcopal clergy, were written in an entire parchment, with a clear and fluid book-Caroline and with a good rhetoric form. The goals of this document were surely informative, but we don't exclude also a memorial and judicial objective. In conclusion, the inspectio give us the opportunity of studying the non-epistolographic practices of medieval communication and allows us to know a pragmatic and non-formal system of document building. This system is out of the field of notarial acts with legal effects (chartae and brevia recordationis) and different from the writing of judicial records.

published in July 2013, the Italian journal of antispecism Animal Studies, number 4, aimed to bring 'the animals of Foucault' closer together. More than a year has passed, but it is still worth writing. The issues are perhaps more topical, the debate on anti-spectaism is even more open. Are there, "Foucault" animals? Are you sure: the issue was never taken by the French philosopher. Yet those 'places where animals appear', just like many other latent issues or undeclared problems, such as many tools that have not yet been identified, as they are buried or embedded in the deep drawers and dusts of his fantomatic boite'outils, have created new roots in the very diverse soil of contemporary thought. The places of reflection on animality, the dense paragraphs of its 'history of the relationship between humans and animals from the Middle Ages to modernity' allow. as demonstrated by the magazine's experiment to think even better about the rights of animals, biomedical knowledge and biocapital, the subjection of non-human bodies, and first and foremost the distinction between human animals and 'non-human animals', the untouchability between the two remarkers always and again decides on the limits of the infinite possible relationships between the animal and the animal-human. Why is it not always 'from the dark edge of the Cogito', our non-animals that define the subject, and the categories we want to be the foundations of humans to think better, and better? [1] ; International audience ; published in July 2013, the Italian journal of antispecism Animal Studies, number 4, aimed to bring 'the animals of Foucault' closer together. More than a year has passed, but it is still worth writing. The issues are perhaps more topical, the debate on anti-spectaism is even more open. Are there, "Foucault" animals? Are you sure: the issue was never taken by the French philosopher. Yet those 'places where animals appear', just like many other latent issues or undeclared problems, such as many tools that have not yet been identified, ...

Il lavoro riguarda alcuni aspetti ancora non molto studiati della personalità intellettuale di John Henry Newman, vale a dire la proposta di una cultura cristiana alternativa alla secolarizzazione in ambito educativo e socio-politico, così come si sviluppò durante il corso della sua vita: il giudizio dato da Newman sull'antico regime inglese è il tema del primo capitolo; la riflessione degli ultimi anni oxoniensi e dei primi anni successivi alla conversione (il ruolo del cristianesimo e del cattolicesimo nella cultura inglese) è il tema del secondo successivo; la proposta educativa così come emerge degli scritti sull'Università è il tema del terzo capitolo; alla riflessione sul compito Stato e sui fondamenti della politica è infine dedicato il quarto capitolo. ; The work considers some aspects (not so studied yet) of the intellectual personality of John Henry Newman, that is the Christian cultural proposal alternative to the secularization in education, and in the social and political field, as it was developed during his life: the topic of the first chapter is Newman's opinion about the ancien regime; in the second chapter we study the reflection of the last Oxonian years and of the first years after his conversion (the role of Christianity and of Catholicism in English culture); the third chapter regards the educative proposal, as it develops from the writings on University onwards; the fourth chapter is dedicated to the reflections on the role of the State and on the foundations of politics.