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HUI216
Italian Civilization
Andrea Fedi
HUI216 (Spring 2008)
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3.1 Chronology
• We can simplify the more-than-2000
years of Italian civilization that we will
study by grouping historical, social and
cultural events under three headings
 The Latin or Roman era
 The Middle Ages
 Renaissance and Modernity
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3.1 Chronology
• Each one of those periods covers several
centuries and includes different cultures and
different sociopolitical structures
• This periodization
• may hide the complexity of Italian civilization's
actual developments and manifestations
• however, it becomes useful when following
major trends and cultural patterns, or trying to
sort out and absorb information related to a
variety of topics
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3.2 The Roman/Latin Era (753 BCE-476 CE)
 753 BCE: Rome is founded (monarchy)
 In ancient Rome years were often counted from this
date, whenever the name of a leader (king, consul,
emperor) was not used as a reference
 "under the consulate of Appius Claudius Sabinus and T.
Quinctius Capitolinus"
 "283 ab urbe condita" (=491 BCE)
 Archeological excavations have confirmed that the city of
Rome was indeed founded during the eighth century
BCE
 Apr. 21, 753 is the date that ancient Romans agreed on
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3.2 "Ab urbe condita": from the foundation of
the city
• Emperor Hadrian's golden
coin celebrating the 874th
birthday of the city of Rome
(121 CE)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Im
age:Aureus_-_Adriano__RIC_0144.jpg
• Coin from CNG coins
(www.cngcoins.com)
• Coin struck under Emperor
Philip the Arab (248 CE),
celebrating the beginning
of the second millennium of
Rome
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3.2 509 BCE-1453 CE: important dates in
Roman civilization
 509 BCE is the traditional date for the institution of
the Roman Republic, accepted and passed on by
Roman historians
 27 BCE: the Roman Empire is born
 476 CE: the Roman Empire ends (in Italy and in
the West)
 1453 CE: the Byzantine Empire (formerly Eastern
Roman Empire) ends in the East
• Even under the Romans, Italy was not unified
politically and administratively until the beginning of
the Empire
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3.2 East and West at the end of the Roman
Empire (map)
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3.3 The Middle Ages (476-1375 CE): the first
period
 From the 4th to the 10th century (first period)
 The most important historic developments were
the collapse of the Roman Empire and the
introduction of Feudalism
 It was an era of continued wars, fought frequently
and for short periods in different regions of
Western/Southern Europe
 Feudalism was the socio-political institution
created to make the best use of the limited
resources available in the local communities, while
defending the residents from those sudden,
repeated attacks
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3.3 The Middle Ages (476-1375 CE): the second
period
 From the 11th to 14th century
 After the year 1000 the Italian regions North of
Rome saw the emergence of dozens of small
city-states
 the area that best exemplifies this phenomenon is
Northern Tuscany
 In the South, which was soon unified and
eventually became the kingdom of Naples, a
similar fragmentation was maintained by the
survival of feudal structures (which in some
areas extended into the 19th century)
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3.3 The Middle Ages (476-1375 CE): the South
during the second period
 Many small districts of the South were
administered by members of the nobility
 each one had slightly different rules of justice,
implemented different strategies and
administrative policies
 the economy for the most part remained local,
with little or no commerce and trading outside
each district
 a partial but relevant exception is represented
by the cities on the shores of Campania, Apulia
[Puglia], and Sicily
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3.3 The preservation of medieval culture and
the revival of medieval traditions in Tuscany
• Medieval architecture and the modern
politics of restoration (XIX-XX c.)
• The success of Romanticism in Italy, and his
fascination with medieval history, prompted the
multiplication of architectural projects bringing
back the gothic style, or the more austere style
of Romanesque, together with construction or
reconstruction of watch towers, pseudomedieval palaces and castles
• Give a look at The house of Dante in Florence,
built entirely during the XIX century, on the
grounds where Dante's real house had been
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3.3 The preservation and the celebration of
medieval culture in Tuscany
• This predilection for medieval architecture
was carried over into the next century; the
next slides offer examples of that
preference, at the expense of other styles
• San Bartolomeo is a church whose interior was
stripped of baroque altars to restore a pure
Romanesque look
• Pistoia's Palazzo dei Vescovi was heavily
modified to bring it back to the way it was during
the Middle Ages, thus erasing the memory of the
many additions and changes that were made
through the centuries
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3.3 San Bartolomeo in
Pantano (St.
Bartholomew in the
swamp, Pistoia), XII c.
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3.3 Antico Palazzo dei Vescovi (Older Bishop's
Palace, Pistoia, XIII c.)
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3.3 Neo-guelphism
• During the 19th century, pro-Papacy political
proposals received new attention in Italy, thanks to
intellectuals such as Vincenzo Gioberti, author of
Del Primato civile e morale degli Italiani (=The civic
and moral primacy of the Italians, 1842-43)
• the myth of Italy's primacy: having led the world twice, in
ancient and in medieval times, Italy could do so a third
time, in a civic and moral sense
• Gioberti set forth a neo-Guelph program that called for
reforms and a federation of existing Italian states, with
the Pope as president
• source: http://www.ohiou.edu/~Chastain/dh/giob.htm
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3.3 Maurice Hewlett and the Anglo-American
travelers from the early 1900s
• Anglo-American travel writers from the late 1800s and
the early 1900s often managed to find in Tuscany not
just ruins and the memories of the past, but the
vestiges and living traces of legendary periods, the
Middle Ages and the Renaissance
• Their assumption was seen as the perfect 'laboratory'
to rediscover what life was like in a pre-modern
civilization, because of the following
•
•
•
•
•
the homogeneous history of most Tuscan towns
their medieval origins as independent city-states (comuni)
the long-lasting fights and the rebellions against Florence
the alleged lack of modern progress/industrial development
the seemingly reduced social mobility
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3.3 Maurice Hewlett and Tuscany: nature,
history, race (The Road in Tuscany [1904] 1.6)
• Tuscany [...] is a geographical expression, useful to
cover all the nations who have seethed and settled
between the Apennines and the Tiber
• There were scores and fifties of these [...]; indeed
[...] every little white-washed village on every little
olive-blurred hill was at one time or another, in all
essential respects, a "nation" sufficient unto itself
• Whether there had been in the dim backward of
time a kinship, a community, a tie between the man
of Volterra and the man of Grosseto, or between
the man of little Pistoja and the man of little
Certaldo [...] one neither knows nor need care
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3.3 The selective gaze of Anglo-American
travelers from the early 1900s
• James Buzard, the author of a 1993 essay entitled The
Beaten Track. European Tourism, Literature, and the
Ways to Culture, 1800-1918, aptly talks about a
process of "strategic omission" inside the tradition of
nineteenth-century "picturesque seeing"
• "Everyday features of the visited place (populations
included) either fell cleanly away from view or arranged
themselves as part of the spectacle" (PMLA 34)
• "The gradual improvements in standard of living, the
mundane political struggles, the ordinary commerce,
and all the many other unpicturesque pursuits were
what travelers sought to elide from the view they
savored" (PMLA 35)
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3.4 Humanism (1375-1475): culture and the arts
 The systematic, rigorous study of classicism
 philology, archeology
 the first museums, important private libraries
 studies and reports
 Raphael's "Letter to Pope Leo X on the monuments
of ancient Rome"
 Palladio's Rome
 A new education curriculum
 literature and history become primary assets, to be
used to teach about human nature
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3.4 Humanism (1375-1475): socio-political
structures
 The Signorie (Signori=Lords)
 the patricians or the wealthiest merchants take
charge in the administration of the city-states
 a slow process of unification brings neighboring
city-states under one ruler (called the Signore),
and one government
 communes of Northern Tuscany: under Florence (see
map) and the Medici family
 communes of Veneto: under the Republic of Venice
 communes of Lombardy: under Milan and the
Viscontis or the Sforzas
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3.4 The Renaissance (1476-1550): political
events (see map)
 The wars of Italy (1494-1559)
 the slow process of unification created local conflicts
and diplomatic incidents on a national and
international level
 this process was hindered and then eventually
brought to a halt by the involvement of France,
Spain and Germany in Italian politics
 after a long series of costly wars the South of Italy,
Lombardy and a small portion of Southern Tuscany
fell in the hands of Spain, while small portions of the
Northeast and of the Northwest went to France and
Germany
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3.4 Renaissance (1476-1550): political events
 The political and military events of this
period had repercussions that lasted for
three centuries
 Once many Italian states submitted directly or
indirectly to foreign powers, it became more
difficult to create a modern unified nation
 Bringing Italy under one ruler and one
government required a great deal of diplomatic
maneuvering, together with military actions and
popular insurrections
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3.5 Modernity (1551-1861): culture and politics
 Mannerism and Baroque (1551-1700)
 Breaking away from a systematic
imitation/emulation of classical standards
 The influence of France and Spain. Machiavellism,
Reason of State
 The Enlightenment (1701-1815)
 The vanishing of the Italian leadership from the
European cultural scene (with the exception of
music); the diminished role of the Italian economy
 Romanticism and the Risorgimento (1816-61)
 the development of the individual linked to the
development of a politically mature society
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3.5 The last 150 years: national unification
(1861-1871)
• 1861
• the Kingdom of Italy is established under the Savoia
family, originally Dukes of Piedmont
• look at a map of Italy at the time of unification, and in
1882
• 1871
• Rome becomes Italy's third and final capital (after Turin
and Florence): in 1870 the city was taken from the Pope
during a quick war
• Many Italians felt that the process of unification was
more similar to a process of conquest
• The new local administrators (often from the North) were
seen as representatives of a 'foreign' government
• Many failed to identify with the new national State and
did not develop a strong sense of loyalty to the national
institutions
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3.5 The two World Wars, Fascism
• World War I (1915-1918) was the first real chance
for millions of Italians from various regions to share
crucial experiences
• Like military draft, which involved the process of
relocation, the war offered the opportunity to appreciate
the extent of cultural/linguistic differences
• The desire for the concrete realization of common
national goals translated into fascist ideology
• 1919
• the process of unification of the Italian peninsula is
completed with WWI peace treaties (see map)
• Italy changed again following WWII: small territories at
the borders are assigned toHUI216
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3.5 The Republic (1946- )
• 1946
• Italy becomes a Republic after an institutional
referendum in which the monarchy lost by a
narrow margin (approx. 2 million votes)
• Since it was clear that local identities and
regional cultures had never lost their
strength, the constitution of the Italian
republic, introduced officially in 1948,
recommended that regions be given ample
autonomy
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3.6 The autonomy of regions recognized by the
Italian constitution (from
http://www.servat.unibe.ch/icl/it00000_.html)
• Article 114 [Municipalities, Provinces,
Metropolitan Cities, Regions, State]
• (1) The republic consists of municipalities,
provinces, metropolitan cities, regions, and the
state
• (2) Municipalities, provinces, metropolitan cities,
and regions are autonomous entities with their
own statutes, powers, and functions according
to the principles defined in the constitution
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3.6 Special Forms of Autonomy recognized by
the Italian constitution
• Article 116 [Special Forms of Autonomy]
• (1) According to their special statutes adopted by
constitutional law, particular forms and conditions of
autonomy are enjoyed by Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Sardinia,
Sicily, Southern Trentino, and the Aosta Valley
• (2) The region Southern Trentino consists of the
autonomous provinces Trento and Bolzano
• (3) Upon the initiative of the region concerned, after
consultation of local administrations, state law may
assign further particular forms and conditions of
autonomy to other regions according to the principles
laid down in Art. 119
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3.6 State and Regional Legislative Power in the
Italian constitution
• Article 117 [State and Regional Legislative
Power]
• (1) Legislative power belongs to the state and
the regions in accordance with the constitution
and within the limits set by European union law
and international obligations.
• (2) The state has exclusive legislative power in
the following matters...
• (3) The following matters are subject to
concurrent legislation of both the state and
regions...
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3.6 Federalism in Italian politics
• Between 2001 and 2005 the Italian
Parliament took important steps (including
an initiative to reform the Constitution) to
introduce a more defined form of federalism
in Italy
• The 20 Italian Regions (each organized with
a Regional Council, a Governor, and
regional laws) now have more power and
more control over internal as well as national
matters
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3.6 Federalism: the Northern League
• Umberto Bossi is the founder/leader of the Lega
Nord (visit the site of the Northern League party)
• The Northern League is a party born in the 1980s
to promote the idea of an Italian federation
• According to the its ideology, the Northern regions
should be largely independent from the central
government (in areas such as taxation and tax
redistribution, education, immigration, law enforcement)
• They should be able to introduce tougher measures
against illegal immigrants, and other policies for the
'protection' and the advancement of Northern Italian
culture
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3.6 The reform of the Constitution proposed by
the Northern League (2005): the federal Senate
• Art. 57 of the proposed new constitution
• the Senate becomes federal, with electoral
districts based on the 20 regions of Italy
• the election of the senators is linked to the
elections of the regional and provincial councils
• the number of senators assigned to each region
is linked to the number of residents
• no region can have less than 6 senators, with
the exception of Molise (2) and Valle d'Aosta (1)
• representatives of the regions and local
provinces are admitted into the Senate, without
full voting rights
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3.6 Federalism and the reform of the
Constitution: the Assembly of the Republic
• Art. 83 of the 2005 proposal
• the President of the Italian Republic is
elected by an Assembly of the Republic,
composed by
• all members of the parliament
• the heads of the regions and provinces
• regional delegates
• 2 per region (1 in the case of Valle d'Aosta)
• each region is also assigned 1 delegate for every
million residents
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3.6 Bilingual street
signs have
become popular,
esp. in districts
controlled by the
Northern League
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