Renato Zangheri 1925-2015. A memory

The essay will discuss several aspects of Renato Zangheri’s academic-scientific commitment and political activity, without neglecting to frame them in the wider cultural and historical contexts of reference. Graduating in Philosophy under the guidance of Felice Battaglia, he was a student of Luigi Dal Pane and with him, starting in 1951, built the Institute of economic and social history of Bologna’s Faculty of economy and commerce. Defined in mortem by Giorgio Napolitano as a «political intellectual», Renato Zangheri, although fulfilling for more than thirty years high and very taxing institutional offices, never abandoned the field of study and research (or academia). In 1956, he entered the Bologna City Council, where he was to hold office until 1983; from 1959 to 1964, he headed a newly founded department for cultural institutions; from 1970 to 1983, he served as the city’s mayor; from 1983 to 1992, he was a member of parliament, and, after Giorgio Napolitano, also directed the parliamentary group. In the meantime, he held important party positions: he was member of the Central Committee from 1980 to 1989, of the Directorate from 1979 to 1989, and of the Secretariat from 1983 to 1986. His activity in building instruments for the organization of culture was noteworthy: as examples, aside from the national level, one may cite experiences that are largely forgotten today, but of great cultural depth on the local level, such as the «cultural circle» which brought together eminent intellectuals – and even non-communists – from a variety of fields of knowledge and from different generations. Lastly, he was instrumental in the founding of San Marino’s School of historical studies. Although Renato Zangheri was already sixty-six years of age when he abandoned active politics, he launched himself into a new intellectual adventure that was left unfinished: his Storia del socialismo italiano.

Republicanism and republics in old regime Europe. A memory of Elena Fasano Guarini

The contribution begins with some opportunities for collaboration with Elena: the day in Lucca commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of Marino Berengo’s Nobili e Mercanti in October 1995; the 2003 volume Principato mediceo in the series Storia della civiltà Toscana; Repubblicanesimo e repubbliche nell’Europa di antico regime published in 2007 in the Proceedings of the Conference of Lucca in 2005. These scientific commitments are analysed in the framework of more general reflections on the issues of republicanism that Elena Fasano Guarini had been developing since the early 1990s with such sharp and wide-ranging essays as Declino e durata delle repubbliche e delle idee repubblicane nell’Italia del ’500 and Città e stato nella storiografia fiorentina del ’500, later collected in the 2010 book Repubbliche e principi. The essay also offers a brief review of the most recent studies on the Republican theme, by such scholars as A. Holenstein, Th. Maissen, M. Prak, R. Hammersley, A.M. Rao, G. Mahlberg, D. Wiemann, and M. Herrero Sánchez.

Guilds and economic growth (eleventh-eighteenth centuries). Organization, equalization, multilateralism

Three corporative phenomena contributing to growth are analyzed, all of them starting from the widening of market exchanges provided by the guilds, a theme developed in the preceding essay on guilds and growth: the development of productivity driven by corporations’ organizational activities; the offsetting of power disequilibria and monopolistic abuses; the erosion of monopolistic forms of pricing due to multilateral interactions. Guilds had major capabilities in organizing the economic environment in which the productive activity took place: they had normative powers, interacted with the central government, and fostered new techniques. Guilds presided over strategic positioning on the market, and assured economies of scale and scope. Guilds exerted a power of vertical integration. But when formerly subordinated productive categories acquired independent corporative organization, they smoothed over what were formerly high concentrations of power and revenue. Guilds are accused of monopolistic pricing. A deeper analysis shows a structure of multilateral cartels, in which monopolistic pricing was replaced by a network of bilateral monopolies and was only contingent. Major concepts emerge against those of pure competition: customer/provider relationships, symbiotic systems, the «dear enemy», symmetric escalation or bargaining, conflict resolution, strategic pricing, and centralization.

The rector of Liberation in Bologna: Edoardo Volterra

The essay, mostly a result of research done in the Historical Archive of the University of Bologna, will focus on Edoardo Volterra’s rectorate. After dedicating himself to actively fighting the regime, he was chosen by the CLN as vice-rector of the University of Bologna, an office which he was to assume on Liberation Day. The CLN also choose as honorary rector Bartolo Nigrisoli, then eighty-six years old, the only one of Bologna’s professors to reject the oath of 1931. Edoardo Volterra, because of the opposition of some of his «ex-fascist colleagues», managed to take office only on 05 May 1945, two weeks after the Allies’ arrival in Bologna. The elections of 19 June 1945 were also to demonstrate the great strength of the opposition: Volterra was elected on the second count with 33 votes, against the 29 conferred to Felice Battaglia. The Rector of the Liberation held office until 31 October 1947, carrying out the hard work of reconstruction. Guido Guerrini, formerly Goffredo Coppola’s pro-rector, succeeded him at the University’s helm.

Iri and the history of Italy. The crisis (1973-1992)

In the history of Italy, Iri (Istituto per la ricostruzione industriale) has played an important role in terms of unification of the economy and of economic policy. After the phase between the 1950s and the early 1970s, when the Institute provided a fundamental contribution to the country’s modernization and was a decisive instrument of State intervention in the economy, over the next two decades, coinciding with the decline of the Fordist and Keynesian system and with the explosion of public debt, Iri went through a phase of increasing difficulty. Burdened by the Finsider investments and the crisis of the Italian steel industry, in 1979-1982 Iri ended up losing nearly 20 trillion lire, all while the employees working in its companies swelled to the highest number ever: an untenable situation, which was to lead to a drastic reduction of employees as part of the State’s growing disengagement in the area of industrial production and the economy in general.

The Cairoli inquiry into child and women’s labour (1879)

In 1879, a draft law on child and women’s labour was sent by Italian Prime Minister Benedetto Cairoli to the Kingdom’s prefects, with the aim of gathering opinions about that project from local bodies, workers’ and manufacturers’ associations, and the country’s most prominent factory owners. The main sources of the draft were the public and privates inquiries into working-class conditions in factories and mines conducted during the 1870s, and comparative research on similar laws in force in other European countries. The draft law established a minimum age to be admitted to work in factories and mines; it reduced working hours under a certain age, and prohibited dangerous, underground and night-time work for children. The majority of questioned bodies and people responded, and all the recommendations were published in a governmental review. In this way, a large summary of different opinions is available: while the majority of factory owners expressed strong opposition to any legal limitation established for younger workers, the government draft (which was enacted into law six years later, in 1886) was supported by a portion of the local bodies, mainly the local health councils.

Felix Dahn and the German myth of Gothic Italy

Felix Dahn’s historical works and fiction are concerned with the age of Völkerwanderung and explore similar historical issues. His novel Ein Kampf um Rom is addressed to German-speaking readers. It was read and valued by the German middle class and by some intellectuals. In the novel, Dahn emphasizes German virtues, especially loyalty (Treue), the importance of which in contemporary culture is also attested to by monuments built in his age. Dahn shows that ancient Germanic peoples, as well as modern Germans, are loyal to both family and Reich. The novel is one of the first expressions of the German interest in the history of the Goths which emerged in the final decades of the nineteenth century. The question of the identity of the German Volk is also present in other novels by Dahn, such as Attila and Stilicho. The author was influenced by the contemporary debate on the Kleindeutsch-Großdeutsch problem. Dahn offers a negative vision of the Roman Empire. In some cases he shows admiration for Italians, despite generally accepting the stereotype of Italian deceitfulness.

Karl Haushofer, Ernesto Massi and the origins of Italian geopolitics

This essay aims to re-examine the personal and intellectual contacts between Karl Haushofer (1869-1946) and Ernesto Massi (1909-1997) from the 1930s to the Second World War. The main outcome of the relationship between the German geopolitician and the Italian geographer was the birth of the journal Geopolitica (1939-1942). Therefore, an underlying theme of the whole article is represented by the role played by Karl Haushofer in giving shape to the Italian version of geopolitics – a highly controversial issue. While many scholars had argued that Italian geopolitics merely shared the name of the German «Geopolitik», by focusing on archival materials this essay attempts to re-evaluate the intellectual influences of Haushofer on the Italian geopolitical movement, rejecting the thesis of a «good» and «implicitly anti-German» Italian geopolitics.

«Educating» Cinema. Luciano De Feo, director of Istituto Luce

Through first-hand archival sources, cross-checked with traditional archival sources, this essay reconstructs the birth and the first years of Istituto Nazionale Luce under the liberal and enlightened direction of Luciano De Feo (1925-1928). Rising from the ashes of the small Sindacato di Istruzione Cinematografica (SIC) founded in Rome in the early 1920s by liberal business journalist Luciano De Feo, Istituto Nazionale Luce was formally established by Mussolini in November 1925 with the purpose of producing documentaries aimed at civil education and national propaganda «through cinematography». The birth of this new institution occurred on the eve of the authoritarian turn of the mid-1920s, to be followed, over the following decade, by totalitarian dictatorship. Before taking on, starting in the autumn of 1928, the direction of the Istituto internazionale per la cinematografia educativa (ICE), De Feo founded the Servizio Fotografico and inaugurated the Planetarium. During the 1930s, «Luce» newsreels were to be run compulsorily in all Italian cinemas. Istituto Luce was destined to become a powerful machine for capturing popularity among Italians, as well as the most relevant audiovisual source for the national collective memory.

Labour and Sardinian rebirth. The crisis of the development model in the political debate and in the prospects of the Cgil

In the seventies, Sardinia experienced an intense political season dedicated largely to the construction of autonomist democracy, to the implementation of rebirth, and to the resolution of the serious economic and social crisis. In the face of such complex problems, the events of the world of labour and trade unions were an exemplary litmus test when, once the model of development by poles had entered a crisis, it was found – alongside the persistence of backwardness and long-standing delays – that new issues, with a strong social, economic and anthropological impact, had come into play, and that drastic changes with a dramatic outcome for workers had taken root. In a context as intricate as ever, the struggles of the Sardinian Cgil looked primarily to the implementation of rebirth and of structural reforms, to the unsolved problems of employment, unemployment and emigration, and more generally to the issue of development in the South.
In the dynamism of which it was an expression, the initiatives taken with a view to tradeunion unity and within the United Federation raised particular interest when, having adopted the approach of an intermediate organization between companies and institutions, CGIL was to take on an overall planning action, the keystone of a qualifying relationship with democratic political forces, in order to define a new model of development for the island, to reform the region’s institutional structure, and not least, to renew a Sardinian ruling class involved in the drift of corruption.

Ecclesiastical Justice in modern Italy. A recent inventory

Studies on ecclesiastical justice in modern Italy focus mainly on Holy Office courts – the most famous tribunals of the Roman Catholic church. However, Apostolic Nunciature courts are of equal importance. The survey discusses their importance, in relation to a recent, accurate inventory, which presents to scholars the rich and unexplored judicial Archives of the Nunciature of Savoy preserved in the Vatican Secret Archives. It will allow a deeper, more adequate understanding of unknown characteristics of Italy’s civil and religious history between the Counter-Reformation and the Enlightenment.

Popular culture: an abandoned wreck?

During the 1970s and 1980s, «Popular Culture» was a successful notion, but is now almost entirely neglected, or criticized, by Italian historians. Nevertheless, this refusal is not widely shared: essays and books published in the United Kingdom and the United States draw attention to the idea of popular culture and to the exchanges between high-brow and popular culture. With regard to this research area, it is useful to highlight some other approaches concerning the link between the book and the reader, the scribal culture in contact with print culture and oral culture, and the modes and procedures through which popular knowledge inspire political movements. Lastly, the author disagrees with the idea that «popular culture» is an old-fashioned methodological tool unfit to deal with the new historiographical challenges.