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E-book Rereading Travellers to the East : Shaping Identities and Building the Nation in Post-unification Italy

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Penilaian

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At least since the historiographical renewal brought about, among others, by the works of Franco Venturi (1973), the events of the century leading to the R isorgimento and the R isorgimento itself have been placed in the context of cultural exchanges involving European and extra-European intellectuals, trav-ellers, politicians and revolutionaries. In this historiographical frame, the ques-tion of Italian nation-building has been discussed, for example, by analysing the role played by the “invention” of a “national” past, from the medieval city-states and their prosperity and freedom to the Renaissance and the subsequent “de-cline” brought about by foreign domination; or by examining the intersections of religious and political discourses in the context of the struggle for “indepen-dence” and national unity (Banti 2000, 2006). The question of Italian identity and nation-building is still a heated topic of discussion both outside and inside academia (see e.g., Raimo 2019; Benigno and Mineo 2020). However, limited attention has been paid to the problem of the construction of national identity through early modern travellers from the peninsula, or, in other words, those who came to be considered as the manifestation of the par-ticular “spirit” of Italy—the genio italico. As Silvana Patriarca noted (2010), R isorgimento Italy was often critiqued as the Italians were believed to be indo-lent and effeminate, the opposite qualities to those of the travellers, increasingly presented as exemplary, brave and adventurous, that the Italians should emulate. Italy’s first African War (1880–1896) pitted the young and ambitious Italian nation, the “Least of Europe’s Great Powers” (Labanca 2015), against the Ethio-pian empire. As Finaldi (2009) argues, the outcome was a humiliating defeat for Italy, but notwithstanding Italy’s disastrous first colonial experience, the idea of “empire” entered the minds of the Italian people. Italy felt the need to compen-sate for losses and a lack of relevance in the international arena by referring to a glorious past and characters—travellers, explorers and inventors—known to all, from whom Italians could legitimately claim to descend. The phenomenon of the construction and “accumulation” of the “myth of Italian travellers” in the East, from Marco Polo and Matteo R icci to Giuseppe Tucci and Giotto Dainelli, is as a multidirectional use of the past spanning from the liberal and Fascist re-gimes to the proclamation of the republic and present-day Italy. This myth con-veys an idea of Italianness that we could provocatively compare to other imperial ideas shaped around the qualities of a given community, such as those discussed by Anthony Pagden for early modern Spain, Great Britain and France (Pagden 1995). The very existence of “Italian” travellers doing great deeds throughout the ages implied the historical continuity of a national character incarnated in the travellers and helped the dominant classes—those doing most of the re-readings—to propose the nation a fitting role, or destiny, for their expectations.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

945 FAL r

Penerbit

Italy : Firenze University Press., 2022

Deskripsi Fisik

234 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9788855185790

Klasifikasi

945

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

History of Modern Italian Peninsula

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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