«The Poet of Empire and Country»: The Celebrations of Virgil’s Bimillenary in 1930

In 1930, the Fascist régime led the celebrations of the bimillenary of Virgil’s birth, which included both public events (unveiling of monuments, squares, memorial plaques) and academic initiatives (publications, conferences, lectures). As Mussolini said, Virgil was «the Poet of Empire and Country», who celebrated both Rome’s greatness and imperial mission (in the Aeneid), and Augustan politics aiming to bring the Roman people back to the countryside after the Civil Wars (in the Georgics). The themes of «Country» and «Empire» naturally became the core of the political meaning Fascism gave to the bimillenary, while the Academics’ role was to highlight in their work the similarities between Augustan Rome and Fascist Italy, thus providing a strong cultural basis for the Fascist interpretation of ancient history and literature: according to this view, the return to the countryside praised in the Georgics paved the way for the «ruralizzazione» of Italy that Mussolini was spearheading in those years, while the celebration of Rome’s imperial supremacy in the Aeneid was read under the nationalistic light of the primacy of modern Italy over other nations.

The Return of the Counter-Reformation (and the Virgin of the Rosary of Guápulo)

The article questions the return of such a controversial term as «Counter-Reformation » to English-speaking historiography. It retraces the genesis of approaches developed in cultural studies and within a global perspective that, by focusing solely on religious practices and material devotions, have led the dominant «Counter-Reformation narrative» to the suppression of the political dimension. The contribution suggests some good reasons for reopening the lines of communication between English- speaking and Italian historiography. Moreover, it critically assesses the current use in historical studies of concepts such as «negotiation» and «identity».

History, Historiography, Manifest: Some Considerations about a Difficult Synthesis

The essay aims to present a metadisciplinary reflection upon the theoretical related to history and historiography. Many historians, in Italy and abroad, and especially those specialising in the contemporary age, have devoted little attention to the epistemological issues related to their discipline, favouring an événementielle historiography focused in some cases on researching new documentary holdings rather than on identifying new analytical approaches. Starting with an analysis (and a critique) of The History Manifesto by David Armitage and Jo Guldi (Cambridge University Press, 2014 and 2015), the essay is intended as an invitation for a historiographical inquiry that links narrative reconstruction to methodological considerations, for a history that reflects upon the dimension of time and space, periodisation and historiographical narratives, and that ultimately reflects upon the very purpose of studying history of being historians.

Orvieto and Customs on Pastures in the Patrimony of Saint Peter, from Martin V to Paul II

As is known, after the Council of Constance, Popes endeavoured to increase the Papal State’s temporal revenues as much as possible through a reorganization of the financial administration, both central and local, at the expense of the remaining powers of the municipalities in the papal lands. An example of this may be seen in the customs duties on pastures in the Patrimony of Saint Peter in Tuscia, of increasing importance due to the considerable growth of livestock, and especially transhumant livestock, during the fifteenth century. Customs officers (and, at a higher level, Popes) also tried to restrict the Municipality of Orvieto’s rights to the pastures in its territory, over which Orvieto had always enjoyed significant autonomy. Some measures, especially by Pius II and Paul II from 1460 to 1466, can be seen in this perspective, concerning both papal lands in general and Orvieto pastures in particular. But the effects of these measures during the following decades, as regards Orvieto’s autonomy in this matter, are unclear and require further study: if indeed under Innocent VIII this process of progressive control by the Church over Orvieto’s pastures appears to have been complete, during the pontificate of Alexander VI, however, Orvieto seems to have recovered its traditional autonomy in this sphere.

Metastasio Model: The Political Communication of Virtue in Eighteenth-Century Italy

By analysing sources traditionally little considered by historians, this essay aims to show how, in the Italian area, it is possible to trace forms of political communication implemented through reliance upon and imitation of poetic models that represent neither sporadic episodes nor dull and repetitive encomiastic production. On the contrary, these poetic models are at the core of coherent strategies of political communication. In fact, it is clear how a true communicative model – which in these pages is defined as the «Metastasio model» – emerged during the eighteenth century. The «Metastasio model» first came into being between Rome and Naples in the late 1720s, found legitimacy in Vienna during the reigns of Charles VI and Maria Teresa, and was in the end exported and readapted to different settings, such as Ferdinand IV’s Naples.

Swedes in Saint-Barthélemy between a Slave Economy and the Von Rosenstein Black Code (Eighteenth-Nineteenth Centuries)

Between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Sweden too, in the wake of the great European powers, attempted to build a colonial empire. Guided on the Atlantic routes by the expert hands of Dutch merchants, the Swedes founded in Delaware their first settled possession in the New World, Fort Christina (1638). The colonial drive led the Swedes to enter the great circuit of the slave trade, building several fortifications to hold slaves departing for the New World on the coast of modern-day Ghana. In the 1650s, the Swedes lost these outposts to the Danes and Dutch. Swedish imperial ambitions would remain silent until the end of the eighteenth century. In 1784, in exchange for some grants given to the French in the port of Gothenburg, King Gustav III received the possibility of colonizing the island of Saint-Barthélemy. The Swedes attempted to turn this small island, not far from the Greater Antilles, into a hub in the Caribbean trade and slave dealing between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. To manage a colony partly founded on the exploitation of slave labour, the Swedish authorities also resorted to the promulgation of slave laws, also known as Black Codes. A clear example is the Von Rosenstein Code, enacted in 1787.

Catholic Antisemitism and Popular Literature in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. The Work of Ugo Mioni

This essay analyses the role played by Catholic popular and children’s fiction in spreading political antisemitism between the late nineteenth century and the 1930s. In particular, it will take into consideration the imposing output of Ugo Mioni (1870- 1935), a priest from Trieste who was considered by Antonio Gramsci to be one of the authors most representative of Catholic popular literature. Starting from his journalism debut as director of the newspaper L’Amico in Habsburg Trieste, Mioni, who was close to the positions of Karl Lueger’s emerging Christian Social Party, combined a violent Italian nationalism with a political antisemitism not without racist overtones. In subsequent decades, Mioni transposed into novel form the topoi of the intransigent Catholic discourse on Jews and its variations. Between the 1920s and 1930s, in an effort to react against the biological and potentially anti-Christian antisemitism professed by the neo-pagan currents of the right-wing movements, Mioni recovered a more strictly religious dimension of his hostility towards Jews. Nevertheless, he did not question his assessment as to the nefarious role played by Jews in modern society. Hence Mioni’s literary work appears to be one of the fundamental carriers of the of hatred against Jews among the Italian population before the racial laws of 1938.

The «Rescue» of Jemolo Held Prisoner by the Austrians

Arturo Carlo Jemolo, having joined the Army as a volunteer in World War I, was captured by the Austrians on 24 October 1917. After many months as a prisoner of war, his health and nerves collapsed and he strove to be released. Towards this end, from the camp where he was held prisoner, he requested help from Italy. He received support from his professor, Francesco Ruffini, as well as, at the Vatican, from the future Cardinal Luigi Sincero, also a former pupil of Ruffini, and from Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, then Secretary of State. Gasparri succeeded in obtaining Jemolo’s freedom, which was secured just days before the Armistice was signed, but far earlier than for many other prisoners of war. Although some aspects still need to be clarified, this article presents many unpublished documents that shed light on this crucial episode in Jemolo’s life.

The Contested Hierarchy: The Fiat Heads since Post-War to «March of the 40,000»

The history of the hierarchical relationships at Fiat is one of the last remaining blind spots in the enormous historiography on the Italian automobile manufacturer. Using the industrial foreman as focal point, the author aims to fill this gap. By analyzing corporate and union documents, this article retraces the gradual loss of margins of discretion by foremen that characterized the rapid implementation of Taylor-Fordist systems during the 1950s and the 1960s. It then describes the enormous tension suffered by the foremen during the intense cycle of workers’ struggles starting with the «hot autumn» in 1969, and lastly their public stance in the famous «March of the 40,000» in October 1980. The author suggests that the roots of this central episode are to be sought in productive and managerial choices, technological changes, and the forms of workers struggles stating from the second post-War period, rather than describing it as a mere reaction to terrorism or political violence.