Una tipologia della 'fantasy' italiana (1870-2010)
Recensione di: Lindsay Myers, Making the Italians. Poetics and Politics of Italian Children's Fantasy, Bern, Peter Lang, 2012, 251p., ISBN: 9783039113613, € 38,80.
Recensione di: Lindsay Myers, Making the Italians. Poetics and Politics of Italian Children's Fantasy, Bern, Peter Lang, 2012, 251p., ISBN: 9783039113613, € 38,80.
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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.
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Examples of Cultural Anti-Semitism in Umberto Eco's Novel Il cimitero di PragaThe article draws upon Umberto Eco's recent novel, Il cimitero di Praga, in the consideration of the relationship between narrative fiction and the collective imagination in regards to the genesis and dispersion of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the second half of the nineteenth century. A dangerous and mysterious text, The Protocols evoked general clamor and persecutory backlash, as it appeared to document the existence of a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy.In the work, the author also reconstructs sources of the fictional text and traces the historical, political and editorial events surrounding it, plunging into them with a gritty and irreverent realism in a chronicle of the obsession that flowed into the madness of the Shoah.Treating the subject, which is found elsewhere in the scholar's oeuvre, requires mention of the repertoire of prejudicial accusations against the Jews throughout history, which creates, toward the end of the book, a heated and contentious debate regarding whether such delicate and reckless statements should even be made public at all. This article questions the authorial strategy in Il cimitero di Praga, and considers the novel's literary agenda, which can be almost interpreted as a call for vigilance against manifestations of anti-Semitism still present in today's cultural imagination.
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Spiritual Imperialism at the Base of AugusteaThe study of Fascism's program of 'cultural expansion abroad' ('espansione culturale all'estero') must acknowledge the fundamental role played by the journal Augustea, founded in 1925 by Franco Ciarlantini, a prominent editor of the Fascist PNF. Working on the project were, among others, Massimo Bontempelli, Emilio Bodrero, and Arrigo Solmi. The journal combined 'politics, economics, art', and advocated the unity and power of an Italy that would finally be cohesive, and, as such, able to impose itself on the world stage. Power meant expansion in many senses: economically, politically, in regards to the military, but especially in terms of the ideal, artistic, and spiritual. According to the magazine, one needed to replace Italy as a leader of nations by highlighting its cultural supremacy, which dated back to Rome and its empire, and that had been preserved in the following centuries. The Italian cultural hegemony, at the service of foreign policy, was in fact seen as the path to empire, which was seen to require the support of intellectuals, artists, and journalists. The agenda in this way bound itself to the totalitarian project of Fascism; on the one hand there was an internal conquest, a Fascistization, of the new Italian identity designed by Mussolini, and on the other hand an external conquest consisting of a spiritual imperialism, positing Italian society as the natural leader among nations. Culture, in this way, was seen as the medium of both aspects of the conquest.
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Representation of Power The Bishop of Anagni, Pietro da Salerno († 1105) In the history of Anagni, Bishop Pietro da Salerno was fundamental in guaranteeing that the city played an important political role throughout the Middle Ages. His work as a spiritual guide, his interventions on the urban layout and the way in which this combination of factors was reflected in the historical memories which formed around the figure of the bishop help to consolidate its historical tradition. Pietro da Salerno used his office of bishop in the certainty that he was acting on behalf of an established power, to be consolidated in his own time and offered as a stable and secure legacy for the future. The representation of this power took the form of an action program, centered around the urban renewal of an entire city district with the aim of creating an architectural 'macro-palimpsest' serving as a political manifesto based on the recovery, through continuity, of the historical, hagiographic and material legacy which defined and recalled, in a simple but immediate form, the power of the bishops over the city of Anagni. We are thus dealing with a legitimization of power through the representation of historical events and allusions, expressed through the stylistic features of the contemporary cultural tradition.
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Representation of Courtly Power in the Marescalco of Pietro Aretino This article addresses a particular form of power, courtly power, displayed by Pietro Aretino in his play Il Marescalco (the Stablemaster). Aretino's perspective is particularly interesting because he is probably the only intellectual in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy who managed to emancipate himself from any political influences. From this privileged position, Aretino's play describes the relationship between the monarch and his courtiers and the real nature of the legitimization of power. Indeed, the character of the Duke of Mantua never appears on stage despite his role in organizing the prank against the protagonist, the Stablemaster. In this way, the audience's focus is mainly on the courtiers and their zeal in carrying out the Duke's orders. Aretino also chooses to set his play in the center of the city of Mantua rather than in the Court. The twofold absence of the Duke and the Court on stage underscores the real nature of courtly power. According to Aretino, its legitimacy lies primarily in the courtiers' passive attitude towards their ruler and in their attempts to favor him rather than in his direct intervention. Furthermore, while power is generally seen as a purely masculine domain, Aretino turns this idea upside-down in a very original way, by describing the passive attitude of the courtiers towards their master as a homosexual intercourse and the courtiers themselves as woman-haters.
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The Cognition of Discourse. Gadda and the Metaphor of Fascist VirilityIn the political analysis of the work of the Milanese writer Carlo Emilio Gadda, there is a big controversy about the fascist or antifascist status of his ideas. For a long time, Gadda has been considered an antifascist icon, who with works as Eros e Priapo and Quer Pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana strongly and violently criticised the regime of Mussolini. Influenced by the discovery of the scritti tecnici in the early seventies, however, many scientists have also started to stress Gadda's fascist adhesion. The propagandistic and scientific character of the articles made scholars focus on non-literary arguments to define Gadda's position toward fascism, like his psychology, his Milanese background, his ideology. Ultimately however, scientists like Cristina Savettieri and Riccardo Stracuzzi have stressed the importance of a strictly literary reading of the discourse in Gadda's work in order to get a view of its political value. On the other hand, studies of fascism stress the importance of discourse, metaphor in the construction of the national character, virility, supported by fascism. This character was created by family metaphors. We should investigate in which way Gadda treats these metaphors. Did he understand the discursive character of fascism? Did he use this knowledge in order to parody and criticize it? In La cognizione del dolore both nation and family are central. By consequence, it is an excellent work to investigate the appearance of fascist metaphors in it.
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The 'Primitive colony' of Eritrea, overlooking the shores of the Red Sea, or Mar Rosso,(from which comes 'Eritrea' or 'Red Land'), saw successive stages of Italiancolonialism, with a robust increase during the years of Fascism. Asmara, a village that became the capital in 1891, still conserves an almost intact urban structure andarchitectural features from its half century of colonialism. The first expansion of Asmara was regulated by a scheme plan, approved in 1902, which included the area to the East of the original military outpost on the Mai Belà river. The grid pattern was marked by two major arteries, parallel to each other: the King's Way (il Corso del Re) and the Queen's Avenue (il Viale della Regina). After the space of a decade,Cavagnari's plan was the first to separate the European settlement from the indigenouszone. The advent of Fascism did not have an immediate impact in Eritrea; by then thecapital had developed a well-integrated population. One is continuously surprised bytestimonies of the residents in Asmara in the Thirties, which express a state of mindshared by both colonizers and colonized, describing the city as: 'beautiful [.] inhabited by a mixed race, Italians and Africans . a lot of traffic, shops, cinemas andrestaurants.' . It is commonplace to refer to 'good Italian people' (italiani bravagente), which is a most difficult viewpoint to abandon, and is also a most relevant perspective when considering the architectural patrimony of Asmara as a shared heritage. This paper aims to shed light on this mixture of narratives and to reread the modernity of Asmaran architecture as an added value to the contemporary history of the Eritrean nation.
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Present Italian studies on Africa go beyond regional and disciplinary divides of the past. The trend is towards a positive transgression of previous boundaries, and scholars have shifted attention from the disciplinary approach to the transdisciplinaryand inter-disciplinary research. However, elements and trends of the past still influence the relationship between Berber literary studies and African literary studies in Italy. This paper offers a first reflection on the long-term relationships between Africanist studies and studies on Berber literature by taking into account conjunctures and disjunctures in the complex construction of thegeographical and cultural notions of (and divide between) 'Africa' and 'North Africa'.The aim is to understand specificity and continuity of the relationship betweenBerber studies and Africanist studies in Italy when compared to international studies.Looking at the Italian studies of Berber literature, one finds a strong influence of the linguistic and philological approaches. Moreover, one recognizes the tendency of thestudies to look 'East' rather than 'South' in establishing their cultural and political framework of reference. On the other hand, studies that give attention to new developments in Berber written literature spring usually from African 'post-colonial' literary studies. However, the situation is also evolving in the specific field of Italian Berber studies.
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In: Botke , K D 2013 , ' 'Per incitamento a virtu' : Ludovico Capponi (1534-1614) en de schilderingen in zijn palazzo te Florence als aansporing tot deugd ' , Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis , vol. 126 , no. 2 , pp. 206-220 . https://doi.org/10.5117/TVGESCH2013.2.BOTK ; ISSN:0040-7518
Ludovico Capponi (1534-1614) commissioned the painter Bernardino Poccetti (1548-1612) to decorate the Sala Grande of his palace in Florence around 1580. The subject of the elaborate programme was the political and military accomplishments of the Capponi family. By means of a text on the wall, Ludovico invites the viewer to consider these deeds as examples and incitements to virtue. He makes himself part of their virtuous history by having his own portrait painted alongside these heroic ancestors. The image of Ludovico as a perfect Florentine citizen is also displayed in his biography, written by Girolamo Muzio (1496-1576) in 1574. By highlighting Ludovico's noble and reputable qualities, Muzio portrays him as a true gentiluomo. Through these works of art, Ludovico created his own image, and made himself the example of true Florentine citizenship. ; Ludovico Capponi (1534-1614) commissioned the painter Bernardino Poccetti (1548-1612) to decorate the Sala Grande of his palace in Florence around 1580. The subject of the elaborate programme was the political and military accomplishments of the Capponi family. By means of a text on the wall, Ludovico invites the viewer to consider these deeds as examples and incitements to virtue. He makes himself part of their virtuous history by having his own portrait painted alongside these heroic ancestors. The image of Ludovico as a perfect Florentine citizen is also displayed in his biography, written by Girolamo Muzio (1496-1576) in 1574. By highlighting Ludovico's noble and reputable qualities, Muzio portrays him as a true gentiluomo. Through these works of art, Ludovico created his own image, and made himself the example of true Florentine citizenship.
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