Victims of Freedom: Slavery and “La Civiltà Cattolica”

 
This article analyzes the discussion of slavery and emancipation that took place in the journal La Civiltà Cattolica, published by the Jesuits starting in 1850, to help map a debate that involved both shores of the Atlantic during the nineteenth century and has yet to be systematically addressed as relates to the Italian peninsula. Rather than condemning slavery and calling for its abolition, the journal exposed the mistreatment characterizing this system – namely the harshness of slaveowners – even while continually stressing the dangers of emancipation. It was only in the face of the final abolitionist laws of the late nineteenth century and the publication of the encyclical In plurimis (1888) by Leo XIII that La Civiltà Cattolica shifted its approach: it began taking an anti- slavery stand and reconstructing the past in a way that, in keeping with papacy’s cultural policy of the time, cast the Church as one of the institutions that had played a pioneering role in urging emancipation. Keywords: Slavery, Catholicism,
 

Keywords:  Slavery, Catholicism, Jesuits, La Civiltà Cattolica, Nineteenth century.

Parole chiave: Schiavitù, Cattolicesimo, Gesuiti, «La Civiltà Cattolica», XIX secolo.

Mario Alicata from, the “Long Journey” through Fascism to the Encounter with the PCI

 
This essay reconstructs the history of the second Roman Communist Group in 1940- 42 through a broad spectrum of archival, memorial and printed sources and a review of the pre-existing bibliography. It analyses an emblematic case study of the new anti-fascist generation that took shape in Italy during the second half of the 1930s. Alicata joined the Communist Party after a “long journey” through fascism which he undertook as a literary critic and collaborator for “nonconformist” magazines alongside Girolamo Sotgiu, Carlo Muscetta and Giaime Pintor, ending up at the Einaudi publishing house in 1941-42 and with his collaboration with Luchino Visconti at the dawn of neorealist cinema. Arrested in December 1942 and released after 25 July 1943, he was active in the Roman Resistance and later a key figure in the PCI’s cultural policy.
 

Keywords:  Italy, Antifascism, PCI, Long journey, Mario Alicata.

Parole chiave: Italia, Antifascismo, Pci, Lungo viaggio, Mario Alicata.

“Spiritual” Movements and Heresy. The Pelagini in Veneto in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century

 
During the second half of the seventeenth century, the leaders of the movement known as the Pelagini stood trial in the Inquisition, which sentenced them to relegation for the “errors and blunders” they spread in some villages of the Venetian Terraferma. The Pelagian brotherhoods practiced mental prayer and pursued a model of religious community alternative to the Church’s. Although their followers were not condemned as heretics, this fragmented, heterodox movement was included in the genealogy of Quietism established during the last decades of the century. Drawing on some unexplored sources preserved in the Archive of the Holy Office in Rome, this article aims to investigate the religious experiences of the Pelagini against the background of the definition of a heretical paradigm able to promote their prosecution.
 

Keywords:  Mental prayer, Quietism, Roman Inquisition, Republic of Venice.

Parole chiave: Orazione mentale, Quietismo, Inquisizione romana, Repubblica di Venezia.

Is Striking a Sin? The Catholic Judgement on the Moral Permissibility of Strike Action Considered in Relation to the German-speaking Area (1889-1914)

 
This paper reconstructs the debate on the moral legitimacy of strike action within German- speaking Catholicism in the decades between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. To this end, it first examines the reflections of Catholic moral theologians. In German Kaiserreich, the intra-Catholic discussion on this topic was quite lively because of the socalled Gewerkschaftsstreit (“trade union controversy”), which at the beginning of the 20th century saw two different schools of thought in harsh opposition to one other. The discussion focuses especially on the Meliorationsstreik, i.e. the protest aimed at obtaining wage improvements. In spite of the negative description of strikes in the encyclical Rerum novarum (1891), the possibility of Meliorationsstreik was generally accepted in Catholic culture, although serious concerns about it were raised.
 

Keywords:  Strike, Moral theology, German Catholicism, Gewerkschaftsstreit, Jesuits.

Parole chiave: Sciopero, Teologia morale, Cattolicesimo tedesco, Gewerkschaftsstreit, Gesuiti.

“I Have Heard the Song of the Free.” Notes on the Anarcho-individualism of Renzo Novatore

 
Within the heterogeneous milieu of Italian anarcho-individualism, Renzo Novatore (the best known of the noms de plume used by Abele Ricieri Ferrari) played a leading role, both for the radicality of his theoretical polemics and for the coherent praxis adopted in his personal life – which brought him to a violent death. His short life was characterised by continuous clashes with the authorities, and by lively activity as a political writer: until his death, he contributed articles and comments to various anarchist journals. This essay focuses mainly on the sources and on theoretical developments of his peculiar nihilism, his conflicting relationships with other anarchists, and his explicit resorting to violence as a consequent political methodology. 

Keywords:  Renzo Novatore, Anarcho-individualism, Nietzscheanism, Political violence, Revolution.

Parole chiave: Renzo Novatore, Anarco-individualismo, Nietzschianesimo, Violenza politica, Rivoluzione.

War Enemies in Peacetime. German Properties in the New Italian Provinces after the Great War (1918-1927)

 
This paper aims to retrace the treatment of property belonging to German citizens who were considered enemy aliens in the new territories (South Tyrol and northeastern regions) annexed by Italy in the aftermath of the First World War. The goal is to underline the relevance of the economic persecution in terms of national redefinition and the claim of Italian sovereignty in the two borderlands. Adopting a comparative approach, the article investigates how the local political and economic conditions led to different results regarding the exclusion or inclusion of German communities. While in the northeastern territories Italy allowed Germans to be naturalized and thus to save their goods, German nationals in the South Tyrol were denied Italian citizenship and persecuted with violent and legal methods.
 

Keywords:  Private property, Citizenship, Enemy aliens, South Tyrol, Friuli-Venezia Giulia.

Parole chiave: Proprietà privata, Cittadinanza, Stranieri nemici, Sudtirolo, Friuli-Venezia Giulia.

Environment and Protected Areas in the Years of the Center-left Government. Italia Nostra’s “Green Group”

 
Although the association Italia Nostra was created in 1955 to carry out initiatives in defence of the historical-artistic heritage and the landscape, its actual commitment in the environmental field began to unfold only in 1960. The many prestigious town planners who were members of the association, which developed a vision of green spaces – urban and non-urban – as a service and a right for an increasingly urban population, contributed particularly to this maturation. The environmental profile of Italia Nostra was defined between 1961 and 1967 thanks not only to the elaborations of the town planners but also to a small working group dealing with national parks: the so-called “Green Group.” This team was to be decisive in defining the main aspects of the framework law on Italian protected areas approved in 1991, in imposing a strongly innovative management in the “historic” Abruzzo National Park, and in creating, in 1966, the first mass environmentalist association in Italy: WWF Italy.
 

Keywords:  Environmentalism, Protected areas, Heritage, Italia Nostra, Spatial planning.

Parole chiave: Ambientalismo, Aree protette, Patrimonio, Italia nostra, Pianificazione territoriale.

Stories of Jews between Ancient Libels and New Research

 
This article offers a reading of some of the most recent output from the active workshop on the history of the Jews as an age-old one. From the word “Ghetto” – of Italian origin and of worldwide circulation – to anti-Judaism as a sentiment rooted in the “Western tradition” according to David Nirenberg, and discussions on the characteristics of the Jewish contribution to the development of Italian nationality and the historical libel of the Jewish invention of the letter of credit, traditional methods of investigation are intertwined with micro-history.
 

Keywords:  History of the Jews, Anti-Judaism, Ghetto, Letter of credit.

Parole chiave: Storia degli ebrei, Antigiudaismo, Ghetto, Lettera di credito.

The Invention of European Script. The “Pleasure of History” of a Paleografer and Diplomatist

 
This article reflects on the book by Attilio Bartoli Langeli, Tra Alcuino e Gigliola Cinquetti. Discorsi di paleografia, Padova, Libreria Unversitaria, 2020.
 

Keywords:  Caroline script, Diplomatics, Images, Written words, Medieval history literature.

Parole chiave: Scrittura carolina, Diplomatica, Immagini, Parole scritte, Letteratura storica medievale.