Historians from Italy

"When evening comes, I return home and enter my study; on the threshold I take off my workday clothes, covered with mud and dirt, and put on the garments of court and palace. Fitted out appropriately, I step inside the venerable courts of the ancients, where, solicitously received by them, I nourish myself on that food that alone is mine and for which I was born; where I am unashamed to converse with them and to question them about the motives for their actions, and they, out of their human kindness, answer me. And for four hours at a time I feel no boredom, I forget all my troubles, I do not dread poverty, and I am not terrified by death. I absorb myself into them completely."

"Now, in order to execute a political commission well, it is necessary to know the character of the prince and those who sway his counsels; ... but it is above all things necessary to make himself esteemed, which he will do if he so regulates his actions and conversation that he shall be thought a man of honour, liberal, and sincere. The latter point is highly essential, though too much neglected, as I have seen more than one so lose themselves in the opinion of princes by their duplicity, that they have been unable to conduct a negotiation of the most trifling importance. It is undoubtedly necessary for the ambassador occasionally to mask his game; but it should be done so as not to awaken suspicion and he ought also to be prepared with an answer in case of discovery."

"In judging policies we should consider the results that have been achieved through them rather than the means by which they have been executed."

"Upon this, one has to remark that men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge."

"...debbe un uomo prudente entrare sempre per vie battute da uomini grandi, e quelli che sono stati eccellentissimi, imitare..."

"It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them."

"I say that every prince must desire to be considered merciful and not cruel. He must, however, take care not to misuse this mercifulness. ... A prince, therefore, must not mind incurring the charge of cruelty for the purpose of keeping his subjects united and confident; for, with a very few examples, he will be more merciful than those who, from excess of tenderness, allow disorders to arise, from whence spring murders and rapine; for these as a rule injure the whole community, while the executions carried out by the prince injure only one individual. And of all princes, it is impossible for a new prince to escape the name of cruel, new states being always full of dangers. ... Nevertheless, he must be cautious in believing and acting, and must not inspire fear of his own accord, and must proceed in a temperate manner with prudence and humanity, so that too much confidence does not render him incautious, and too much diffidence does not render him intolerant. From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved more than feared, or feared more than loved. The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two has to be wanting. For it may be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, voluble, dissemblers, anxious to avoid danger, and covetous of gain; as long as you benefit them, they are entirely yours; they offer you their blood, their goods, their life, and their children, as I have before said, when the necessity is remote; but when it approaches, they revolt. And the prince who has relied solely on their words, without making other preparations, is ruined, for the friendship which is gained by purchase and not through grandeur and nobility of spirit is merited but is not secured, and at times is not to be had. And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligation which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails."

"How laudable it is for a prince to keep good faith and live with integrity, and not with astuteness, every one knows. Still the experience of our times shows those princes to have done great things who have had little regard for good faith, and have been able by astuteness to confuse men's brains, and who have ultimately overcome those who have made loyalty their foundation. You must know, then, that there are two methods of fighting, the one by law, the other by force: the first method is that of men, the second of beasts; but as the first method is often insufficient, one must have recourse to the second. It is therefore necessary to know well how to use both the beast and the man. This was covertly taught to princes by ancient writers, who relate how Achilles and many others of those princes were given to Chiron the centaur to be brought up, who kept them under his discipline; this system of having for teacher one who was half beast and half man is meant to indicate that a prince must know how to use both natures, and that the one without the other is not durable. A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from snares, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognise snares, and a lion to frighten wolves. Those that wish to be only lions do not understand this. Therefore, a prudent ruler ought not to keep faith when by so doing it would be against his interest, and when the reasons which made him bind himself no longer exist. If men were all good, this precept would not be a good one; but as they are bad, and would not observe their faith with you, so you are not bound to keep faith with them. ...those that have been best able to imitate the fox have succeeded best. But it is necessary to be able to disguise this character well, and to be a great feigner and dissembler."

"The prince must consider, as has been in part said before, how to avoid those things which will make him hated or contemptible; and as often as he shall have succeeded he will have fulfilled his part, and he need not fear any danger in other reproaches. It makes him hated above all things, as I have said, to be rapacious, and to be a violator of the property and women of his subjects, from both of which he must abstain. And when neither their property nor honour is touched, the majority of men live content, and he has only to contend with the ambition of a few, whom he can curb with ease in many ways. It makes him contemptible to be considered fickle, frivolous, effeminate, mean-spirited, irresolute, from all of which a prince should guard himself as from a rock; and he should endeavour to show in his actions greatness, courage, gravity, and fortitude; and in his private dealings with his subjects let him show that his judgments are irrevocable, and maintain himself in such reputation that no one can hope either to deceive him or to get round him. That prince is highly esteemed who conveys this impression of himself, and he who is highly esteemed is not easily conspired against; for, provided it is well known that he is an excellent man and revered by his people, he can only be attacked with difficulty."

"It is easier for the prince to make friends of those men who were contented under the former government, and are therefore his enemies, than of those who, being discontented with it, were favourable to him and encouraged him to seize it."

"The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him."

"A prince who is not wise himself will never take good advice."

"As all those have shown who have discussed civil institutions, and as every history is full of examples, it is necessary to whoever arranges to found a Republic and establish laws in it, to presuppose that all men are bad and that they will use their malignity of mind every time they have the opportunity; and if such malignity is hidden for a time, it proceeds from the unknown reason that would not be known because the experience of the contrary had not been seen, but time, which is said to be the father of every truth, will cause it to be discovered."

"Men never do good unless necessity drives them to it; but when they are free to choose and can do just as they please, confusion and disorder become rampant."

"The demands of a free populace, too, are very seldom harmful to liberty, for they are due either to the populace being oppressed or to the suspicious that it is going to be oppressed... and, should these impressions be false, a remedy is provided in the public platform on which some man of standing can get up, appeal to the crowd, and show that it is mistaken. And though, as Tully remarks, the populace may be ignorant, it is capable of grasping the truth and readily yields when a man, worthy of confidence, lays the truth before it."

"For as when much superfluous matter has gathered in simple bodies, nature makes repeated efforts to remove and purge it away, thereby promoting the health of these bodies, so likewise as regards that composite body the human race, when every province of the world so teems with inhabitants that they can neither subsist where they are nor remove elsewhere, every region being equally crowded and over-peopled, and when human craft and wickedness have reached their highest pitch, it must needs come about that the world will purge herself in one or another of these three ways, to the end that men, becoming few and contrite, may amend their lives and live with more convenience."

"So in all human affairs one notices, if one examines them closely, that it is impossible to remove one inconvenience without another emerging."

"I am firmly convinced, therefore, that to set up a republic which is to last a long time, the way to set about it is to constitute it as Sparta and Venice were constituted; to place it in a strong position, and so to fortify it that no one will dream of taking it by a sudden assault; and, on the other hand, not to make it so large as to appear formidable to its neighbors. It should in this way be able to enjoy its form of government for a long time. For war is made on a commonwealth for two reasons: to subjugate it, and for fear of being subjugated by it."

"The people resemble a wild beast, which, naturally fierce and accustomed to live in the woods, has been brought up, as it were, in a prison and in servitude, and having by accident got its liberty, not being accustomed to search for its food, and not knowing where to conceal itself, easily becomes the prey of the first who seeks to incarcerate it again."

"It was the verdict of ancient writers that men afflict themselves in evil and weary themselves in the good, and that the same effects result from both of these passions. For whenever men are not obliged to fight from necessity, they fight from ambition; which is so powerful in human breasts, that it never leaves them no matter to what rank they rise. The reason is that nature has so created men that they are able to desire everything but are not able to attain everything: so that the desire being always greater than the acquisition, there results discontent with the possession and little satisfaction to themselves from it. From this arises the changes in their fortunes; for as men desire, some to have more, some in fear of losing their acquisition, there ensues enmity and war, from which results the ruin of that province and the elevation of another."

"Anyone who studies present and ancient affairs will easily see how in all cities and all peoples there still exist, and have always existed, the same desires and passions. Thus, it is an easy matter for him who carefully examines past events to foresee future events in a republic and to apply the remedies employed by the ancients, or, if old remedies cannot be found, to devise new ones based upon the similarity of the events. But since these matters are neglected or not understood by those who read, or, if understood, remain unknown to those who govern, the result is that the same problems always exist in every era."

"It is enough to ask somebody for his weapons without saying 'I want to kill you with them', because when you have his weapons in hand, you can satisfy your desire."

"When Scipio became consul and was keen on getting the province of Africa, promising that Carthage should be completely destroyed, and the senate would not agree to this because Fabius Maximus was against it, he threatened to appeal to the people, for he knew full well how pleasing such projects are to the populace."

"It is truly a marvelous thing to consider to what greatness Athens arrived in the space of one hundred years after she freed herself from the tyranny of Pisistratus; but, above all, it is even more marvelous to consider the greatness Rome reached when she freed herself from her kings. The reason is easy to understand, for it is the common good and not private gain that makes cities great. Yet, without a doubt, this common good is observed only in republics, for in them everything that promotes it is practised, and however much damage it does to this or that private individual, those who benefit from the said common good are so numerous that they are able to advance in spite of the inclination of the few citizens who are oppressed by it."

"The end of the republic is to enervate and to weaken all other bodies so as to increase its own body."

"Cunning and deceit will every time serve a man better than force to rise from a base condition to great fortune."

"I assert once again as a truth to which history as a whole bears witness that men may second their fortune, but cannot oppose it; that they may weave its warp, but cannot break it. Yet they should never give up, because there is always hope, though they know not the end and more towards it along roads which cross one another and as yet are unexplored; and since there is hope, they should not despair, no matter what fortune brings or in what travail they find themselves."

"This return of Republics back to their principles also results from the simple virtue of one man, without depending on any law that excites him to any execution: none the less, they are of such influence and example that good men desire to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life contrary to those examples."

"Titus Livius... observes, “Most wholesome is it that in affairs of great moment, supreme authority be vested in one man.” Very different, however, is the course followed by the republics and princes of our own days, who, thinking to be better served, are used to appoint several captains or commissioners to fill one command; a practice giving rise to so much confusion, that were we seeking for the causes of the overthrow of the French and Italian armies in recent times, we should find this to be the most active of any. Rightly, therefore, may we conclude that in sending forth an army upon service, it is wiser to entrust it to one man of ordinary prudence, than to two of great parts but with a divided command."

"It is not titles that make men illustrious, but men who make titles illustrious."

"I believe that it is possible for one to praise, without concern, any man after he is dead since every reason and supervision for adulation is lacking."

"No proceeding is better than that which you have concealed from the enemy until the time you have executed it. To know how to recognize an opportunity in war, and take it, benefits you more than anything else. Nature creates few men brave, industry and training makes many. Discipline in war counts more than fury."

"Quello che giova al nimico nuoce a te, e quel che giova a te nuoce al nimico."

"Non è mai alcuna cosa sì disperata, che non vi sia qualche via da poterne sperare."

"Le più caritative persone che sieno sono le donne, e le più fastidiose. Chi le scaccia, fugge e fastidii e l'utile; chi le intrattiene, ha l'utile ed e fastidii insieme. Ed è 'l vero che non è el mele sanza le mosche."

"In terra di ciechi chi vi ha un occhio è signore."

"El fine si ha a riguardare in tutte le cose."

"Sono maggiori li spaventi ch'e mali."

"Le cattive compagnie conducono gli uomini alle forche."

"It may be observed, that provinces amid the vicissitudes to which they are subject, pass from order into confusion, and afterward recur to a state of order again; for the nature of mundane affairs not allowing them to continue in an even course, when they have arrived at their greatest perfection, they soon begin to decline. In the same manner, having been reduced by disorder, and sunk to their utmost state of depression, unable to descend lower, they, of necessity, reascend; and thus from good they gradually decline to evil, and from evil again return to good. The reason is, that valor produces peace; peace, repose; repose, disorder; disorder, ruin; so from disorder order springs; from order virtue, and from this, glory and good fortune."

"If you only notice human proceedings, you may observe that all who attain great power and riches, make use of either force or fraud; and what they have acquired either by deceit or violence, in order to conceal the disgraceful methods of attainment, they endeavor to sanctify with the false title of honest gains. Those who either from imprudence or want of sagacity avoid doing so, are always overwhelmed with servitude and poverty; for faithful servants are always servants, and honest men are always poor; nor do any ever escape from servitude but the bold and faithless, or from poverty, but the rapacious and fraudulent. God and nature have thrown all human fortunes into the midst of mankind; and they are thus attainable rather by rapine than by industry, by wicked actions rather than by good. Hence it is that men feed upon each other, and those who cannot defend themselves must be worried."

"Comincionsi le guerre quando altri vuole, ma non quando altri vuole si finiscono."

"When Machiavelli came to the end of his life, he had a vision shortly before giving up the ghost. He saw a small company of poor scoundrels, all in rags, ill-favoured, famished, and, in short, in as bad plight as possible. He was told that these were the inhabitants of paradise, of whom it is written, Beati pauperes, quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum. After they withdrew, innumerable serious and majestic personages appeared, who seemed to be sitting in a senate-house and dealing with the most important affairs of state. Among them he saw Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Plutarch, Tacitus, and others of similar character; but he was told at the same time that those venerable personages, notwithstanding their appearance, were the damned, and the souls rejected by heaven, for Sapientia huius saeculi, inimica est Dei.. After this, he was asked to which of the groups he would choose to belong; he answered that he would much rather be in Hell with those great geniuses, to converse with them about affairs of state, than be condemned to the company of the verminous scoundrels that he had first been shown."

"The ends justify the means. (Variant: the end justifies the means)"

"It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver."

"Politics have no relation to morals."

"I am not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it."

"Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception."

"He is the earliest conscious and articulate exponent of certain living forces in the present world. Religion, progressive enlightenment, the perpetual vigilance of public opinion, have not reduced his empire, or disproved the justice of his conception of mankind. He obtains a new lease of life from causes that are still prevailing, and from doctrines that are apparent in politics, philosophy, and science. Without sparing censure, or employing for comparison the grosser symptoms of the age, we find him near our common level, and perceive that he is not a vanishing type, but a constant and contemporary influence. Where it is impossible to praise, to defend, or to excuse, the burden of blame may yet be lightened by adjustment and distribution, and he is more rationally intelligible when illustrated by lights falling not only from the century he wrote in, but from our own, which has seen the course of its history twenty-five times diverted by actual or attempted crime."

"We are much beholden to Machiavelli and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do. For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with the columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent; his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil. For without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced. Nay, an honest man can do no good upon those that are wicked, to reclaim them, without the help of the knowledge of evil."

"When Machiavelli advises the Prince to carry out the Machiavellian scheme of action, he invests those actions with no sort of morality or beauty. For him morality remains what it is for everyone else, and does not cease to remain so because he observes (not without melancholy) that it is incompatible with politics. ... For him evil, even if it aids politics, still remains evil. The modern realists are the moralists of realism. For them, the act which makes the State strong is invested with a moral character by the fact that it does so, and this whatever the act may be. The evil which serves politics ceases to be evil and becomes good."

"What has been shown by Machiavelli, who is often (like Nietzsche) congratulated for tearing off hypocritical masks, brutally revealing the truth, and so on, is not that men profess one thing and do another (although no doubt he shows this too) but that when they assume that the two ideals are compatible, or perhaps are even one and the same ideal, and do not allow this assumption to be questioned, they are guilty of bad faith (as the existentialists call it, or of “false consciousness,” to use a Marxist formula) which their actual behavior exhibits. Machiavelli calls the bluff not just of official morality—the hypocrisies of ordinary life—but of one of the foundations of the central Western philosophical tradition, the belief in the ultimate compatibility of all genuine values. His own withers are unwrung. He has made his choice. He seems wholly unworried by, indeed scarcely aware of, parting company with traditional Western morality."

"At a certain stage in my reading, I naturally met with the principal works of Machiavelli. They made a deep and lasting impression upon me, and shook my earlier faith. I derived from them not the most obvious teachings [...] but something else. Machiavelli was not a historicist: he thought it possible to restore something like the Roman Republic or Rome of the early Principate. He believed that to do this one needed a ruling class of brave, resourceful, intelligent, gifted men who knew how to seize opportunities and use them, and citizens who were adequately protected, patriotic, proud of their State, epitomes of manly, pagan virtues. [...] But Machiavelli also sets side by side with this the notion of Christian virtues – humility, acceptance of suffering, unworldliness, the hope of salvation in an afterlife – and he remarks that if, as he plainly himself favours, a State of a Roman type is to be established, these qualities will not promote it: those who live by the precepts of Christian morality are bound to be trampled on by the ruthless pursuit of power on the part of men who alone can re-create and dominate the republic which he wants to see. He does not condemn Christian virtues. He merely points out that the two moralities are incompatible, and he does not recognise an overarching criterion whereby we are enabled to decide the right life for men. The combination of virtù and Christian values is for him an impossibility. He simply leaves you to choose – he knows which he himself prefers. The idea that this planted in my mind was the realisation, which came as something of a shock, that not all the supreme values pursued by mankind now and in the past were necessarily compatible with one another. It undermined my earlier assumption, based on the philosophia perennis, that there could be no conflict between true ends, true answers to the central problems of life."

"Machiavelli is the first important political realist... The three essential tenets implicit in Machiavelli's doctrine are the foundation-stones of the realist philosophy. In the first place, history is a sequence of cause and effect, whose course can be analysed and understood by intellectual effort, but not (as the utopians believe) directed by "imagination". Secondly, theory does not (as the utopians assume) create practice, but practice theory. In Machiavelli's words, "good counsels, whencesoever they come, are born of the wisdom of the prince, and not the wisdom of the prince from good counsels". Thirdly, politics are not (as the utopians pretend) a function of ethics, but ethics of politics. Men "are kept honest by constraint". Machiavelli recognised the importance of morality, but thought that there could be no effective morality where there was no effective authority. Morality is the product of power. The extraordinary vigour and vitality of Machiavelli's challenge to orthodoxy may be attested by the fact that, more than four centuries after he wrote, the most conclusive way of discrediting a political opponent is still to describe him as a disciple of Machiavelli. Bacon was one of the first to praise him for "saying openly and without hypocrisy what men are in the habit of doing, not what they ought to do"."

"For Machiavelli, courage is the highest expression of virtù, and virtù is the possession of whatever qualities are needed "to save the life and preserve the freedom of one's country.""

"In Machiavelli, for instance, courage is the highest expression of man's virtù; and virtù is above all man's civic spirit, his disposition to be active for the common good, or, more specifically, for civic glory and greatness."

"Machiavelli's Discourses is full of examples of men who by exceptional boldness (and cunning) rescue situations which on any conventional view would be hopeless. Indeed, Machiavelli makes a "theory" out of all this in The Prince—that Fortune is female, and is most likely to fall in love with brave men."

"Perhaps the most influential book ever written on the characteristics of men in politics is The Prince, by the great Renaissance Italian Nicolo Machiavelli (1469-1527). Despite its enduring popularity, fascination, and authority it is extremely one-sided and unsystematic."

"In attempting to teach the prince how to achieve, maintain, and expand power, Machiavelli made his fundamental and celebrated distinction between "the effective truth of things" and the "imaginary republics and monarchies that have never been seen nor have been known to exist." The implication was that moral and political philosophers had hitherto talked exclusively about the latter and had failed to provide guidance to the real world in which the prince must operate. This demand for a scientific, positive approach was extended only later from the prince to the individual, from the nature of the state to human nature. Machiavelli probably sensed that a realistic theory of the state required a knowledge of human nature, but his remarks on that subject, while invariably acute, are scattered and unsystematic."

"If one desires to learn at one blow, to what degree of hideousness the fact can attain, viewed at the distance of centuries, let him look at Machiavelli. Machiavelli is not an evil genius, nor a demon, nor a miserable and cowardly writer; he is nothing but the fact. And he is not only the Italian fact; he is the European fact, the fact of the sixteenth century. He seems hideous, and so he is, in the presence of the moral idea of the nineteenth.."

"The jury is still out, but what Machiavelli described—either to recommend or subtly denounce it—was a diplomacy without conscience. It may look brilliant, but many who commented on Machiavelli noted that hidden in his works is the idea that a diplomacy totally separated from morality and conscience may achieve results occasionally but in most cases, and in the long run, would not work. …However we decide to read him, Machiavelli listed as the three features of effective diplomacy caution, art (meaning the mastery of a number of technical tools), and above all patience."

"The cool cynicism of Machiavelli's teaching is impressive. Not only does he recommend to princes absolute unscrupulousness; his advice is based on the assumption that all their subjects are gullible and guided solely by self-interest. Some have been shocked by the book's immorality; others have found its lack of humbug refreshing. Few, however, have been persuaded to admire the models held up by Machiavelli, such as Pope Alexander VI and his son Cesare Borgia."

"There is really very little of Machiavelli's one can accept or use in the contemporary world. The one thing I find interesting in Machiavelli is his estimate of the prince's will. Interesting, but not such as to influence me. If you want to know who has influenced me most, I'll answer with two philosophers' names: Spinoza and Kant. Which makes it all the more peculiar that you choose to associate me with Machiavelli."

"TANTO NOMINI NULLUM PAR ELOGIUM"

"Between being loved and being feared, I have always believed Machiavelli was right. If nobody is afraid of me, I’m meaningless."

"We would like to believe that Machiavelli's insights can be retained and his extremism discarded, that his notion of esecuzione can be absorbed into the modern liberal constitution without the tyrannical requirement of uno solo that may give us a shiver or may merely seem quaint."

"There is no modern science in Machiavelli, but the Baconian idea of the conquest of nature and fortune in the interest of humanity is fully present. So too are modern notions of irreversible progress, of secularism, and of obtaining public good through private interest. Whether Machiavelli could have had so grand an ambition remains controversial, but all agree on his greatness—his novelty, the penetration of his mind, and the grace of his style."

"Machiavelli is the complete contrary of a machiavellian, since he describes the tricks of power and “gives the whole show away.” The seducer and the politician, who live in the dialectic and have a feeling and instinct for it, try their best to keep it hidden."

"My vacation, my preference, my cure for all things Platonic has always been Thucydides. Thucydides, and perhaps Machiavelli's Principe are most closely related to me in terms of their unconditional will not to be fooled and to see reason in reality, - not in 'reason', and even less in ‘morality’..."

"It has been said that the project of Machiavelli was to expound a science of politics, but this, I think, misses the significant point. [...] The project of Machiavelli was, then, to provide a crib to politics, a political training in default of a political education, a technique for the ruler who had no tradition. He supplied a demand of his time; and he was personally and temperamentally interested in supplying the demand because he felt the 'fascination of what is difficult'. The new ruler was more interesting because he was far more likely than the educated hereditary ruler to get himself into a tricky situation and to need the help of advice. But, like the great progenitors of Rationalism in general (Bacon and Descartes), Machiavelli was aware of the limitations of technical knowledge; it was not Machiavelli himself, but his followers, who believed in the sovereignty of technique, who believed that government was nothing more than 'public administration' and could be learned from a book. And to the new prince he offered not only his book, but also, what would make up for the inevitable deficiencies of his book - himself: he never lost the sense that politics, after all, are diplomacy, not the application of a technique."

"Machiavelli was the first philosopher to define politics as treachery. This is not to say that he approved of treachery, only that he wished to describe politics as various forms of it. That he set out to do so, however, is no doubt why for almost five hundred years the single most influential of all modern political thinkers, as this biography hopes to show, has himself been described as revolting, nauseating, unprincipled and evil."

"It is this that Samuel insisted on to the Hebrews; it is this that Machiavelli clearly demonstrated. While pretending to give lessons to kings, he gave great ones to peoples. The Prince of Machiavelli is the book for republicans."

"Machiavelli was an honorable man and a good citizen; but, attached to the house of the Medici, he was forced, during the oppression of his country, to conceal his love for liberty. The mere choice of his execrable hero sufficiently manifests his secret intention; and the opposition between the maxims of his book the Prince and those of his Discourses on Titus Livius and his History of Florence shows that this profound politician has had hitherto only superficial or corrupt readers. The court of Rome has strictly prohibited his book; I certainly believe it, for it is that court which he most clearly depicts."

"This misfortune occurred to Machiavelli, who, had he been a Machiavellian, would sooner have written an edifying book than his ill-reputed Prince. In actuality, Machiavelli was on the defensive as was also his country, Italy, which in the sixteenth century had been invaded by Germans, Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Turks. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the situation of the ideological defensive was repeated in Germany-during the revolutionary and Napoleonic invasions of the French. When it became important for the German people to defend themselves against an expanding enemy armed with a humanitarian ideology, Machiavelli was rehabilitated by Fichte and Hegel."

"In the case of a prince whose sole motive is lust for power, the means he must employ to strengthen and preserve his state have been described at some length by that keen observer, Machiavelli, but with what purpose appears uncertain. If he did have some good purpose in mind, as one should believe of so wise a man, it must have been to show how foolish are the attempts so often made to get rid of a tyrant while yet the causes that have made the prince a tyrant cannot be removed; on the contrary, they become more firmly established as the prince is given more grounds for fear."

"Call me a dreamer, but one day, my name will become an adjective for everything cynical and untrustworthy in human nature."

"We shall not shock anyone, we shall merely expose ourselves to good-natured or at any rate harmless ridicule, if we profess ourselves inclined to the old­ fashioned and simple opinion according to which Machiavelli was a teacher of evil."

"Machiavelli is the only political thinker whose name has come into common use for designating a kind of politics, which exists and will continue to exist independently of his influence, a politics guided exclusively by considerations of expediency, which uses all means, fair or foul, iron or poison, for achieving its ends – its end being the aggrandizement of one's country or fatherland – but also using the fatherland in the service of the self-aggrandizement of the politician or statesman or one's party. But if this phenomenon is as old as political society itself, why is it called after Machiavelli? Machiavelli originated or wrote only a short while ago, about 500 years ago? Machiavelli was the first publicly to defend it in books with his name on the title pages. Machiavelli made it publicly defensible. This means that his achievement, detestable or admirable, cannot be understood in terms of politics itself, or of the history of politics—say, in terms of the Italian Renaissance—but only in terms of political thought, of political philosophy, of the history of political philosophy."

"The founder of modern political philosophy is Machiavelli. He tried to effect, and he did effect, a break with the whole tradition of political philosophy. He compared his achievement to that of men like Columbus. He claimed to have discovered a new moral continent. His claim is well founded; his political teaching is "wholly new." The only question is whether the new continent is fit for human habitation."

"Niccolò Machiavelli was the restorer of the Roman conception of politics as civil wisdom—that is, the idea of politics as the wisdom of the citizen whose aim is to preserve the civil life—and the founder of the theory of modern republicanism based pon this conception. He was a founder, but in a very different sense from the usual meaning of the word, and most of the pompous titles which have been attributed to him should be put aside, beginning with the least justified of all, that of founder of the modern science of politics."

"The elements of Realpolitik, exhaustively listed, are these: The ruler's, and later the state's, interest provides the spring of action; the necessities of policy arise from the unregulated competition of states; calculation based on these necessities can discover the policies that will best serve a state's interests; success is the ultimate test of policy, and success is defined as preserving and strengthening the state . Ever since Machiavelli, interest and necessity — and raison d'état, the phrase that comprehends them-have remained the key concepts of Realpolitik. From Machiavelli through Meinecke and Morgenthau the elements of the approach and the reasoning remain constant. Machiavelli stands so clearly as the exponent of Realpolitik that one easily slips into thinking that he developed the closely associated idea of balance of power as well . Although he did not, his conviction that politics can be explained in its own terms established the ground on which balance-of-power theory can be built."

"Men do not know how to appreciate or measure luck except that of others. Their own never."

"Italian husbands, in order to buy their wives a fur coat, spend more than all their European collegues."

"Politicians do nothing but ask of us, during every expiration of a legal statute, "a gesture of trust." But here trust is not enough; what's needed is an act of faith."

"Parties had eventually put the wrong man in the wrong place. De Mita was not without merits. However, he completely lacked any relating to government. This was obvious while he served as Minister, and was not accomplishing more than a little: and that little bit, usually, would have been better not having been accomplished."

"The nice thing about political pundits is that, when they answer a question, one no longer understands what they were asked."

"Fascism rewarded jackasses in uniform. Democracy gives privileges to those in sports' gear. In Italy, political regimes come to pass. Jackasses remain. Triumphant."

"The more I deepen the topic of regions (I'm in Milan for this reason), the more I am dismayed by having to write about it. It doesn't take much to understand that what these Lombard regionalists are pursuing, knowingly or unknowingly, is a Cisalpine secessionist plan. And, once they've had the instrument, they'll manage to realize it. There's a reason why Bassetti already no longer speaks of a "Lombardy region", but of a "Padania region", of which the rest of Italy would be but an appendix. If they'll succeed (and they will succeed), farewell Risorgimento! It wasn't but a fiction, agreed, and in practice it has failed. But with what will we replace it?"

"Cynics are all moralists, and merciless too."

"A real writer [...] doesn't look up to any other writer but himself."

"[...] the love of power excludes all others."

"We Italians owe something to Elvis Presley: it's one of the rare occasions when we prefer to be Italian rather than American."

"Certainly, for a newspaper director, to have within arm's reach a Travaglio, about whom every starring actor, supporting cast and extra of Italian political life he is ready upon cold request to provide an inquiry brief refined in the most minute details is a nice comfort. But also a bit unsettling. The day I asked him if in that archive, into which no one is allowed to stick their nose, there were a brief with my name on it, Marco changed the subject."

"Which ever one of you will want to become a journalist, let him remember to choose his own master: the reader."

"Gladio had been established in almost all of the countries that belonged to Nato. And by Nato's will, aware that its European partners could not have withstood the attack of a super-armed Soviet Union, they would have had to wait an American intervention for a comeback. It's demonstrated by the fact that when this plan was revealed, no other country found much to say about it. Only we Italians – the usual idiot novelists and perhaps something worse than idiots – made it the subject of scandal and a pretext of «Crime fictions» that still find credit, as your letter shows. I also feel shocked, and bit offended. But only because no one has asked me to join Gladio: I would have done it with enthusiasm."

"In Italy there is a fringe of imbeciles who believe they can resurrect communism. To bury the corpse of Marxism is not easy, because for many people that would mean denying the whole of existence. Of course Bertinotti is not one of those: he knows nothing about Marxism, he doesn't care, he is a little clown, an Italian-style populist who stirs masses of poor devils in the streets and still speaks of the working masses that only he sees."

"The list of P2 affiliates includes, they say, 953 names, corresponding to the highest ranks of politics, the judiciary, the armed forces, bureaucracy, industry and finance. All ‘brothers’. It's proof that, in this country, woe betide only children."

"The American death penalty exists and resists in America because it was a basic and constitutive element of its birth and development. Of the famous 102 Pilgrims who first landed from the Mayflower on that Continent not to plunder as the Spaniards and Portuguese did in Mexico and in South America, but to build you a new and free society, about two thirds were convicts escaping Justice and the jails of Europe, and a third were men that sought freedom and above all religious freedom. The former had a pistol in their pocket, the latter the Bible, but in its Calvinist version of the law of retaliation, based on the idea of an executioner God that demands death of those who deliver it without just cause."

"This materialist, hedonist and exhibitionist world doesn't thrill me either; and, considering that you are reading me, you should know it. But I would want to know the system that you have in mind, and don't have the courage or the ability to propose. A Franciscan world? Wonderful: but look around you, and tell me if you see a habit. A revised and corrected communism? It would end up like the other, even if it won't repeat its disasters. Believe me G., the only social and economic system acceptable today, in the West, is the one based on the market: a controlled and tempered capitalism, so to speak. It is desirable that it may also be corrected: this does not always happen, it is true. The trouble is that capitalism is made by capitalists - and those, I must admit, are often difficult to digest. Don't try to confuse my ideas, therefore. You won't succeed. I am probably three times your age, and I have seen where these generic tirades against "the multinationals" lead: sooner or later, someone will drop the bar and take the gun. I forgot: I sign my opinions, you throw the stone and hide your hand. Are you all so brave, you Seattle boys ?"

"This isn't the Right, this is the billy-club. Italians don't know how to go Right without ending up in the billy-club."

"I do not want to suffer, I do not have a christian concept of suffering. They tell us that suffering elevates the spirit; no suffering is something that hurts and that's all, it elevates nothing. And therefore I fear suffering. Because with regards to death, I, who in everything believe to be moderate, am absolutely radical. If we have a right to life, we have also a right to death. It rests on us, and it must be recognized the right to choose the when and the how of our own death."

"I have never dreamt of contesting the Church her right to remain faithful to herself, meaning to the commandments that come from Doctrine... but that she expects to impose these commandments upon me who do not have the good fortune of being a believer, trying to pour them into civil law in a way that they become obligatory even to us non-believers, is it right? To me it doesn't seem so."

"Quando mi viene in mente un bell'aforisma, lo metto in conto a Montesquieu, od a La Rochefoucauld. Non si sono mai lamentati."

"Depression is a democratic sickness: it afflicts everyone."

"[A certain Italian judge] declared in an interview that at night he has no need for sleeping pills since, with regards to the Law, his conscience is at peace. We believe him without further ado. But if he asked himself the same question with regards to Justice, I ask myself if his sleep would be equally untroubled. And we are after all aware that he'll never ask himself this question, and on the contrary it would seem to him totally odd. Because, for an Italian judge, the Law and Justice have nothing to do with each other."

"No, Travaglio kills no one. With a knife. He uses a weapon much more refined and unendictable in court: the archive."

"I know many crooks and they never preach, but I don't know anyone who preaches that isn't a crook also."

"Let not the usual abstract arguments be brought to me, like the sacredness of life: no one contests the right of everyone to arrange their own life, I don't see why their own death has to be contested."

"The only advice that I'm in the mood to give - and that I give regularly - to young people is this: fight for what you believe in. You will lose, just like I have lost, all the battles. You may only win one. The one that you engage every morning, in front of the mirror."

"Democracy is always, by nature and constitution, the triumph of mediocrity."

"[Addressed to Berlusconi who wanted to impose himself on the editorial style of "Il Giornale"] In the art of entrepreneurship, you are certainly a genius, and I an asshole. But in the art of argument the genius is me, and you the asshole."

"It isn't necessary to be socialists in order to love Pertini. Whatever he says or does, smells of cleanliness, of loyalty and of sincerity."

"Pertini has interpreted as their best the worst about Italians."

"This isn't a romanticized biography. It's a biography period. If here and there it resembles a romantic novel, the credit is only Garibaldi's, not his portrayers."

"I fly to Luxembourg on Berlusconi's usual twin engine, who accompanies us, glad to exhibit himself and exhibit his status in an international ceremony. The gold medal (but is it really gold?) is given to me by Gaston Thorn, head of the Luxembourg government. Berlusconi fills his notebook with addresses: of all the V.I.P.'s that he has met. He's a true climber that takes advantage of everything and throws nothing away."

"This age of ours consequently has let fall, bit by bit, some of the richest and sweetest fruits that the tree of knowledge has yielded; has thrown away the results of the vigils and labours of the most illustrious men of genius, things of more value, I am almost tempted to say, than anything else in the whole world."

"To-day I made the ascent of the highest mountain in this region, which is not improperly called Ventosum. My only motive was the wish to see what so great an elevation had to offer. I have had the expedition in mind for many years; for, as you know, I have lived in this region from infancy, having been cast here by that fate which determines the affairs of men. Consequently the mountain, which is visible from a great distance, was ever before my eyes, and I conceived the plan of some time doing what I have at last accomplished to-day."

"I rejoiced in my progress, mourned my weaknesses, and commiserated the universal instability of human conduct. I had well-nigh forgotten where I was and our object in coming; but at last I dismissed my anxieties, which were better suited to other surroundings, and resolved to look about me and see what we had come to see. The sinking sun and the lengthening shadows of the mountain were already warning us that the time was near at hand when we must go. As if suddenly wakened from sleep, I turned about and gazed toward the west. I was unable to discern the summits of the Pyrenees, which form the barrier between France and Spain; not because of any intervening obstacle that I know of but owing simply to the insufficiency of our mortal vision."

"My brother, waiting to hear something of St. Augustine's from my lips, stood attentively by. I call him, and God too, to witness that where I first fixed my eyes it was written: "And men go about to wonder at the heights of the mountains, and the mighty waves of the sea, and the wide sweep of rivers, and the circuit of the ocean, and the revolution of the stars, but themselves they consider not." I was abashed, and, asking my brother (who was anxious to hear more), not to annoy me, I closed the book, angry with myself that I should still be admiring earthly things who might long ago have learned from even the pagan philosophers that nothing is wonderful but the soul, which, when great itself, finds nothing great outside itself. Then, in truth, I was satisfied that I had seen enough of the mountain; I turned my inward eye upon myself, and from that time not a syllable fell from my lips until we reached the bottom again. Those words had given me occupation enough, for I could not believe that it was by a mere accident that I happened upon them. What I had there read I believed to be addressed to me and to no other, remembering that St. Augustine had once suspected the same thing in his own case, when, on opening the book of the Apostle, as he himself tells us, the first words that he saw there were, "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.""

"Hitherto your eyes have been darkened and you have looked too much, yes, far too much, upon the things of earth. If these so much delight you what shall be your rapture when you lift your gaze to things eternal! When I heard her thus speak, though my fear still clung about me, with trembling voice I made reply in Virgil's words —"

"Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together."

"Man has no greater enemy than himself. I have acted contrary to my sentiments and inclination; throughout our whole lives we do what we never intended, and what we proposed to do, we leave undone."

"Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good."

"To begin with myself, then, the utterances of men concerning me will differ widely, since in passing judgment almost every one is influenced not so much by truth as by preference, and good and evil report alike know no bounds."

"I certainly will not reject the praise you bestow upon me for having stimulated in many instances, not only in Italy but perhaps beyond its confines also, the pursuit of studies such as ours, which have suffered neglect for so many centuries; I am, indeed, almost the oldest of those among us who are engaged in the cultivation of these subjects. But I cannot accept the conclusion you draw from this, namely, that I should give place to younger minds, and, interrupting the plan of work on which I am engaged, give others an opportunity to write something, if they will, and not seem longer to desire to reserve everything for my own pen. How radically do our opinions differ, although, at bottom, our object is the same! I seem to you to have written everything, or at least a great deal, while to myself I appear to have produced almost nothing."

"You, my friend, by a strange confusion of arguments, try to dissuade me from continuing my chosen work by urging, on the one hand, the hopelessness of bringing my task to completion, and by dwelling, on the other, upon the glory which I have already acquired. Then, after asserting that I have filled the world with my writings, you ask me if I expect to equal the number of volumes written by Origen or Augustine. No one, it seems to me, can hope to equal Augustine. Who, nowadays, could hope to equal one who, in my judgment, was the greatest in an age fertile in great minds? As for Origen, you know that I am wont to value quality rather than quantity, and I should prefer to have produced a very few irreproachable works rather than numberless volumes such as those of Origen, which are filled with grave and intolerable errors."

"Continued work and application form my soul's nourishment. So soon as I commenced to rest and relax I should cease to live. I know my own powers. I am not fitted for other kinds of work, but my reading and writing, which you would have me discontinue, are easy tasks, nay, they are a delightful rest, and relieve the burden of heavier anxieties. There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen. Other pleasures fail us or wound us while they charm, but the pen we take up rejoicing and lay down with satisfaction, for it has the power to advantage not only its lord and master, but many others as well, even though they be far away — sometimes, indeed, though they be not born for thousands of years to come. I believe I speak but the strict truth when I claim that as there is none among earthly delights more noble than literature, so there is none so lasting, none gentler, or more faithful; there is none which accompanies its possessor through the vicissitudes of life at so small a cost of effort or anxiety."

"Books have led some to learning and others to madness, when they swallow more than they can digest."

"How fortune brings to earth the over-sure!"

"It is better to will the good than to know the truth."

"It is more honorable to be raised to a throne than to be born to one. Fortune bestows the one, merit obtains the other."

"Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure."

"Five enemies of peace inhabit with us — avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace."

"Here I have established my Rome, my Athens, and my spiritual fatherland; here I gather all the friends I now have or did have, not only those ... who have lived with me, but also those who died many centuries ago, known to me only through their writings. ... I am where I wish to be."

"O thou of all knowledge and of all wisdom, true and only God, thou giver of true glory, Lord of all virtue, supreme Saviour Jesus, see that supplicant and in my soul genuflected before thee I sincerely beg thee that, if thou wilt not give me anything else, at least grant me this, that I may be a good man: Nor will I ever be such except by loving Thee greatly and devoutly adoring Thee, for this I was born, not for letters; which, if they alone occupy the mind, swell and destroy instead of edifying, and are to the soul shining chains, painful travail, thunderous burden."

"(About king David) I would like to have his Psalter in my hands and before my eyes during the day, and under my head at night and at the point of death, considering this a source of glory for me not less than for the greatest philosophers, the mimes of Sophron."

"Voi ch'ascoltate in rime sparse il suono di quei sospiri ond'io nudriva 'l core in sul mio primo giovenile errore quand'era in parte altr'uom da quel ch'i' sono."

"Et del mio vaneggiar vergogna è 'l frutto, e 'l pentersi, e 'l conoscer chiaramente che quanto piace al mondo è breve sogno."

"Ché i be' vostr'occhi, donna, mi legaro."

"Who overrefines his argument brings himself to grief."

"Tempo da travagliare è quanto è 'l giorno."

"Ma pur sí aspre vie né sí selvagge cercar non so ch'Amor non venga sempre ragionando con meco, et io co llui."

"Ahi nova gente oltra misura altera, irreverente a tanta et a tal madre!"

"Per fama huom s'innamora."

"Inanzi al dí de l'ultima partita huom beato chiamar non si convene."

"Da'duo begli occhi che legato m'ànno."

"Perché la vita è breve, et l'ingegno paventa a l'alta impresa, né di lui né di lei molto mi fido."

"Questa vita terrena è quasi un prato, che 'l serpente tra' fiori et l'erba giace; et s'alcuna sua vista agli occhi piace, è per lassar piú l'animo invescato."

"Voi dunque, se cercate aver la mente anzi l'extremo dí queta già mai, seguite i pochi, et non la volgar gente."

"Vinse Hanibàl, et non seppe usar poi ben la vittoriosa sua ventura."

"Pandolfo mio, quest'opere son frali da ll lungo andar, ma 'l nostro studio è quello dche fa per fama gli uomini immortali."

"Amor regge suo imperio senza spada."

"Intendami chi pò, ch'i' m'intend'io."

"Proverbio "ama chi t'ama" è fatto antico."

"Per bene star si scende molte miglia."

"Tal par gran meraviglia, et poi si sprezza."

"Una chiusa bellezza è piú soave."

"Né del vulgo mi cal, né di Fortuna."

"Vero è 'l proverbio, ch'altri cangia il pelo anzi che 'l vezzo."

"Le bionde treccie sopra il collo sciolte."

"Io parlo per ver dire, non per odio d'altrui, né per disprezzo."

"S'amor non è, che dunque è quel ch'io sento? Ma s'egli è amor, perdio, che cosa et quale? Se bona, onde l'effecto aspro mortale? Se ria, onde sí dolce ogni tormento?"

"Pace non trovo, et non ò da far guerra; e temo, et spero; et ardo, et son un ghiaccio."

"Ché bel fin fa chi ben amando more."

"Sarò qual fui, vivrò com'io son visso."

"Sol se stessa, et nulla altra, simiglia."

"Pien d'un vago penser che me desvia da tutti gli altri."

"Chi po dir com'egli arde è 'n picciol foco."

"Un bel morir tutta la vita honora."

"Beato in sogno et di languir contento, d'abbracciar l'ombre et seguir l'aura estiva, nuoto per mar che non à fondo o riva, solco onde, e 'n rena fondo, et scrivo in vento."

"Il sonno è veramente, qual uom dice, parente de la morte, e 'l cor sottragge a quel dolce penser che 'n vita il tene."

"Le città son nemiche, amici i boschi."

"Nulla al mondo è che non possano i versi."

"L'alta beltà ch'al mondo non à pare noia t'è, se non quanto il bel thesoro di castità par ch'ella adorni et fregi."

"Co la morte a lato cerco del viver mio novo consiglio, et veggio 'l meglio, et al peggior m'appiglio."

"Non è sí duro cor che, lagrimando, pregando, amando, talor non si smova, né sí freddo voler, che non si scalde."

"Ché 'ncontra 'l ciel non val difesa humana."

"La vita fugge, et non s'arresta una hora."

"Veramente siam noi polvere et ombra, veramente la voglia cieca e 'ngorda, veramente fallace è la speranza."

"L'acque parlan d'amore, et l'òra e i rami et gli augelletti et i pesci e i fiori et l'erba, tutti inseme pregando ch'i' sempre ami.'Ma tu, ben nata, che dal ciel mi chiami, per la memoria di tua morte acerba preghi ch'i' sprezzi 'l mondo e i suoi dolci hami."

"I' so' colei che ti die' tanta guerra, et compie' mia giornata inanzi sera."

"Cosí nel mondo sua ventura à ciascun dal dí che nasce."

"O che lieve è inganar chi s'assecura!"

"Canzon, s'uom trovi in suo amor viver queto, di': Muor' mentre se' lieto, ché morte al tempo è non duol, ma refugio; et chi ben pò morir, non cerchi indugio."

"Ei sa che 'l vero parlo: ché legno vecchio mai non róse tarlo."

"Obedir a Natura in tutto è il meglio."

"Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife, He would have written sonnets all his life?"

"Petrarch was the final blossom and perfection of the Troubadours."

"Lovely Laura in her light green dress, And faithful Petrarch gloriously crowned."

"Francesco Petrarca, the mirror of our century, after completing a vast array of volumes, on reaching his seventy-first year, closed his last day in his library. He was found leaning over a book as if sleeping, so that his death was not at first suspected by his household."

"The reason for this contrast between the French and the Italian mediaeval literature is not far to seek. Allegory is a characteristically mediaeval form; and in Italy the Middle Ages began so late and the Renaissance came so early that that country never had the opportunity to fall completely under the spell that held France from the time of the Roman de la Rose till the end of the fifteenth century. Thus Petrarch, in spite of the fact that he wrote perhaps more pure allegory than any other Italian, was at the same time an enthusiast for the New Learning."

"Petrarch, a character on whom I never think but with love, formed his mind entirely in Solitude, and there rendered himself capable of transacting the most important political affairs. Petrarch was, doubtless, sometimes what persons frequently become in Solitude, satirical, peevish and choleric. He has, in particular, been reproached with great severities, on account of his lively pictures of the manners of his age, and especially his description of the infamous vices practised at Avignon, during the pontificate of the sixth Clement. But Petrarch possessed a profound knowledge of the human heart, and extraordinary address in working upon the passions and directing them as he pleased. The Abbé de Sade, the best historian of his life, says, that he is scarcely known, but as the tender and elegant poet, who loved with ardor and sung in the most impassioned strains the charms of his mistress; and that nothing more is known of his character. Even authors are ignorant of the obligations which literature owes him; that he rescued it from the barbarism beneath which it had so long been buried; that he saved the best works of the ancient writers from dust and destruction, and that all these treasures would have been lost to us, if he had not sought and procured correct copies of them."

"It is not perhaps, generally known, that he first revived the study of the Belles Lettres in Europe; that he purified the taste of the age; that he himself thought and wrote like a citizen of ancient and independent Rome; that he extirpated numerous prejudices, and paved the way to further improvements, in the circle of human knowledge; that to the hour of his death, he continued to exercise his distinguished talents, and in each successive work always surpassed the preceding. Still less is it known, that Petrarch was an able statesman; that the greatest sovereigns of his age confided to him the most difficult negotiations, and consulted him on their most important concerns; that in the fourteenth century, he possessed a higher reputation, credit and influence, than any man of learning of the present day; that three popes, an emperor, a king of France, a sovereign of Naples, a crowd of cardinals, the greatest princes, and most illustrious lords of Italy, courted his friendship, and desired his company; that, as a statesman, an ambassador and minister they employed him in the most intricate affairs of those times; that, in return, he was not backward in telling them the most unpleasant truths; that Solitude alone supplied him with all this power; that none was better acquainted with its advantages, Cherished them with such fondness, or extolled them with such energy, and at length, preferred leisure and liberty to every other consideration. He appeared, a long time, enervated by love, to which he had devoted the prime of his life, but he suddenly abandoned the soft and effeminate tone, in which he sighed at the feet of his Laura. He then addressed himself, with manly boldness, to kings, emperors, and popes, and always with that confidence which splendid talents and high reputation inspire."

"Il voler tutto riformare è lo stesso che voler tutto distruggere."

"Se l'arte dell'eloquenza è l'arte di persuadere, non vi è altra eloquenza che quella di dire sempre il vero, il solo vero, il nudo vero. Le parole, onde è necessità di nostra inferma natura di rivestire il pensiero, saranno tanto più potenti, quanto più atte al fine, cioè più nudo lasceranno il vero, che è nel pensiero."

"Italy, we know, has been tied since 1949 to the United States in the Atlantic Alliance; and since 1949, there has been some strong resistance inside the Christian Democracy toward such a decisive, entangling, and suffocating involvement of our country with the United States. The most significant resistance to the Atlantic Alliance was perhaps not that of the great parliamentary protest mounted by the Communist and Socialist parties, but the subtler, more decisive, more pregnant, and more enduring resistance of certain sectors of the Christian Democracy who did not want to hitch Italy to the chariot of an unequal alliance, in which the scepter of command remained in the hands of the United States, but rather thought about the possibility of a neutralist policy for Italy (p. 23)."

"Mattei pushed hard for a line of detachment, of critical participation in NATO and even of getting out of NATO and into a neutralist position. Mattei therefore not only annoyed the United States with his oil deals in the Middle East, which broke up the balance of the international oil cartel, and broke up the price equilibrium, but it was Mattei who pushed even harder for Italy's entire policy to take its distance from the United States and to open up toward the Third World countries, which were traveling in a certain way along a road similar to the painful and laborious road which Italy had had to travel. Mattei was very sensitive to these problems, because he had been a witness to this difficult road of Italy's and had had great difficulties at the beginning of his career. So he knew what it meant for a country to free itself from the colonial yoke and find its own way, its own balance, and a way of arranging its own economy which would not be an economy of pure exploitation by the great powers (p. 23)."

"Mattei was convinced that Italy, a poor and defeated country, nonetheless possessed notable energy deposits of petroleum in its subsoil, and he was also aware that the oil business, even if there were not really resources inside the country, was an important business which one could not stay out of and in which one could not be at the mercy of the big guys. So Mattei's program was to try to use all available means to exploit the country's energy resources, and if this were not possible, to seek international accords with coun¬tries which had these energy resources, so that they could be used by Italy in order to become a partner of the major pow¬ers, and not be at their mercy (p. 23)."

"The balance had been upset and the reactions from the American press and intelligence services were enraged. In a secret American report recently found in the archives, we read that Mattei's power must be contained at all costs and his possibilities for influencing the government must be reduced. Mattei is not only a force in industry, oil, and politics by now, but he also has a hold on information, because in 1957, through ENI, he took control of II Giorno, a Milanese daily, which at that time was much more important than it is today. It provided very lively coverage, had the best and brightest writers, it was present in every country in the world, and most of all, it had a policy of true support for the countries which were trying to free themselves from the colonial yoke, a policy of open support toward Algeria, for example, which was at the time a French colony. France was losing this colony, but there was a war, a savage repression from the French to hold onto their colony. Mattei sent Italo Pietra to Algeria, who later became the editor-in-chief of Il Giorno. He was the first, unofficial representative of Mattei who negotiated not with the French, but with the Algerians, the National Liberation Front (p. 25)."

"It is in 1958 that the discussion becomes, I believe, more complex and starts to get really dangerous. This is the time when Mattei begins, in addition to the attack on U.S. oil interests, an attack on traditional Italian foreign policy. He opens up a foreign policy of greater detachment from NATO, greater opening toward the Third World, and potential neu¬tralism. This was the framework of the neo-Atlanticism in which Mattei, Fanfani, and Gronchi were involved, and oddly, also Christian Democratic right-wingers, for their own reasons, namely Guido Gonella and Giuseppe Pella (p. 25)."

"Going through the history of economic, cultural and human exchanges in the most cultivated, tumultuous, lively, and cosmopolitan part of the world-Western Europe being its centre-we discover a wide unted universe (p. 19)."

"The area spreading out from Scandinavia and England towards Maghreb and the Nile, from Ireland and Portugal towards Estonia and Iraq, makes up - even with certain internal peculiarities and divisione - the most unitarian system. I mean from the point of view of its breadth, its rich exchanhes, its sophisticated cultures and religions, its advanced social systems, its cohabitation of so many races and cistoms (p.19)."

"The prevailing trend – from the Atlantic sea to the Ural mountains – seems to move towards a paramount blow up of nationalities. Such a trend – alive in the souls also under the centralized structures of strong multinational states – has been to weaken the Eastern socialistic countries. It appeared in the former Soviet Union, in the Yugoslav republics, and in Czechoslovakia after the fall of the Eastern regimes (p. 11)."

"After two years of exploratory discussions, and a conference (1st - 22nd July), the Bretton Woods agreements were initially signed by 44 states; the others followed in the course of time. A co-author of the project was the United Kingdom, under the leadership of Winston Churchill. Since the Atlantic Charter, issued by Roosevelt and Churchill (August 14, 1941), UK shared the US commitment for the postwar dominance, a multilateral payment system, and an international cooperation. The US was then the world biggest creditor country (p. 129)."

"The inspiring theory for Bretton Woods was suggested by a well known economist, beyond any suspect, John M. Keynes. Lord Keynes - as in the meanwhile he has been appointed by the English Crown - appeared worried about possible troubles in the international system of payments, like those occurred after World War One, which contributed to the new conflict. He has published an article on this subject in 1946. Consequently he gave the blessing of his authority to the agreements. Lord Keynes, as chief of the British delegation, was appointed chairman of the Commission II, charged for the institution of an International Bank for Reconstruction and Development - IBRD (World Bank). The Bretton Woods agreements represented a sort of solemn will for Lord Keynes, since he died out two years later the signature (p. 129)."

"The intention of the US found its feature through a clear formulation in the Agreement for the IBRD. The “purposes of the Bank” were defined as follows: “To promote private foreign investment by means of guarantees or participations in loans and other investments made by private investors; and when private capital is not available on reasonable terms, to supplement private investments by providing, on suitable conditions, finance for productive purposes out of its own capital, funds raised by it and its other resources” (p. 130)."

"Keynes’s design was in favour of the liberalization of the economy and the capital’s transfers, for the main purpose of monetary stability. To avoid devaluation of currencies - a practice followed by governments in order to sustain their export - Lord Keynes planned to introduce “Bancor”, a money of account to be accepted by all countries in international exchanges. The international body to be organized would get interests both from debtor and creditor countries, in order to finance the balance of payments system (p. 130)."

"Only the American controlled sovereignty of IMF and World Bank are allowed, along with the strong national sovereignty of the US. Little and medium countries have been encouraged to divide themselves - occurred in former Yugoslavia, in Czechoslovakia, and was attempted in Northern Italy - or to dismiss their personality in favour of supranational organizations - in fact directed by the US (p. 141)."

"L'imitazione del male supera sempre l'esempio; comme per il contrario, l'imitazione del bene è sempre inferiore."

"Gli ambasciadori sono l'occhio e l'orecchio degli stati."

"Non è male alcuno nelle cose umane che non abbia congiunto seco qualche bene."

"Ha sempre dimostrato l'esperienza, e lo dimostra la ragione, che mai succedono bene le cose che dipendono da molti."

"Con disavvantaggio grande si fa la guerra con chi non ha che perdere."

"Frank sincerity is a quality much extolled among men and pleasing to every one, while simulation, on the contrary, is detested and condemned. Yet for a man's self, simulation is of the two by far the more useful; sincerity tending rather to the interest of others. But since it cannot be denied that it is not a fine thing to deceive, I would commend him whose conduct is as a rule open and straightforward, and who uses simulation only in matters of the gravest importance and such as very seldom occur; for in this way he will gain a name for honesty and sincerity, and with it the advantages attaching to these qualities. At the same time, when, in any extreme emergency, he resorts to simulation, he will draw all the greater advantage from it, because from his reputation for plain dealing his artifice will blind men more."

"Non combattete mai con la religione, né con le cose che pare che dependono da Dio; perché questo obietto ha troppa forza nella mente degli sciocchi."

"If displeased with any man, do all you can to prevent his seeing it, for otherwise he will become estranged. And occasions often arise when he might and would have served you had you not lost him by showing your dislike. Of this I have had experience to my own profit. For once and again I have felt ill-disposed towards some one who not being aware of my hostility has afterwards helped me when I needed help and proved my good friend."

"Francesco Guicciardini. Counsels and Reflections (Ricordi politici e civili). Translation by Ninian Hill Thomson. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1890."

"A chi vuol dar buon giudizio del suono, bisogna il sentire l’una campana, e l’altra."

"Chi alloggia alia prima osteria in ch’ ei avviene, trova ben spesso la mala notte."

"È poco male Quel fallo poi che al fin in ben riesse."

"(Et) io daltro non tengo fantasia Che uscir de servitù, de povertate; Niuna altra cosa credo al mondo ria."

"Niun giammai fuggir debbe il consiglio."

"Tyrants in the course of time must eventually be overthrown because of the continual opposition of the oppressed. It is an unchanging Law, a constant rule, the penalty is certain, albeit that it is very slow coming to fruition."

"Lewis has written that "man makes history." Althusser unleashes a pamphlet at him maintaining that such is not the case: "Ce sont les masses qui font I'histoire." I challenge anyone to find a social scientist outside the Marxist camp who can seriously pose a problem of this type."

"If, then, at the end of this analysis, I am asked to take off the mortar-board of the academic and put on the hat of someone deeply involved in the political developments of the age he lives in, I have no hesitation in saying that my preference is for the rule of law rather than of men. The rule of law is now celebrating its final triumph as the basis of the democratic system. What is democracy other than a set of rules (the so-called rules of the game) for the solution of conflicts without bloodshed? And what constitutes good democratic government if not rigorous respect for these rules? I for one have no doubts about how such questions are to be answered. And precisely because I have no doubts I can conclude in all good conscience that democracy is the rule of law par excellence. The very moment a democracy loses sight of this, its inspiring principle, it rapidly reverts into its opposite, into one of the many forms of autocratic government which haunt the chronicles of historians and the speculations of political thinkers."

"Philosophically, Bobbio’s response to the contemporary political condition of the West is the opposite of that of Rawls and Habermas. Where they have sought to efface the difference between sein and sollen, in a continual slide between idealizations of the existing world and factualizations of velleities beyond it, he has held fast to the principles of the legal positivism and political realism that formed him: values and facts are categorically separate domains, that are not to be confused. This is certainly an intellectual advantage he enjoys over them. But it comes at a price: to cut all connexion between the historical and the desirable risks delivering the world to what is undesirable, in the name of the same realism."

"Bobbio’s account of human rights is thus a far cry from the deontological versions of Rawls or Habermas. It is radically historical."

"Bobbio’s realism, what can be seen as the conservative strand in his thinking, had always coexisted, however, with liberal and socialist strands for which he is better known, and that held his primary moral allegiance. The balance between them was never quite stable, synthesis lying beyond reach. But in extreme old age, he could no longer control their tensions."

"According to leading Italian political scientist Norberto Bobbio, freedom of opinion and expression (and of association) strongly influences political participation and decision-making processes. Free public debates between political actors are essential in the political life of a community. The possibility of dissent in any public political or mediatic confrontation is the core of a democratic system of governance."

"For Fascism...the State and the individual are one, or better, perhaps, "State" and "individual" are terms that are inseparable in a necessary synthesis."

"Fascism as a consequence of its Marxian and Sorelian patrimony . . . conjoined with the influence of contemporary Italian idealism, through which Fascist thought attained maturity, conceives philosophy as praxis."

"The Fascist, on the other hand, conceives philosophy as a philosophy of practice (”praxis”). That concept was the product of certain Marxist and Sorellian inspirations (many Fascists and the Duce, himself, received their first intellectual education in the school of Marx and Sorel)—as well as the influence of contemporary Italian idealistic doctrines from which Fascist mentality drew substance and achieved maturity."

"It is necessary to distinguish between socialism and socialism—in fact, between idea and idea of the same socialist conception, in order to distinguish among them those that are inimical to Fascism. It is well known that Sorellian syndicalism, out of which the thought and the political method of Fascism emerged—conceived itself the genuine interpretation of Marxist communism. The dynamic conception of history, in which force as violence functions as an essential, is of unquestioned Marxist origin. Those notions flowed into other currents of contemporary thought, that have themselves, via alternative routes, arrived at a vindication of the form of State—implacable, but absolutely rational—that finds historic necessity in the very spiritual dynamism through which it realizes itself."

"Of which liberalism does one wish to speak? I distinguish two principal forms of liberalism. For one… liberty is a right; for the other a duty. For one it is a gift; for the other a conquest… One liberalism conceives liberty rooted in the individual, and therefore opposes the individual to the State, a State understood as possessing no intrinsic value—but exclusively serving the well being and the improvement of the individual. The State is seen as a means, not an end. It limits itself to the maintenance of public order, excluding itself from the entirety of spiritual life—which, therefore, remains exclusively a sphere restricted to the individual conscience. That liberalism, historically, is classical liberalism—of English manufacture. It is, we must recognize, a false liberalism, containing only half the truth. It was opposed among us by Mazzini with a criticism, that I maintain, is immortal. But there is another liberalism, that matured in Italian and German thought, that holds entirely absurd this view of the antagonism between the State and the individual."

"In the Renaissance there is much light, yes, and there is much in it with which Italians may share national pride. But there is much darkness. For the Renaissance is also the age of individualism, that through the splendid visions of poetry and art brought the Italian nation to the indifference, skepticism, and distracted cynicism of those who have nothing to defend, not in their family, their Fatherland, or in the world where every human personality conscious of its own value and personal dignity invest itself."

"The authority of the State was not a product, but a presupposition. It could not depend on the people, in fact, the people depended on the State… The Fascist state, on the other hand, is a popular state, and, in that sense, a democratic State par excellence… Every citizen shares a relationship with the State and is so intimate that the State exists only in so far as it is made to exist by the citizen."

"The authority of the State is not subject to negotiation, or compromise, or to divide its terrain with other moral or religious principles that might interfere in consciousness. The authority of the State has force and is true authority if, within consciousness, it is entirely unconditioned."

"The merit of Fascism was that it courageously and vigorously opposed itself to the prejudices of contemporary liberalism—to affirm that the liberty proposed by liberalism serves neither the people nor the individual."

"Gentlemen: Fascism is a party, a political doctrine. But Fascism, while being a party, a political doctrine is above all a total conception of life. So the fascist, whether his is writing in newspapers or reading them, going about his private life or talking to others, looking to the future or remembering the past and the past of his people, must always remember he is a Fascist. Thus he fulfills what can really be said to be the main characteristic of Fascism, to take life seriously. Life is toil, is effort, is sacrifice, is hard work."

"How many times has Fascism been accused with obtuse malevolence of barbarity? Well yes: once you understand the true significance of this barbarity we will boast of it, as the expression of the healthy energies which shatter false and baleful idols, and restore the health of the nation within the power of a State conscious of its sovereign rights which are its duties."

"After criticising Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel so much for establishing a system of categories that predetermined the path that spiritual development had to follow, the neo-Hegelians of Italy were unable to do anything other than replace it with a more restricted set of categories from which we cannot escape. What a beautiful story, deluding itself that it is walking when in reality it is always standing still in the small circle of those few forms, marking its steps in a monotonous rhythm! But life has little respect for these a priori assumptions; it teaches us that spiritual categories, no less than the physical-mathematical categories of space, time, cause and quantity, are schemes that we construct to coordinate our experiences, and that they have nothing fixed, nothing necessary or eternal that can be deduced a priori."

"It was Gentile who prepared the road for those—like me—who wished to take it."

"What distinguished Gentile’s Fascist rationale from that which came to characterize the legitimating rationale of Marxist-Leninism was Gentile’s identification of the nation—rather than the ‘proletariat’—as the community of destiny that would shape our time. For Gentile, proletarians represented only component elements of a larger organic community: the nation. In the modern world, only the nation could provide the material, intellectual, political, and moral environment in which the individual might find fulfillment."

"Many of the principal theoreticians of Fascism, as we have seen, had been schooled in Marxism and, like Giovanni Gentile, demonstrated a competence in the material that won the admiration of Lenin himself. The fact was that the philosophical neo-idealism that served Fascism as its normative foundation shared its origins with orthodox Marxism through their common connection to Hegelianism… Like Marx, Gentile rejected the ‘liberal’ conviction that human beings are best understood as independent, self-sufficient monads, possessed of inherent freedoms, interacting only at their conveniences."

"There is persuasive evidence that the thought of Karl Marx exercised considerable influence over all Gentile’s subsequent philosophical development. It can be said, in a qualified sense, that Gentile entertained considerable sympathy for the neo-Hegelian Marxist intellectual tradition."

"Modern imperialism finds its ideological justification in the now fashionable linguistic philosophy which either regards all meanings as wholly arbitrary (e.g., Quine, White, Goodman, etc.), or reduces them to the facticity of everyday discourse (e.g., Wittgenstein, Austin, etc.). In this fashion, all meanings are either equally unfounded, or they can be founded only in the domain of the given. In either case, imperialism is implicitly justified, for, in the first case it is regarded as at least as rational a system as any other, thus neutralizing any possible rational arguments for its debunking, or else, in the second case, since all meanings reduce to the given and the given is, in fact, imperialist, imperialism itself becomes the criterion of all meaningfulness."

"All meaning is necessarily teleological in character and historically rooted in the concrete operations of human subjects."

"The abstract categories of imperialism are neither exempt from the need of a foundation, nor will the fact that they are coextensive with ordinary discourse provide them with the needed foundation."

"They say it is love. We say it is unwaged work. They call it frigidity. We call it absenteeism. Every miscarriage is a work accident."

"We struggle to break capital’s plan for women, which is an essential moment of that planned division of labour and social power within the working class, through which capital has been able to maintain its power. Wages for housework, then, is a revolutionary demand not because by itself it destroys capital, but because it attacks capital and forces it to restructure social relations in terms more favourable to us and consequently more favourable to the unity of the class."

"At the core of capitalism there is not only the symbiotic relation between waged-contractual labor and enslavement but, together with it, the dialectics of accumulation and destruction of labor-power, for which women have paid the highest cost, with their bodies, their work, their lives."

"Primitive accumulation, then, was not simply an accumulation and concentration of exploitable workers and capital. It was "also an accumulation of differences and divisions within the working class," whereby hierarchies built upon gender, as well as "race" and age, became constitutive of class rule and the formation of the modern proletariat."

"Indeed, the Europe that was preparing to become a Promethean world-mover, presumably taking humankind to new technological and cultural heights, was a place where people never had enough to eat."

"With the marginalization of the midwife, the process began by which women lost the control they had exercised over procreation, and were reduced to a passive role in child delivery, while male doctors came to be seen as the true "givers of life" (as in the alchemical dreams of the Renaissance magicians)."

"With their expulsion from the crafts and the devaluation of reproductive labor poverty became feminized, and to enforce men's "primary appropriation" of women's labor, a new patriarchal order was constructed, reducing women to a double dependence: on employers and on men."

"As if following the script laid out by the witch-hunt, the new laws demonized the relation between white women and black men. When they were passed in the 1660s, the witch-hunt in Europe was coming to an end, but in America all the taboos surrounding the witch and the black devil were being revived, this time at the expense of black men."

"The witch hunts that are presently taking place in Africa or Latin America are rarely reported in Europe and the United States, in the same way as the witch-hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries, for a long time, were of little interest to historians ... But if we apply to the present the lessons of the past, we realize that the reappearance of witch-hunting in so many parts of the world in the '80s and '90s is a clear sign of a process of "primitive accumulation," which means that the privatization of land and other communal resources, mass impoverishment, plunder, and the sowing of divisions in once-cohesive communities are again on the world agenda."

"Verum esse ipsum factum"

"Men first feel necessity, then look for utility, next attend to comfort, still later amuse themselves with pleasure, thence grow dissolute in luxury, and finally go mad and waste their substance. (Gli uomini prima sentono il necessario, dipoi badanoall’utile, appresso avvertiscono il comodo, più innanzi sidilettano del piacere, quindi si dissolvono nel lusso, e finalmente impazzano in istrappazzar le sostanze.)"

"Uniform ideas originating among entire peoples unknown to each other must have a common ground of truth."

"Vico and Foscolo had already warned us: where there is a tomb, there is civilization, which presupposes a community between the living and the dead. It is the horizon of celebration and the sacred, and it is the understanding of how end and beginning are inextricably linked. Knowledge, in itself, usually marks the end of an adventure, placing itself in the moment when Orpheus turns to look at Eurydice, sees her, and, seeing her, loses her forever."

"In any case, the unified social science that Marx sought to develop and for which he laid the epistemological foundations (not to be confused, of course, with the philosophical foundations) was the “new science” advocated more than a century earlier by Giambattista Vico."

"All Muhammadans are fond of women, who are their principal relaxation and almost their only pleasure."

"The most sumptuous of European courts cannot compare in richness and magnificence with the lustre beheld in Indian courts."

"When any hungry wretch takes it into his head to ruin the kingdom, he goes to the king and says to him: 'Sire; if your majesty will give me the permission to raise money and a certain number of armed men, I will pay so many millions. The king then asks how it is intended to raise the money. It is by nothing else than the seizure of everybody in the kingdom, men and women, and by dint of torture compelling them to pay what is demanded. Such financiers are hateful and avaricious men. The king generally consents to their unjust proposals, as he thereby satisfies his own greed; he accords the asked-for permission, and demands security bonds."

"[Manucci says that just before the emperor died, he (Aurangzeb) said:] “I die happy for at least the world will be able to say that I have employed every effort to destroy the enemies of the Muhammedan faith.”"

"All the above names are Hindu, and ordinarily these …are Hindus by race, who had been carried off in infancy from various villages or the houses of different rebel Hindu princes. In spite of their Hindu names, they are however, Mahomedans."

"Aurangzeb did this for two reasons: first, because by this time his treasures had begun to shrink owing to expenditure on his campaigns ; secondly, to force the Hindus to become Mahomedans. Many who were unable to pay turned Mahomedans, to obtain relief from the insults of the collectors."

"Many Hindus who were unable to pay turned Muhammadan, to obtain relief from the insults of the collectors......Aurangzib rejoices that by such exactions these Hindus will be forced into embracing the Muhammadan faith. (Storia, 11. 234, iv. 117., cited in J Sarkar, History of Aurangzib III)"

"[Aurangzeb] was of the opinion that he had found in this tax an excellent means of succeeding in converting them, besides thereby replenishing his treasuries greatly..."

"All of them (temples at Hardwar and Ayodhya) are thronged with worshippers, even those that are destroyed are still venerated by the Hindus and visited by the offering of alms."

"It would seem as if the only thing Shahjahan cared for was the search for women to serve his pleasure ... for this end he established a fair at his court. No one was allowed to enter except women of all ranks that is to say, great and small, rich and poor, but all handsome."

"“In this realm of India, although King Aurangzeb destroyed numerous temples, there does not thereby fail to be many left at different places, both in his empire and in the territories subject to the tributary Princes. All of them are thronged with worshippers; even those that are destroyed are still venerated by the Hindus and visited for the offering of alms."

"“The chief temples destroyed by King Aurangzeb within his kingdom were the following: Maisa (? Mayapur), Matura (Mathura), Caxis (Kashi), Hajudia (Ajudhya), and an infinite number of others ; but, not to tire the reader, I do not append their names.”"

"Manucci writes, “I assert that in the Mughal Kingdom, the nobles and above all the King, live with such ostentation that the most sumptuous of European Courts cannot compare in richness and magnificence with the lustre beheld in the Indian Court.” Similar was the impression made on Pelsaert’s mind.“"

"Many women were procured through the offices of matrons who “by promises and deceit...have carried them off into what- ever places the king or prince requires. When it happens that he does not wish to keep them (permanently) the king sends them back with some great present.“"

"Not resting content with the above orders [prohibiting alcohol, drugs, long beards, etc.], Aurangzeb. . .ordered the same official [the muhtasib14 ] to stop music. If in any house or elsewhere he heard the sound of singing and instruments, he should forthwith hasten there and arrest as many as he could, breaking the instruments. Thus was caused a great destruction of musical instruments. Finding themselves in this difficulty, their large earnings likely to cease, without there being any other mode of seeking a livelihood, the musicians took counsel together and tried to appease the king in the following way: About one thousand of them assembled on a Friday when Aurangzeb was going to the mosque. They came out with over twenty highly-ornamented biers, as is the custom of the country, crying aloud with great grief and many signs of feeling, as if they were escorting to the grave some distinguished defunct. From afar Aurangzeb saw this multitude and heard their great weeping and lamentation, and, wondering, sent to know the cause of so much sorrow. The musicians redoubled their outcry and their tears, fancying the king would take compassion upon them. Lamenting, they replied with sobs that the king’s orders had killed Music, therefore they were bearing her to the grave. Report was made to the king, who quite calmly remarked that they should pray for the soul of Music, and see that she was thoroughly well buried. In spite of this, the nobles did not cease to listen to songs in secret. This strictness was enforced in the principal cities."

"A few days after my arrival Shiva Ji gave himself up and came into our camp…This was the opening which afforded me occasion many times to converse with Shiva Ji, since I possessed, like any one in the camp, the Persian and Hindustani languages…. Rajah Jai Singh…made arrangements to send Shiva Ji to court well guarded; and he wrote to his heir, Ram Singh, to take precautions against the king’s murdering Shiva Ji. For he had pledged his word, confirmed by oath, to protect him. Better would it be for his house to be extirpated than to permit Aurangzeb, under cover of his words, to organize treachery."

"Upon Shiva Ji’s arrival at Dihli the king caused him to appear in his presence, and instead of giving him the promised position, which was to be the highest in his audience-hall, he caused him to be assigned the lowest place in the first circle of nobles within the golden railing. Shiva Ji was much hurt at this deed of Aurangzeb’s, which did not conform to the promises received…Let Aurangzeb remember [said Shivaji] that the officers in His Majesty’s presence, with the exception of Namdar Khan, who was a good officer, were the rest of them so many old women, whom he had overcome in the field with the greatest ease. Thus not one of them deserved the position he held. Then in anger he came out…"

"Ram Singh, fully carrying out his father’s instructions, and sufficiently acquainted with Aurangzeb’s character, had spent money without stint to obtain reports of any orders issued by the king, either in favour or against Shiva Ji. He thus heard of the royal order [to kill Shivaji]. Without any delay Shiva Ji was informed, and he sent out the large covered baskets of sweetmeats as usual. Then, concealing himself in one, he arranged to be carried away, he and his son, to a place of security…Thus it was carried out. At seven O’clock in the evening, having succeeded in getting away without anyone suspecting, Shiva Ji made use of the preparations made in the villages and woods, as arranged by Ram Singh, and escaped without detention into his own country… Aurangzeb was much put out by this event, and raising his hand to his head as if plunged in thought, he sent out orders throughout the realm for Shiva Ji to be traced. But Shiva Ji was already far on his road, traversing in one night what would take anyone else three days and three nights. In this way it was impossible to catch him, his way being through jungle and mountains, places through which it is very difficult to pass."

"He (Aurangzeb) also ordered every viceroy and governor to destroy all the temples within his jurisdiction. Among others was destroyed the great temple of Mathura which was of such a height that its gilded pinnacle could be seen from Agra, eighteen leagues away‛."

"This city (Banaras) is small, but very ancient, and venerated by the Hindus by reason of a temple there possessing a very ancient idol. Some years after my visit Aurangzeb sent orders for its destruction when he undertook the knocking down of all temples. …..‛"

"According to Manucci, income from Jizya was ‚considerable‛ but ‚not fixed being sometimes more and sometimes less‛. He says ‚This variation is caused by deaths and by travellers moving from one place to another. If carrying with them a receipt for what they have paid, the latter are allowed to pass free. If they chance to lose their paper (i.e. receipt of having paid Jizya), or it be stolen, they are made to pay again either in the same or in another province‛. The officials, he adds further, ‚embezzle their collections most terribly, to such an extent that the King gets more often than not less than half‛.37"

"When Shah Abbas of Persia, it is said, asked Aurangzeb’s ambassador to read aloud the words stamped on the coin on which was written ‚Sikkah zad dar JahÁn chÚn badr-i-munÍr, ShÁh Aurangzeb– i– ‘Alamgir (struck coin in the world like sun and moon, Aurangzeb, the conqueror of the world), he said that more appropriate words on the coin should be, ‚Sikkah zad ba-qurs-ipanÍr, Aurangzeb, barÁdar-kush-i-pidar gÍr‛ (struck coin upon a round of cheese, Aurangzeb, slayer of brothers, father seizer)."

"It seems from Manucci’s account that Aurangzeb had also re-imposed pilgrim tax on the Hindus, which had been abolished by Emperor Akbar in 1563 A.D. Discussing the main sources of revenue of Aurangzeb, he writes, ‚He also draws large sums from the bathings which the Hindus perform at various points of the empire.‛"

"Gualtieri is just a mere political enforcer of the will of banks and big finance. Direct expression of the economic powers that supported his appointment, he is the representative of the most hostile elements to the workers, their interests and their aspirations."

"For Mussolini, syndicalism was the most modern embodiment of the spirit of Marxist doctrine, which he added to the myths of his Nietzschean aristocratic philosophy to reach a socialism of quality rather than quantity."

"As historians, it is not for us to judge, but to clarify."

"Zoroastrianism had its beginnings in fairly early times, no later than the beginning of the 1st millennium B.C., in the eastern part of the Iranian plateau, in the central-southern regions rather than the decidedly northern ones."

"I gradually grew more convinced of a number of definite points. First, that the milieu of the origin of Zoroaster or, as I was then inclined to think, of the tradition that bore his name, could not be in Chorasmia, either little or great”, ie. reaching as far as Marv and Harat, but must be sought in a region further south. Secondly, that the difference between the milieu of Zoroastrian origins and the cultural, social and political reality of the Achaemenian empire were so marked that they must needs be explained by means of a process of historical evolution that was neither brief nor superficial."

"The gaining of this information on the primitive location of Mazandaran in the eastern and southeastern regions of Iran is remarkably important in reconstructing the early history of Zoroastrianism, just as important as the recognition of the fact that Avestan geography, particularly the list in Vd. I, is confined to the East."

"“With Varana and Ranha, as of course with Hapta Handu, which comes between them in the Vd. I list, we find ourselves straight away in Indian territory, or, at any rate, in territory that, from the very earliest times, was certainly deeply permeated by Indo-Aryans or Proto-Indoaryans.” ..."

"Ranha after Hapta Hendu and Varuna, belongs in all likelihood to the same Indian, or Indo-Iranian frontier area... refers to peoples who had settled along the banks of a river near the country of Hapta Hendu. The geographical picture , reconstructed in this way, would agree with the Indian evidence on the river Rasa, the Vedic equivalent of Ranha, to the extent that we could deduce a real identity between the two rivers."

"An hypothesis based on the comparison of Avestan and Vedic evidence appears to be much more convincing. ... There can be no doubt that in some cases the places or rivers are in effect the same."

"namely the entirely eastern character of the countries listed in the first chapter of the Vendidad, including Zoroastrian Raya, and the historical and geographical importance of that list."

"As a matter of fact all this is due to a persistent effort to make accounts work out at all costs according to the logic of a pre-established plan."

"The first chapter of the Vendidad seems to give considerable support to a theory that attempts to reconstruct an active presencce of the Iranian tribes .... in territories such as eastern Iran..."

"... for identifying the aryo sayana with the vast region that stretches southward from the Hindukus... As a matter of fact, these Avestan texts.. give a fairly uniform picture: eastern Iran, with a certain prevalence of the southern regions or the countries reaching up to the southern slopes of the Hindukus. To make an attempt, as has been done, at reconstructing... the route followed by the Iranian tribes in their migration southwards, or the expansion in the same direction of the Zoroastrian community is, I think, in any case arbitrary from a methodological viewpoint."

"And so we may conclude that Beneviste's theory, according to which... gave proof of the identity of Airyana Vaejah and Chorasmia ... is quite unacceptable."

"The Chorsamian hypothesis, which is still quite commonly held amongst scholars, should definitely be abandoned, as the historico—philological and archaeological arguments on which it is based are essentially groundless. The historical perspective it fits into is also distorted, as it suggests a political situation in eastern Iran, in the period immediately before Achaemenian rule which is by no means backed up by the available sources. The sources tell us quite unequivocally of political supremacy exercised by the Bactrians in the eastern part of the plateau, certainly not by the Chorasmians whose alleged hegemony over the various peoples of eastern Iran is supposed to be recognized on the basis of arguments given in favour of the aforementioned theory. As a matter of fact, the little we are able to reconstruct of the Median or pre-Achaemenian period in the eastern regions should be reconstructed as a radically different political situation. This position of superiority amongst the eastern satrapies which Bactria seems to have had in Achaemenian times was probably the heritage of an earlier situation"

"There are no convincing arguments, whether historical or archaeological ones, for such an hypothesis. The archaeological arguments are not at all convincing... The historico-philological arguments are not convincing either."

"With regard to this region, Xwarizm, far from being a center for the spreading of such an important part of Iranian civilization as the Zoroastrian doctrine was, appears, upon an unprejudiced examination, as a remote, outlying province which never played a really central part in the political and cultural history of Iran before the Middle Ages."

"The idea of a Turanian, or Scythian, or Chorasmian period of Zoroastrianism... should thus be definitely rejected."

"What has been said so far about the Tuiryas... persuades us once again that ther eis no good reason for seeking the primitive location of Iranian Turan in a historico-geographical horizon that is necessarily different from the one in which the Iranian Airyas lived..."

"“in the denomination of Ariana, which became known to the Greeks after the Macedonian conquest of the eastern territories of the old Persian empire, there was obviously reflected a tradition that located the Aryan region in the central-southern part of eastern Iran, roughly from the Hindukus southwards, and that considered some of the Medes and the Persians in the west and some of the Bactrians and Sogdians in the north as further extensions of those people who were henceforth known by the name of Ariani. And this, to tell the truth, fits nicely into the picture we have been trying to piece so far. Here too, as in the passages of the Avesta we have studied from the Mihr Yast and the Zamyad Yast, the geographical horizon is central-eastern and southeastern; the northern lands are also completely peripheral, and Chorasmia, which is present only in the very peculiar position of which we have spoken in the Mihr Yast, is not included.” ..."

"I simply cannot understand ... how one can think that "... its original may have been the Black Sea or Caspian, as known to dwellers on the steppe-lands to the North..."... it seems evident to me that the geographical horizon ... is the one we are familiar with by now: the central-southern areas of eastern Iran, south of the Hindukus."

"“the importance of cattle in various aspects of the Gathic doctrine can be taken as certain. This importance can be explained as a reflection in religious practice and myth of a socioeconomic set-up in which cattle-raising was a basic factor.” ..."

"...either they construct an antagonism of an essentially ethnic character... The first of these two hypotheses is not based on any sound arguments. On the contrary..."

"There is no evidence for thinking that the Zoroastrian message was meant for the Iranians alone. On the-contrary, history suggests that the exact opposite is likely, and there are also indisputable facts … which show clearly that Zoroaster’s teaching was addressed, earlier on at least to all men ... whether they were Iranians or not, Proto-Indoaryans or otherwise…"

"“The fact [is] that Avestan geography, particularly the list in Vd. I, is confined to the east,” ...[this list is] “remarkably important in reconstructing the early history of Zoroastrianism”. ..."

"[The horizon of the Avesta] “is according to Burrow, wholly eastern and therefore certainly earlier than the westward migrations of the Iranian tribes.” ..."

"[the attempt to transpose the geography of the Avesta from Afghanistan to western Iran] “was doubtless due to different attempts made by the most powerful religious centres of western Iran and the influential order of the Magi to appropriate the traditions of Zoroastrianism that had flourished in the eastern territories of the plateau in far-off times. Without a doubt, the identification of Raya with Adurbadagan, more or less parallel with its identification with Ray, should be fitted into the vaster picture of the late location of Airyana Vaejah in Adarbayjan.” ..."

"[the Avesta reflects] “an historical situation in which Iranian elements exist side by side with … Aryan or Proto-Indoaryan (elements)”. ..."

"“we may consider that the northernmost regions where Zoroaster carried out his work were Bactria and Areia”. ..."

"[the airyo-Sayana refers to] “the vast region that stretches southward from the Hindukus,” ... “from the southern slopes of the great mountain chains towards the valleys of the rivers that flow south, like the Hilmand…” “there is a substantial uniformity in the geographical horizon between Yt.XIX and Yt.X ... and the same can be said for Vd.I … these Avestan texts which contain in different forms, and for different purposes, items of information that are useful for historical geography give a fairly uniform picture: eastern Iran, with a certain prevalence of the countries reaching upto the southern slopes of the Hindukus.” ..."

"[Likewise, in later Greek tradition, Ariane] “is the Greek name which doubtless reflects an older Iranian tradition that designated with an equivalent form the regions of eastern Iran lying mostly south, and not north, of the Hindukus. It is clear how important this information is in our research as a whole.” ..."

"The Hilmand region and the Hamun-i Hilmand are beyond all doubt the most minutely described countries in Avestan geography. ..."

"[This region is subject to] “a process of spiritualization of Avestan geography … in the famous celebration of the Hilmand in the Zamyad Yast…”, and “this pre-eminent position of Sistan in Iranian religious history and especially in the Zoroastrian tradition is a very archaic one that most likely marks the first stages of the new religion … the sacredness of the Hamun-i Hilmand goes back to pre-Zoroastrian times…” ..."

"[In the Avestan descriptions of Varana (in the Vendidad), Gnoli sees] “a country, where the ‘Airyas’ (Iranians) were not rulers and where there was probably a hegemony of Indo-Aryan or proto-Indoaryan peoples.”"

"[Airyana Vaējah... ]"the country is characterized, in the Vd.I context, by an advanced state of mythicization"."

"[Gnoli identifies the sixteenth land, Raηhā, as an ―] eastern mountainous area, Indian or Indo-Iranian, hit by intense cold in winter."

"We can therefore attribute to an essentially mythical geography certain common Indo-Iranian conceptions: the conception of Mount Hara in the Avesta or Mount Meru or Sumeru in India; that of the seven regions of the earth: the Iranian kesvar or the Indian dvipa; that of a central region: Xanirata or Jambudvipa respectively in Iran and India; that of the Tree of all seeds in the Vourukasa sea south of Mount Hara in Iran, and of the Jambu tree south of Mount Meru in India, etc."

"If to these reasons we add archaeological considerations that demonstrate the entirely peripheral situation of Chorasmia in relation to the Iranian world of the first half of the 1st millennium BCE, we can exclude this northeastern region from the geographic horizon of Zoroastrian origins. Chorasmia retained this peripheral position throughout the entire 1st millennium BCE... No valid argument can make us think that it was ever decisively larger than present-day Khwarezm and that it extended to much more southern territories."

"It is farther south than in Chorasmia that we must strive to reconstruct the historical environment where the Iranian prophet lived and acted. A set of data from different sources... leads... to shifting our focus toward the areas around the Hindu Kush and toward the lands south of these mountains...in short, between ancient Bactria and the ancient Drangiana and Arachosia."

"Muza recalls the Sanskrit Mujavant, to be located in a region between the Hindu Kush and the Pamir."

"Mount Hara, which in Iranian cosmography is the counterpart of Mount Meru in Indian cosmography, is clearly identifiable in the Mihr Yast with Paropamisos, Para-uparisaina."

"The geographical framework of Vd. I is entirely that of eastern Iran."

"This list... in my opinion, has the same meaning as the lists of the sixteen Great Territories, sodasa mahājanapada, subjected to the Aryan element according to Buddhist, Jain, and epic sources of 6th-century BCE India. The first fargard of the Vendidad – I do not know if this parallelism has ever been observed – is a Zoroastrian list of the sixteen Great Territories in which the Aryan element spread, albeit unevenly."

"Given its very Oriental horizon, this list must be pre-Achaemenid; on the other hand, the remarkable extendedness of the territories concerned recommends situating them in a period much later than the Zoroastrian origins. (…) one or several centuries later than Zarathuštra’s preaching."

"The case of Vakereta was resolved by S. Lévi, who linked it to the name of the yakṣa of Gandhāra, Vaikr̥tika, in the list of the Mahāmāyūrī. This identification is solid and widely accepted, as evidenced by the consensus it has gathered."

"Varena was identified by Henning with Buner, the Varnu of the Mahāmāyūrī."

"For Ranha, finally, as for Vakereta, Varena, and Hapta Hendu, I believe that the comparison with Vedic or ancient Indian geography is valid: just as for these three countries we consider the comparison with Vaikrta, Varnu, and Sapta Sindhavah significant, so too for the country on the waters of the Ranha we can consider the comparison with the Vedic river Rasa no less significant, which is sometimes mentioned together with Kubha (the Kabul) and Krumu (the Kurram), as in RV V, 53, 9."

"This suggests to us a conclusion which, in my view, is historically important: the northern steppes, the Aral region, the lands beyond the Syr Darya and probably also those beyond the Amu Darya, remain outside the reconstructed horizon... This means that Zoroastrianism... was born in an area of the Iranian or Iranianized world where, for centuries, cultural, social, and economic processes developed..."

"In the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE, groups of states were present on the western and southern margins of this territory, while Chorasmia was inhabited by populations living mainly by subsistence economy."

"The discoveries made by Soviet archaeologists in Margiana and Bactria uncovered settlements and constructions of such complexity that they leave us little doubt about the special importance of these regions in the cultural geography of Central Asia and eastern Iran until the threshold of the 1st millennium BCE... one can conjecture, in the pre-Achaemenid period, the existence of an extensive geopolitical entity: research conducted on the ground would suggest attributing it either to Bactria alone or to a larger geopolitical entity that also included Margiana and Sogdiana, a parallel technique, even prior to the rise of the Achaemenids, but in which neither the Persians nor the Medes seem to have been much involved."

"On the contrary, it was certainly not before the Achaemenid period that areas with greater agricultural potential like Sogdiana and Chorasmia were widely populated and exploited. In light of archaeological research results, this delay is attributed less to their intrinsic geographical characteristics than to the distance separating these areas from those that, in the 3rd millennium BCE, saw the first state formations in eastern Iran. This marginality will disappear when they become demographically saturated and fully exploitable."

"This is one of the regions in our geographical horizon that probably witnessed the origins of Zoroastrianism: Sistan, and more precisely, the basin of the Hamun-i Helmand."

"Zoroastrianism was born on a cultural and religious ground that is several centuries, even millennia old..."

"This suggests a long and complex prehistory, largely documented by archaeological evidence... which allows us to reconstruct a sort of ideological detachment process related to the bovine, an animal that was certainly at the base of the economy of the Indus Valley and the Iranian plateau."

"The only Ariana we know is Strabo's Ariana, whose Geography describes its limits precisely: to the east the Indus, to the south the Arabian Sea, and to the west an irregular line..."

"Zoroaster probably lived at the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE, within the vast region known to the Greeks... The Central Asian steppes or Chorasmia are again excluded from this geographical horizon."

"All this gives Sistan a central role regarding the origins of Zoroastrianism, as it is almost presented to us as the Zoroastrian land par excellence."

"This would probably be the first known case of transposition from east to west of a sacred place in the Zoroastrian tradition..."

"Such religious thought was formed... in the central and southern zones of the eastern Iranian world..."

"The only possible identification of Airyana Vaejah must point to the great Hindukus mountain range."

"The main obstacle to a reconstruction that closely links the western Aryas to the Avestan Airyas is, in my opinion, the one arising from the theories that the Medes and the Persians emigrated from the North rather than from the East, that is to say, for instance, from south-east Russia (some scholars connect them with the so-called Andronovo culture) to the region lying North or North-West of the Caspian and across the Caucasus to the Urmia Lake region and, lastly, in an easterly and southeasterly direction towards the Zagros mountains."

"Now, the obstacle that arises from the theory of the Medes and the Persians having emigrated from the North ... on the basis of a highly conjectural interpretation of the archaeological evidence, is now removed by the archaeologists themselves. A body of evidence... orients us in quite a different direction, namely towards that of a migratory movement, probably a slow, progressive one, from East to West, along the great Khorasan Road....."

"A much more convincing theory than that of the western Iranians having emigrated from North to South across the Caucasus is that of a slow, progressive East-West emigration, a gradual penetration as it were, over the centuries, from the end of the 2nd millennium to the first half of the 1st millennium B.C. ..."

"Having done away with the obstacle provided by the theory of the trans-Caucasian migration..., we can see both these peoples as western branches of those same Airyas that in the Younger Avesta are described as being settled in such a large part of the eastern Iranian world...."

"When we speak of Medes and Persians, we must not lose sight of a historical perspective. In all likelihood, the ethnic groups of the Medes and the Persians that were settling the historical lands in the 8th century B.C. must already have been the result of processes of assimilation of heterogeneous ethnic, linguistic and cultural elements."

"The foregoing leads us to believe that the answer which we gave earlier, at the beginning of this chapter, to the question as to whether we ought to see a sort of continuity and a close link between the western Aryas, the Medes and the Persians and the Airyas of the Avestan people, is a well grounded one. We can reply that the Aryas who became part of the ethnic groups of the Medes and the Persians were none other than western branches of the Avestan Airyas who, in their westward migrations, had taken with them the name Aryan and so had extended, in a way, the boundaries of Ariana proper."

"These Aryas doubtless took with them their religious traditions as well, and this explains in what terms we must speak of the Achaemenians’ belonging to the airya tradition, i.e. to a religious and cultural heritage from a country further east. Afterwards Mazdeism grew up amongst them, and we do not know of any Mazdeism that could be defined for a certainty as non—Zoroastrian, nor, as I have tried to show elsewhere, have we any real reason, even if we take into account the name as—sa-ra ‘ma-za—as in the Assyrian tablets, to maintain that the very conception of a god such as Ahura Mazda was not the work of Zarathustra, in spite of the opinion of some leading scholars to the contrary and a hypothesis put forward recently by F.B.J. Kuiper. On the contrary, we might suppose that it was the decisive and most original feature of the message of the great prophet of ancient Iran’."

"Thus Airyana Vaéjah was the new Zoroastrian name for the country that was considered the centre of the main karSvarq where the Iranian ‘Meru’ stood and through which there flowed the “Aryan” reach of the river that was renamed Vanuhi Daitya,"

"We do not know for certain which river of the traditional cosmology it corresponded to, although the one that naturally comes to mind is the river Arodvi Brzi. Likewise we are unsure of its identification with this or that river of actual geography, although in this case, too, it does not seem that we have a great many rivers to choose from. For a number of reasons that we cannot go into here, as it would lead us too far astray the only rivers we can seriously take into consideration are those such as the Oxus and the Helmand... I have already collected on several occasions evidence and arguments in favour of the latter river in particular..."

"I did not agree with all his positions, but this only made our conversations more lively and memorable. We spent long hours of the evening and night during my visits to , where I would normally stay in the Archbishop’s apartment, discussing politics, religion, and pretty much everything, with Casale’s sister periodically and silently appearing to offer an incredible variety of local cookies and beverages. Later, became also part of these lengthy domestic conversations. ...It was precisely because of his natural empathy with all sort of discriminated minorities that Casale also understood the injustices vested on new religious movements. He was critical both of the secular anti-cult movement and of some excesses of Catholic counter-cultists. He remained, however, firstly a Roman Catholic bishop, something members of new religious movements captivated by his natural sympathy and Southern Italian humor, and hoping for more support, sometimes risked to forget."

"In Arab culture, philosophy has occupied a rather conspicuous position. Philosophy, perhaps even only with the simple categories of Aristotelian and Porphyrian logic, pervades all the fields in which Arab thought expressed itself, it involves not only theological speculation - to varying degrees, however, according to the different schools and tendencies - to a certain extent law, but also all the sciences, astronomy no less than mathematics, medicine no less than musicology. Even the Arabic grammatical theory, which does not depend at all on the corresponding Greek doctrines, but is a completely indigenous product, fully reflecting the particular spirit of the Semitic languages, is affected, although to a very slight extent, by the action of some concepts of logic. Aristotelian. (p. 126)"

"Arabic philosophy was [...] philosophy of foreign origin, Greek speculation, Aristotelian philosophy, and was introduced among the Arabs already done, it did not arise slowly in the country itself from uncertain and modest origins, it did not it has always developed through internal development, it has not always then divided into various currents according to the mental peculiarities of its different followers, as Greek speculation developed, to cite a luminous and almost paradigmatic example. (p. 129)"

"The Arabs knew Aristotle's doctrines only through Arabic language versions. No Arab philosopher knew Greek. (p. 132)"

"The Babylonians and Assyrians had a large number of myths and legends, largely based on those of the Sumerian, a nation of southern Mesopotamia who preceded them in history and civilization, from which they drew heavily , so it can be said that the whole Babylonian and Assyrian civilization, and in the first place religion, stands on a rich Sumerian substratum. (p. xiii)"

"The purpose of the recitation was first of all this: to narrate, to make the great deeds of the god [[Marduk] well known to all ], to praise the way in which, as a young and insignificant son of Ea he had managed, through his great valor, to gain first place in the Babylonian pantheon, and thereby motivate in a certain sense the celebration of the festival. (p. 4)"

"LEnûma eliš had the same function during the New Year celebration that every hymn to the god had during ceremonies in the temple. The poem is also a grandiose hymn, in which abundant biographical passages of the god are included. They remind the god of his great deeds and invite him to do something grandiose again in favor of the one who recites the hymn. The god who saved his fellow gods from evil beings will certainly want to save his faithful now! (p. 4)"

"We cannot say anything about the author of the grandiose poem, since in the numerous Mesopotamian texts in cuneiform characters made public so far no information can be found about him, and probably never will be found, as the Babylonians have annexed very little or no importance to the property literature and the belonging of works of literature to this or that artist, just as they have never taken care to pass on to posterity the names of their most famous sculptors, carvers of bas-reliefs and seals, painters, and builders of palaces and temples. (pp. 6-7)"

"The fight between the gods and the monster or monsters certainly has an astral, and perhaps even cosmic, character, and could for example symbolize the succession or conflict of the seasons as it manifests itself in nature. (p. 14)"

"There was perhaps no great god of ancient Mesopotamia of whom it was not said that he had subjugated monstrous and terrible beings, just as it was said of every great god that he had performed acts of formation or creation and destined destinies. Creating, eradicating monsters and destining destinies were common traits of the great gods of the civilizations of the ancient East. (pp. 17-18)"

"The whole epic story, and in particular the conflict of Marduk and Tiāmat have an astral meaning, and certain traits in which we are not yet able to see it must also have it. Unfortunately we do not know exactly which events in the starry sky the poem depicts: we do not yet know its true astral meaning. However, since the Babylonian and Assyrian religion acquired this character to an ever greater degree only as time progressed, we must assume that originally the poem reflected a mythical event of a fundamentally different character, some natural, cosmic event. Behind the gods-people there should therefore be natural gods-phenomena, and especially behind the conflict between Marduk and Tiāmat, which is the central and culminating point of the mythical action. In other words: what physical event represents this conflict? A natural fact interpreted as a divine adventure and transferred to the origins? Here too the answer is not easy. One might suppose that it was a question of depicting the struggle of spring with winter or that of the sun and light with darkness, but Marduk was never truly a solar god, any more than Aššūr was, or that Tiāmat and his offspring would represent the fury of the elements, of the rain and the storm, the rainy and stormy season, which in a region like that of the Valley of the Two Rivers causes destruction, until in spring the sun triumphs over the bad weather: Marduk would therefore represent the sun of spring, and the world would begin this very season. Tiāmat instead represents winter and night and also disorderly chaos, according to the view of the various theological schools of the country and also of the Babylonians and Assyrians of different eras. (pp. 21-22)"

"In a cylinder from the British Museum, a cylinder dating back to around 800 BCE., Tiāmat has the exact shape of a serpent, as long as the seal itself. [...] In addition to some other similar cylinders, with Tiāmat in the form of a serpent, we also have cylinders with Tiāmat in the guise of a lion-griffin or dragon. This depiction of the monster is very common in the last period, but it is nothing more than an artistic variant of the first. (p. 30)"

"From what we have explained about the depictions of the conflict between Marduk and Tiāmat, it can be seen that the monster was the famous dragon of Babel, represented countless times in Mesopotamian art, a dragon that could have either an elongated shape, almost like a serpent, or a shortened one of a lion. Originally, however, it must have been a snake. (p. 33)"

"The Mesopotamians conceived the generation of the gods in perfect agreement with the human one through the work of a male god and a female goddess. Even the primitive gods were therefore procreated by a couple. (p. 77)"

"Ea is the great advisor of the gods, and it is therefore natural that he is the first to be aware of the evil that Tiāmat was preparing. (p. 83)"

"According to the Babylonian concept, men are, compared to the gods, immensely stupid and ignorant. (p. 98)"

"The concept of the life-giving breath of the god seems to be of Egyptian origin and belongs to the prehistory or protohistory of the idea of ​​the spirit of the god. (p. 103)"

"Marduk redeemed the gods following Tiāmat from slavery, he freed them from slavery by creating men and making them carry the burden of serving the gods. That is, Marduk, to spare the vanquished gods from serving the other victorious gods, forms humanity which is therefore destined by original and natural disposition to serve the gods, to religion. Humanity is therefore the subject of redemption, it is not to be redeemed, but a part of the gods is redeemable: men redeem the gods. (p. 104)"

"This epic, which we could call the MesopotamianOdyssey, tells us it goes back a long way in time. It paints us with incisive and sometimes very eloquent features the social and spiritual conditions of southern Mesopotamia around 2800 BCE. and in part certainly from an even more ancient era, since the Sumerian epic and mythical texts on which the Babylonian language versions that constitute our poem are based should have arisen during the era of the third dynasty of Uru, therefore during the period from 2028 to approximately 1920 BCE., but they are certainly at least partly older. (p. 111)"

"This poem is a true hymn to the most intimate and profound friendship, all 'ibru-talīmūtu, between Gilgameš, king of Uruk, and his companion Enkidu, both unparalleled heroes, of which the first however is the hero in the true sense of the word, the one hundred percent hero, without confusion, inflexible and intransigent, whose heroism can be concisely expressed in his own words: I don't care at all about life and I am ready to die, as long as I accomplish great works, bringing universal and imperishable fame. This was therefore the heroic ideal of the ancient Mesopotamians, Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians, not at all dissimilar to the later one of the Greeks. (p. 113)"

"In her relations with Gilgamesh she is the prostitute goddess, a true slut, ferocious, passionate, while in the story of the universal flood, in the eleventh table, she is a merciful goddess, who takes the fate of humanity to heart and deplores the way of acting of the cruel Enlil, provocateur of the destruction of men with the exception of a few survivors. (p. 117)"

"Ḫumbaba, the guardian of the cedar forest, placed there by the gods, is not truly a god but a demon with a monstrous appearance, with a frightening face, cruel and ferocious like his master Enlil. Someone wanted to see in this demonic figure, sometimes invoked to scare children, the personification of a volcano. (p. 117)"

"Whoever compares the style of theEnûma eliš with that of our epic will certainly notice a great difference. The Epic is written in a less solemn and toga style than the first and seems less ancient precisely because of its style. From many parts of the two writings it emerges that they had as authors two poets who were quite different in mentality and artistic ability. In both compositions there are also rather down-to-earth songs. However, from an aesthetic point of view theEpic is superior. (p. 118)"

"No one will be able to deny that in some points, in some episodes the text is highly poetic, capable of dragging even the modern reader, to whom at first many things will certainly seem quite foreign to his way of seeing and feeling, as well as bizarre. Everyone will have to admire the simplicity of the means with which the poet was able to achieve surprisingly profound effects. Who will not be moved when he reads Gilgamesh's pathetic lament over the fate of his friend? Who won't be amazed when they read the dialogue between Ištār and Gilgameš? Who will not smile and at the same time be amazed when he reads the speeches between the king and the elders of Uruk? He will not think that humanity has not changed at all in certain sentiments since the beginning of the third millennium BCE. up to the present day? (p. 119)"

"Since in the epic no mention is made of the name of the national god of Babylon, Marduk, raised to his pre-eminent position precisely by the first dynasty mentioned above, it is clear that it must be prior to the advent of this dynasty. Or it could be contemporary with this dynasty, but arose in a state independent of the Babylon of the kings of that dynasty. (p. 121)"

"We don't know exactly what Gilgameš's name means. It is not excluded that the name dates back to a Presumer language, and that the different ways of writing it represent different adaptations to the Sumerian language or attempts at explanation using the words of the Sumerian language. (p. 132)"

"It has been held that the first two elements of the name form that of the Sumerian god Enki, the god of water and wisdom, the Ea of the Babylonians and Assyrians. In the third element, du, we saw the Sumerian ideogram meaning to create, produce, and we therefore reproduced the whole name in Babylonian with Ea-bānī, or or . (p. 133)"

"Giuseppe Furlani, Arab philosophy, in Characters and ways of Arab culture , vol. II, Royal Academy of Italy, Rome, 1943, pp. 126-157."

"Giuseppe Furlani, Babylonian and Assyrian myths, Sansoni - Florence, 1958"

"The fundamental principle of the Sumerian or Sumero-Akkadian religion was a crude shamanism: the belief in evil spirits (hence the magic aimed at averting the influences), at the head of which stood the spirit of the earth, Inki, and that of the sky, Anna. From the two supreme spirits, first conceived abstractly, then personified, a great host of aquatic and luminous divinities developed, which contributed to forming the substratum, so to speak, of the later Chaldean pantheon. These divinities with strange names, many of which we still ignore the meaning and pronunciation of, were assimilated, for the most part, by the Semites of Babylon to their own, representatives of physical phenomena, over which they presided. (pp. 1-2)"

"The extraordinary quantity of divine beings, major and minor, with which the Babylonians populated the world, at first excludes that they could have believed in the existence of a single god. Even if this idea passed through the mind of some Chaldean theologian, it is certain that the people never accepted it: none (and there are many thousands) of the tablets or inscriptions on hard stones, with prayers and magical formulas, which have come to light in the excavations made among the ruins of Mesopotamian cities contain not even the remotest hint of the unity of God. (p. 7)"

"He lives in the most sublime regions of the universe, in an atmosphere never disturbed by winds or storms, always pure and serene. It is the so-called "heaven of Anu", in which during the flood [...] the gods of the intermediate spaces and of the earth seek refuge, but do not dare to go beyond the threshold. (pp. 32-33)"

"The Assyrians saw in Asur the father and king of the other gods, the god of war, author of their victories, to whom the best part of the spoils was therefore offered, the god of hunting and , it seems, of health. (p. 35)"

"Ea is the main god of the most ancient phase of the Sumerian religion, which then passed into the Babylonian-Assyrian pantheon, the god who in the magical spells of conjuration is invoked as "the spirit of the earth" and more precisely of the surface terraqueous. But Ea was not only the "lord of the earth", or In-ki, his ancient original name, but also the sovereign of the region of the atmosphere, within which life takes place in all its various and multiple forms. (p. 46)"

"As god of the waters, that is, of the ocean and of all the waters of the earth, whence his titles: «the master of the waters, the lord of the coasts, the sovereign of the sea, the king, the chief, the lord of the abyss », Sumerian Ea was the protector of fishermen and sailors, a character which he also preserved in Babylonian myth and in the Assyrian cult. (p. 47)"

"From his quality as king of the waters comes his wisdom, which makes him, as we read in various hymns, "the intelligent guide, the god of pure life, the lord of knowledge, of human glory". He was considered supremely good, indeed one of his ancient names was Dugga, "the good", and supremely beneficial, as he revealed himself at the time of the flood, providing for the salvation of Sitnapistim. He was also considered as the giver of the laws according to which princes and peoples must govern themselves, and therefore as a lover of justice: hence, again in the saga of the flood, the reproach that he leveled against Bel for not having made a distinction between good and bad, between innocent and guilty. (pp. 47-48)"

"Blacksmiths and goldsmiths, weavers, stone carvers, gardeners and farmers proclaimed him their patron and teacher; the scribes saw in him the source of their science; the doctors, that is, the magicians, spoke to the spirits in his name, using prayers that they had learned from him. (p. 49)"

"Samas had precisely the office of bringing the light "of the wide space of the sky" to the gods and men during the day. For this purpose he went out every morning from the "inside of heaven" through the eastern gate. All on fire and in a chariot driven by two squires and drawn by strong mules, "whose knees do not bend", he ran rapidly up the mountain range that encircles the world, that is, along the line that divides the sky from the earth. The flaming disk, which can be seen from down here, was none other than one of the wheels of the chariot. Having completed the daily journey, the god returned through the western gate behind the metal wall, which closes the part of the sky visible to men, and there he spent the night in his home, Ebabbarra (I-babbarra, «house of Babbarra» that is «of the sun»), of which his great temple of Sippara, called Ebabbarra, was an image. (p. 63)"

"As a bringer of light, Samas was considered one of the greatest enemies of the powers of evil, born of darkness and who especially with the favor of the latter exercised their disastrous action. (p. 65)"

"Like the other major deities of the Euphratic pantheon, Samas is named in imprecative formulas, where he appears not only as god of the sun, but also as judge and terrible punisher. I limit myself to mentioning one, which is perhaps the most important and in any case valid, one can say, for all of them: «may the god Samas, judge of heaven and earth, shatter his face (the guilty person) and convert him into darkness ( ?) the splendid day." (p. 66)"

"Originally he was a solar god in general, in the local aspect the sun-god of Eridu, and his cult connected with the worship of the sun. Then when the concept of the sun in its entirety was concretized in Samas, then in Marduk the morning sun and at the same time the spring sun were seen. He later passed from Eridu to Babylon, rising to the honor of the local and tutelary god of the great metropolis. As the political and religious importance of this city grew, Marduk simultaneously rose higher and higher in the celestial hierarchy; until at the apogee of Babylon's power he appears as head of all the Mesopotamian gods. (p. 80)"

"Among all the gods of the Babylonian-Assyrian pantheon he was the one who had the most widespread and long-lasting cult. It is already mentioned in the private documents of the ancient dynasties of Babylon, from which it appears that the god was venerated together with Sin and Samas. All the monarchs of the Babylonian empire competed in paying homage to him. (p. 88)"

"The cult of Marduk flourished again during the Persian lordship through the work of Cyrus, who with fine political understanding was able to make the powerful priests of the deity favorable, who remained even in the period of decline of the Chaldean empire- Babylonian the chief deity of Babylon. Cambyses, following his father's example, held the ancient god in great honor, whose city continued for a long time to be the capital of the new empire founded by Cyrus. The great sanctuary of Marduk was then sacked and destroyed by Xerxes; which marked the end of his cult. (p. 90)"

"Istar is, without dispute, one of the divinities of the Babylonian-Assyrian pantheon about which we have the most information, but at the same time it is the one we know least: there were many secondary forms and contradictory aspects and its myth had such a broad and intricate development. (p. 93)"

"The deities of the Mesopotamian pantheon are deities of the living, who reward the good, i.e. pious men, and punish the bad, the impious, precisely during their lives. The reward consists, as appears from the prayers of many monarchs to their patron gods, above all in a long prosperous life not saddened by disease, in a happy old age and in numerous posterity; the punishment, in being deprived of these gifts of divine benevolence: the wicked was the mockery of the evil spirits, who tormented him with every sort of infirmity before giving him the mortal blow. But if the ideas of the Babylonian-Assyrians on the course of earthly life with respect to the condition of the good and the bad are, as can be seen, very simple and clear, the same cannot be said of their notions regarding the future life: about which the texts are silent almost at all. It was believed in the immortality of the soul, and that it felt the pain of separation from the body more, if it was mistreated or left unburied. However, there is no mention of the fate of the soul depending on the annihilation or the persistence of the body itself in the tomb. (pp. 154-155)"

"Domenico Bassi, Oriental mythologies. I. Babylonian-Assyrian mythology, Ulrico Hoepli, 1899."

"All the Protestant and Masonic nations of the world in the 19th century - but also the United States, which had just been born - participated with great zeal in financing, in advising those who went to make the unification of Italy, why? Because making the unification of Italy had an objective, apart from making those liberals, the 1% of the population, who stole the goods of the Church, that is, of 99% of the population, enormously rich, forcing the Italians to become a people of emigrants, who no longer had a lira. We have always been a very rich population, because we were Catholic."

"These [the Masonic and Protestant nations] had the objective - apart from personal enrichment and power - an ideological objective for which they were aided by the liberal Freemasons all over the world, was to transform Rome from caput mundi to caput Italiae, for it is evident that Rome as the capital of Italy had ceased to be Rome. In fact, this is said in a way, at a time more or less contemporaneous with the events, Fyodor Dostoevsky, who was a genius, describes this feat of Cavour who had succeeded in transforming a spiritual power like Italy into a colony, and we since then are colonies of whoever has more power moment by moment: it may be England, it may be France, it may be Germany, always colonies we are."

"The rhetoric of the Third Rome, was the perverted fantasy of one called Mazzini, who theorised the Third Rome, no longer imperial Rome, no longer Christian Rome, but the Third Rome that was to bring light to the whole world, which was the Masonic light, without thinking, poor man, that those who had made it were simply clowns moved by other Freemasons."

"The Pope Clement XII intends to spare the population the "very serious damage" that the new association [Freemasonry] can cause on both the spiritual and temporal levels."

"Papal anti-Masonic pronouncements are numerous: according to Pauline cleric Rosario Esposito, as many as 586."

"The freemason 'by his condition' is bound to obey the moral law, it is true, however, that the moral law to which the freemason refers is that established by the 'brothers' in the lodges themselves."

"The only great prose writer of the age of Augustus, Titus Livy [...], is the only man of letters who truly makes the ideals of Romanism the center of his art. He is moved to write the history of Rome by love for the traditions and institutions of the republic; his republican ideals did not prevent him from fully sharing the Augustan program of moral and religious restoration. It is above all to Livy that we owe the idealization of the ancient history of Rome and its characters as models of moral and political virtues."

"In the field of religion the Romans have a tradition that is completely different from the mythological one of the Greeks; the divine is a dark and impersonal force that is present in nature and objects and which presides over all human activities; the sphere of the sacred is taboo, it is clearly distinct from thatof the profane, and when faced with manifestations of the divine man feels a shiver of religious horror. Religion is aimed at warding off the harmful influences of divine forces with rituals and magical formulas, at interpreting their will through wonders. This dark and mysterious conception of faceless and figureless gods makes its influence felt even on writers of cultured and skeptical ages, through the typically Latin feeling of horror."

"Augustus continued [in public education] Caesar's concept and policy. For him, as for his great predecessor, the teachers of elementary, middle and high schools were, in the life of the state, not cumbersome quantities, but elements of strength and social well-being. (chap. 1, p. 12)"

"The love and search for works of art dates back to Rome for many years, and since Caesar we have noticed what will be the characteristic of the empire: the transformation of temples from places of religion into places actually intended for the public cult of art, whose monuments could be known and admired by anyone. (chap. 1, p. 19)"

"Agrippa, although Pliny calls him a man for whom the rough life was preferable to the triumphant softness of his century, he was one of the most exquisite lovers of the fine arts in the history of the civilized world. He purchased many artistic masterpieces in the East; to his aedility Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa was elected aedile in 33 BCE </ ref> was responsible for the reconstruction of a large part of Rome, which he had found in bricks and left in marble. (chap. 1, p. 19)"

"But the characteristic imprint that Nero's government left in the history of public education cannot be found in primary schools or in those of rhetoric or philosophy. The originality of his government consisted instead in the introduction of a new form of physical education in the general plan of Roman education and life, the decisive triumph of the cult of musical education: two facts, which reacted against traditional tendencies, underwent lively discussions and contrasts, and were all personal work of the prince. (chap. 1, pp. 61-62)"

"It is perhaps very difficult to find in all of Roman history a political man who, like Hadrian, encloses in his thoughts a meaning and a concept of life, in which together, and almost organically and perfectly, the the ideal of Greek life and that of Roman life, the pagan soul and the Christian soul, the spiritual tendencies of the old age and those of the new age; a man who has equally united in himself the multiplicity of the most varied talents. (chap. 3, pp. 124-125)"

"[Hadrian]] Poet and prose writer, Latinist and Greek scholar, painter and enthusiast of plastic arts, philosopher and orator, artist and scientist, mystic and realist, superstitious and sceptical, generous and implacable, man of thought and man of action, he set his foot on all fields of knowledge, welcomed and underwent all the suggestions of which the great human soul is capable, and from every discipline, from every inspiration, he struck a spark for his ingenuity, he detected a trait for his complex personality. (ch. 3, p. 125)"

"Corrado Barbagallo, The State and public education in the Roman Empire, Francesco Battiato editore, Catania, C.E.1911."

"If Livy does not see that Rome is because he is completely tied to the schemes of Roman historiography which, in contrast to Greek historiography, has an exclusive and profound interest in the affairs of its own people and which from its origins to its decline is and does not want to be anything other than the history of the Roman people and state."

"Arnaldo Momigliano, Quinto contributo alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico, I, Roma, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, C.E.1975."

"Piero Treves, Gaetano De Sanctis, «Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani», vol. 39, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia italiana, C.E.1991."

"Giorgio Boatti, Preferirei di no. Le storie dei dodici professori che si opposero a Mussolini, Torino, Einaudi, C.E.2001."

"Antonella Amico, Gaetano De Sanctis. Profilo biografico e attività parlamentare, Tivoli, Tored, C.E.2007."

"De Sànctis, Gaetano, su Treccani.it – Enciclopedie on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana."

"DE SANCTIS, Gaetano, in Enciclopedia Italiana, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, C.E.1931."

"Luigi Moretti, DE SANCTIS, Gaetano, in Enciclopedia Italiana, III Appendice, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, C.E.1961."

"De Sanctis, Gaetano, in Dizionario di storia, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, C.E.2010. Editing on Wikidata"

"De Sànctis, Gaetano, on sapere.it, De Agostini."

"Piero Treves, DE SANCTIS, Gaetano, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. 39, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, C.E.1991."

"Gaetano De Sanctis, on siusa.archivi.beniculturali.it, Unified Information System for Archival Superintendences."

"Gaetano De Sanctis, on BeWeb, Italian Bishops' Conference."

"Gaetano De Sanctis, in Women and Men of the Resistance, National Association of Italian Partisans."

"Gaetano De Sanctis, on accademiadellescienze.it, Academy of Sciences of Turin."

"Works by Gaetano De Sanctis, on openMLOL, Horizons Unlimited srl."

"(EN) Works by Gaetano De Sanctis, on Open Library, Internet Archive."

"(FR) Publications by Gaetano De Sanctis, in Persée, Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l'Innovation."

"G. De Sanctis, Scritti minori, I, C.E.1966, excerpts, on books.google.it."

"G. De Sanctis, Scritti minori, II, C.E.1970, excerpts, on books.google.it."

"A. Momigliano, Gaetano De Sanctis, in Quinto contributo alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico, C.E.1975, excerpts, on books.google.it."

"I don't believe that the representative democracy can be put into crisis by authoritarian movements like those of the twenties and thirties. There is however the danger that in the western democracies the forms of democracy are kept up without the substance. Political parties won't be banned any longer, civil liberties will be guaranteed to a certain extent but, at the same time, there could be the danger that only the formulas of democracy remain and the substance disappears."

"The Como people... went to Lierna, where they were terrified by seeing its inhabitants appear, they hid in the mountain woods, the Como people burned their beautiful tower crowned with green laurel, after having put its defenders to flight away."

"It was a gentle custom of the ancients to number amongst the gods those heroes by whose genius and greatness of soul unknown lands were discovered. Since we, however, only render homage to one God in Three Persons, and consequently may not adore the discoverers of new lands, it remains for us to offer them our admiration."

"It is not necessary to be always consistent."

"[...] in many places bats as large as pigeons flew about the Spaniards as soon as twilight fell, biting them so cruelly that the men, rendered desperate, were obliged to give way before them as though they had been harpies."

"It is the royal plan to establish fortified places and to take possession of this continent, nor are there wanting Spaniards who would not shrink from the difficulty of conquering and subjugating the territory. [...] The journey, however, is long and the country very extensive. It is claimed that the newly discovered country, whether continent or island, is three times larger than Europe, without counting the regions to the south which were discovered by the Portuguese and which are still larger. Certainly the Spain of to-day deserves the highest praise for having revealed to the present generation these myriad regions of the Antipodes, heretofore unknown, and for having thus enlarged for writers the field of study."

"Women generally keep the fire better than they do a secret."

"Brought up on soft feathers."

"He has related the great deeds of the Portuguese, but whether he witnessed them, as he pretends, or has merely profited by the labour of another, I am unable to state. Vivat et ipse marte suo."

"It is said there is a district of savana in the most westerly province of Guaccaiarima, inhabited by people who only live in caverns and eat nothing but the products of the forest. They have never been civilised nor had any intercourse with any other races of men. They live, so it is said, as people did in the , without fixed homes or crops or culture; neither do they have a definite language. They are seen from time to time, but it has never been possible to capture one, for if, whenever they come, they see anybody other than natives approaching them, they escape with the celerity of a deer. They are said to be quicker than French dogs."

"Although the Cathedral of Lucca is not one of the largest churches built in Italy during the Middle Ages, it is nevertheless one of the most remarkable for its structure and one of the most beautiful, especially inside, thanks to the harmonious lines and the admirable balance between the fantastic and the severe, which gives the building a truly sacred and solemn character, achieved in equal measure by very few of those that surpass it in size and richness of ornamentation. (p. 5)"

"The exterior of the Cathedral of San Martino in Lucca does not have the same harmony of style as the interior; on the contrary, the architectural features of the different centuries to which the various parts belong are clearly visible, and even a different style, due to the fact that it was designed by Comacine and Tuscan craftsmen. Many of these parts, however, are beautiful, notably the interior of the atrium, the north side and the rear. (pp. 5-6)"

"The money changers and other merchants known as ‘speciarii’ (sellers of aromatics) had their stalls under the portico of the church. A special office, or special court, called the Curia di s. Martino; it was located near the basilica, and the merchants themselves had to swear an oath not to commit fraud in the exercise of their trade. (p. 11)"

"That the simulacrum of Christ Crucified known as the Holy Face (which Dante also wanted to touch in his Poem) is very ancient is not to be doubted; all its characteristics, which we will discuss below, are those of an image of great antiquity and, in the opinion of many, of a Byzantine image. And although explicit records do not show it in the Cathedral of Lucca until the 12th century, and the coins bearing its effigy cannot be traced back beyond the 13th century, according to numismatists, such documents suggest that it existed long before that, and there are many reasonable inferences that demonstrate that its transfer to Lucca dates back to the end of the 8th century. (pp. 135-136)"

"This small temple [of the Holy Face in Lucca Cathedral] is extremely elegant. It was designed by Matteo Civitali in a composite style, both in terms of its proportions and its [modinature] and all the details that compose it, the ornaments with which it is decorated having been chosen with the finest taste from among the most beautiful and elegant examples of Roman architecture. (p. 143)"

"[...] in Lucca Cathedral [unlike that of Florence] it seems instead that the neglect [of the stained glass windows] has been very great, and perhaps no thought was ever given to repairing them until, due to the quantity of missing glass, they were in such a state that they could no longer be ignored; and even then, instead of having them carefully restored by a skilled craftsman, the repairs were carried out in such a way that they could not have been done worse. The only round window that remains and those of the choir, especially the large stained glass window that had suffered the most, clearly show how the work was carried out; that is, broken or damaged pieces of glass were replaced with other pieces of glass at random, of whatever colour they were, if coloured ones were available (perhaps remnants of some of the small windows that had been completely destroyed) or white ones, which were given any colour, without any concern for whether the designs of the figures and ornaments were badly distorted and disfigured. (p. 221)"

"Just pay and the research will be done. And you can even find someone to publish it. It is undeniable that behind some of these studies there are groups that want to make people believe that the Shroud is a historical fake. One example among many: there is a fine documentary entitled La notte della Sindone (The Night of the Shroud). Well, this documentary was never broadcast by Rai because it contains a statement that perhaps some people do not like. This statement is represented by a letter on the letterhead of the Curia of Turin, which Cardinal Anastasio Ballestrero, then custodian of the Shroud, sent to his scientific consultant, engineer Luigi Gonella, in which he firmly maintained that in the matter of carbon-14 dating (later refuted by several subsequent studies, ed.), the Freemasons had a hand in it, wanting at all costs to prove that the Shroud was from the Middle Ages'. In short, there is annoyance towards a "real Shroud on the part of those who want to deny not only Christ but also his Resurrection"."

"The examination of a fabric is extremely problematic from the point of view of contamination, because a fabric is entirely exposed to the environment in which it is found. For a bone or a piece of wood, it is possible to sample an internal part, but this is not possible in the case of a cloth."

"(About the radiocarbon dating) All the sindonologists in the world, and there are hundreds of them, had contested that absurd verdict. Only those who had conducted the analyses persisted in defending it, obviously together with those who denied its authenticity, people who have a preconceived rejection of the Shroud, out of partisanship. Among the Sindonologists there are many scientists, including non-Catholics, who had judged the angle of the sample to be unrepresentative of the entire shroud due to the manipulations it had undergone, in addition to all the other vicissitudes experienced by the relic. Among the various studies conducted on the subject, that of chemist Raymond Rogers stands out, demonstrating that the corner had actually been mended."

"The Shroud is a relic that fascinates and moves. It is a powerful witness to the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, which has provoked many conversions. This can only bother those who are against Christianity. This is why eliminating the authenticity of the Shroud serves to tear from the hearts of the faithful an authentic image of love and hope, which we need so much at this tormented time. But those who love darkness are bothered by light."

"The discovery of America was due to the failure of the crusade against the Turks which was attempted by Pius II, and the success of which was frustrated by the rivalry and corruption of the states of Europe at that time."

"The Ireland of to-day feels acutely that the springs of her greatness lie in the past, and that by restoring ancestral traditions, blending them naturally with existing social forms, and by drawing strength and dignity from the memories of pre-Christian and medieval Ireland, before the Anglo-Norman had deformed and strangled her, she may yet discover her true self, and start life afresh."

"(About Maria Montessori) Italians know her as a maternal and reassuring lady who appeared on the thousand lire banknote for a long time, the only woman depicted on our banknotes, but in her long life she was a transgressive and restless woman, so much so that when asked what nationality she was, she replied: “I live in the sky, my country is a star that revolves around the sun and is called Earth”."

"[...] Maria Goretti was also greatly admired for her humble origins, redeemed by the strength with which she defended her dignity as a human being and daughter of God. Her cult therefore had social significance, as Palmiro Togliatti understood when he cited her as an example to young communists in a speech in the 1950s."

"(About q:it:Francesca Cabrini) Not only her relationship with space, but also her relationship with time was modern, so dominated by haste and speed: “Hurry, hurry and cheerfully, my daughters,” she wrote to the nuns, even urging them to act “ardently and quickly”, a phrase with an almost futuristic flavour, which perfectly conveys the sense of her movement in the world."

"The scientific justification for this choice lies in a peculiar definition of the nervous system, now being challenged by new research that questions the very fact that brain death causes the disintegration of the body. As demonstrated in 1992 by the sensational case of a woman who entered an irreversible coma and was declared brain dead before it was discovered that she was pregnant, it was decided to allow her to continue with the pregnancy, which proceeded normally until a miscarriage occurred. This case and other similar ones that ended with the birth of a child have called into question the idea that in this condition the bodies are already dead, corpses from which organs can be removed. It therefore seems that Jonas was right when he suspected that the new definition of death was motivated more by interest, i.e. the need for organs for transplantation, than by real scientific progress."

"Interviewer: Isn't there an underlying tone of extreme pessimism? Is it so absurd to think that technology can be used for good? Scaraffia: Jacques Ellul didn't think so. For him, it was simply impossible. He even lived in the countryside to protect himself from the effects of progress. His observations on technology are certainly marked by pessimism. But his conception of the world is animated by Christian optimism. He was convinced that God acts in history and that, therefore, He will intervene to save man from himself. There is a tendency to separate his philosophical and sociological writings from his theological ones. But for him, the relationship with technology is inextricably linked to that with God. And, in particular, to the function that God has entrusted to man in the world: that of knowing but not destroying, of dominating reality while respecting it, of aspiring to the best while preserving a sense of limits."

"I would like to nominate [for the title of Doctor of the Church] women of the twentieth century who have not even been declared saints: such as Adrienne von Speyr, who accepted with simplicity and profound humility her role as a mystic and at the same time a doctor, wife, woman of her time, and who wrote beautiful texts that are now almost forgotten."

"Mulieris dignitatem had the merit of introducing a new point of view: at a time in history when women's emancipation was achieved through the adoption of male behaviour patterns and a consequent denial of the value of motherhood, the Pope's proposal seemed to suggest that emancipation should and could take place while keeping alive the specificity of women, finally recognised as a value, as a form of genius."

"The discovery of female genius was the work of John Paul II, who made it the heart of his apostolic letter Mulieris dignitatem, published in 1988 as the conclusion of the synod on lay people."

"[Philosophers and psychologists] have revealed the sense of openness that motherhood brings towards the transcendent, towards the “infinite world”, to use the words of Clotilde Leguil, who writes that recognising that the female body is radically different from the male body “implies a transition from a closed world to an infinite universe”. Leguil quotes the verses of the poet Antoine Tudal, much loved by Lacan: “Between man and love, there is woman. Between man and woman, there is a world. Between man and the world, there is a wall”."

"Regarding the Finnish girl who was raped in Rome the other night, one feels like asking her: didn't anyone ever teach you not to accept lifts from strangers, especially at 4 o'clock in the morning? I'm sure it's dangerous everywhere, even in Finland."

"It also makes one think that the myth of equality with men is having perverse effects, and that many girls now go out at night without taking the most basic precautions. It would be nice, of course, if men changed and accepted this new freedom for women, but we know that this is not the case, and perhaps never will be. A little realism therefore does no harm, and it is better to avoid dangerous situations. It is certainly not by forcing reality and trying to bend it to our desires that we change the world."

"The ancient idea that men must protect women is perhaps one of the first customs that feminism has erased, since it meant that women had the illusion of protecting themselves. Women, especially young women, need a social context that surrounds them with a protective shield, and they need supportive eyes to watch over them and perhaps even warn them in case of danger."

"There is a shy Ciriaco De Mita. And also a grumpy De Mita. And then there is the introverted De Mita. He is not easy to get along with. And sometimes he is suspicious, very suspicious. [...] He is someone who does not mold himself to those he is dealing with in order to gain their approval, but who likes to speak plainly and tell you what he thinks to your face. In short, he is tough. Cunning and tough. And sometimes mean."

"With your departure, that world has ended completely. For a week now, I have been trying not to think that you, dear Alessandro, have gone who knows where. And I confess that I am terrified of dreaming about you. But, my beautiful son, my beautiful boy, I will always welcome you with open arms. [...] I love you. Giampaolo, your dad."

"The hardest [defeat] came in 2014 when Matteo Renzi's government, which had been in office for a few weeks, dismissed the heads of all state-owned companies. At that time, you were the CEO of the large Finmeccanica group. You knew everything about that group because you had been working there for 12 years, climbing the ladder step by step. And, together with a small group of young executives, you had steered it with a steady hand. You never talked to me about your downfall, but I could sense your bitterness mixed with anger."

"Giorgio Bocca can be summed up in a few words. He was a great journalist, but also highly partisan and prone to serious errors. We worked together at the same newspapers, starting with Il Giorno and then spending many years at La Repubblica and L'Espresso, but we were never friends. Bocca was a complex man: he did not like competitors or people who contradicted him. We fought many battles against each other, but there is no point in dwelling on them. Today, Giorgio is gone. I don't know if Italy will miss him, as some of his colleagues at La Repubblica say, but he will certainly leave a void... which I, however, do not regret."

"The left wing party has always told lies, starting with the invasion of Hungary and continuing through the Popular Front campaign. All parties lie, but some more than others. The Italian Communist Party, however, has always lied."

"A yellow-green government? It is not a trivial center-right government, but a government of terrorists. A terrorist government that wants to destroy everything, wipe out Italy and its democracy. We are on the brink of an abyss."

"Reporter: If you waited a little longer to write, everything would have disappeared. Some say that oblivion is better... Giampaolo Pansa: Trouble, trouble. What is the point of living if you give up on the truth? The history of a country is made up of those who fought wrong wars and sought absurd goals. We must accept this and honor those who suffered, not necessarily sharing their memory, but accepting it, giving it citizenship. [...] The left always brings up this anti-fascism. Berlusconi like Mussolini, the authoritarian state imposed by Mediaset... Sovereign lies. From the right, you can reflect on that yourselves. We should start again from this mutual recognition of the public right to one's own memory."

"Words can turn into stones, stones into bullets. It has already happened: Italy was held captive by terrorism for almost twenty years. It is a danger that could return, and I would not want Grillo, even against his plans and programs, to become the vehicle for this terrible evil."

"Someone said of Sergio Mattarella: in politics, he is tenacious and persistent, like a falling drop of water."

"When I hear Grillo shouting, Italians, it sends a chill down my spine, because it reminds me of someone who shouted the same word with the same emphasis from a balcony in Palazzo Venezia."

"(About Mario Capanna) In short, a leader of protest: without restraint, but also without the protection of party apparatus, always forced to be at the forefront, to make mistakes, and to pay the price personally."

"(To q:it:Angelo D'Orsi who criticized him for the absence of any footnotes in his revisionist texts on Fascism) You sell 2,000 copies and I sell 40,000... do you want footnotes too?"

"Fabio Fazio}} He too is red, a cherry red that is unmatched even on the vermilion Rai Tre. But he loves to play the opposite role. That of the innocent little priest without a parish, friend to all and enemy to none. In reality, in today's Rai, fragmented into sultanates, there is no one more partisan than him. His hand is wrapped in gray velvet, but inside he hides a poisoned stiletto. It is with this blade that Fazio practices inflexible censorship. [...] Fazio had invited Pietro Ingrao [...]. In a moment of memory loss, the old communist leader claimed that the Italian Communist Party had strongly distanced itself from the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. A complete falsehood, as history teaches us. But Fazio and the invited audience were careful not to object. Not even a murmur, a cough, or a sidelong glance. Why? Edmondo Berselli, a free-thinking intellectual who recently passed away, explained it this way in L'Espresso: “Because at that moment, they were celebrating the apotheosis of an impossible communism, a utopia, a great dream, an assault on heaven. And so much the worse for the facts, if the facts interrupt the emotions.” Fazio is not interested in the truth of the facts. Especially when he paints a picture of Italian history and reality that clashes with his narrow political horizon."

"Satire is banned on Rai, except when it is directed against Il Caimano, hated by the red sultans. These are the masters of the many talk shows controlled by the guerrilla left. Those who, with public money, taxes and license fees paid by us foolish taxpayers, have given themselves a fanatical mission: to send Berlusconi and the center-right to hell. [...] They know they have a militant audience behind them and they excite them in many ways. [...] They move like the Khmer Rouge in Pol Pot's Cambodia. They don't cut off their opponents' heads, but they attack with the same rapid brazenness, provoking the enemy and launching surprise attacks. “Come away with me” is the clearest example of this tactic. [...] The story is an example of what Italy has become. A Babel where only the destroyers are in charge. While the Casta fills its mouth with the word “legality” and at the same time destroys it. Like the double-dealing Fini. He will have the kiss of Fazio and Saviano, even though he is glued to a chair he no longer deserves."

"I was outraged and frightened by the assault on the Senate, which saw a team of hooded men break through the first entrance. The Senate, like the Chamber of Deputies, belongs to all Italians. And I am appalled by the question posed by La Stampa on Thursday. It said: “Must we respect the Senate? Even if Schifani is there?” This small, not very ironic detail is enough to suggest that the left is no longer playing with fire, but with death."

"Today's street protests are not being led by students. They are being led by another privileged class: university professors and researchers. They do not want to lose their privileges, which are considerable for the former and modest for the latter. That is what matters to them, not the comatose state of Italian universities."

"There are no valid reasons for such chaos, which has a very clear political objective: to bring down the Berlusconi government. Perhaps this will not be a difficult task, given the comatose state of the executive. But even if it succeeds, it will not erase the hypocrisy of too many media outlets. Newspapers and television are mostly on the side of the protesters."

"(About the daily newspaper la Repubblica}} A guerrilla paper that goes into battle every day to destroy Berlusconi."

"The news program Sky TG24 is sick with anti-Cav sectarianism. It seems to me that it has become Murdoch's Telekabul. A twin of Tg3, Rai's red news program. Strange? Not really. The owner of Sky, the Australian Rupert Murdoch, the Shark, does not like Berlusconi at all. And since the beginning of time, the donkey has always been tied where the master wants. Especially if it is a television donkey."

"Gianfranco Fini, the most surprising chameleon in the national political zoo. He owed everything to Berlusconi, starting with his escape from the post-fascist ghetto. Yet he tried to kill him. With a continuous guerrilla war, which began immediately after he joined the People of Freedom party. It is pointless for Fini's squires to keep repeating that Gianfry was expelled by Berlusconi. Italians are not stupid."

"We are used to saying that we must defend ourselves in trials and not from trials. Yet I would like to see how the many politicians who preach this would behave."

"We are a patient and hardworking people. Yet it is wise not to forget the old adage: sometimes even ants, in their own small way, get pissed off."

"I have learned that judges should not be criticized. They are a very powerful force and jealous of their autonomy."

"How does a police officer act? When he encounters someone breaking the law, he catches them and throws them in jail. So that they dare not disobey the law again. The Gendarmes of Memory behave in the same way. They consider themselves the sole guardians of the only authorized and legitimate account of the internal conflict that bloodied Italy between the fall of 1943 and April 1945. This then led to a harsh reckoning with the defeated fascists. And anything that contradicts the narrative they defend must be refuted. Or, better still, silenced, ignored, erased. (p. VII)"

"There is no doubt that without the PCI there would have been no partisan war. And the Resistance would have been a modest undertaking. But with the PCI, the war of liberation also became a revolutionary war for the conquest of power in Italy. And this subversive project authorized a succession of errors, lies, intrigues, abuses, crimes, and mysteries: all rubbish hidden by a historiography subservient to the interests of that party. (p. IX)"

"Italy these days is no longer a normal country. In normal countries, acts of violence such as those committed against the bookshop in Bassano [the locks on the three entrances were sabotaged and blocked] do not happen. And if they do, they are usually severely punished. As deserved by those who arrogate to themselves the right to do anything in the name of a totalitarian perversion that authorizes them to be arrogant towards those who think differently. But in our country, the number one rule, which states that those who offend must be punished, is hardly ever applied anymore. (pp. 54-55)"

"Many red partisan bands emerged with the aim of suppressing members of the resistance front parties. The reason for this is clear: those who were not communists but were active in parties such as the Christian Democrats, for example, could become new adversaries. And this new enemy would certainly have opposed the PCI's revolutionary strategy and its plan to seize power in newly liberated Italy. These were, therefore, targeted political crimes. Aimed at terrorizing opponents within the anti-fascist alliance and destroying their ability to resist the communists' plans. (pp. 200-201)"

"[According to the left] Revisionism is as dangerous as cyanide. But if it is practiced by the left, it becomes an aspirin that must be swallowed because it will only give us good health. This is the fake revisionism of the usual suspects. It certainly has not won. And I don't think it ever will. (p. 328)"

"A friend asked me, “Do you have any regrets?” I replied, “Absolutely not. Also because I have discovered a humanity I did not know. What's more, I have understood what disease is undermining the Oak.” The evil, which is no longer obscure to me, is the fear of having to reflect on oneself and re-read one's political history. And, consequently, the refusal to discuss with those who force you to show your cards and stop playing a reticent and timid game. (p. 342)"

"Istria, Dalmatia, Fiume, Pola, Zara, the exodus of 300,000 who did not want to live under Tito, their arrival in Italy amid insults and spittle from activists organized by the PCI... It is useless to talk about these tragedies to the ‘guardians of memory’. They only give the green light to memories that suit them. Instead, they prefer to keep the memory that causes them difficulty locked away in the guardhouse of silence, to silence it, to pretend it does not exist. (p. 365)"

"This applies to young journalists. Not all of them, of course, but many. They are ignorant. They may be intelligent, but they are ignorant. In the sense that school has taught them little in recent years. And they have learned even less on their own. (p. 28)"

"Ah, objective journalism! How many times have we deceived readers by waving this phantom flag. (p. 49)"

"Not all Italian journalists lie. But some of us, in different eras, have always lied. We lied on behalf of the newspaper owner, especially when the owner's number one interest was not to sell news. We lied out of deference to the ruling political power. We lied to favour the opposition. (p. 51)"

"Well, I must confess that I haven't read all of Giampaolo Pansa's books thoroughly because I feel nauseous when I pick them up, but I know more or less how they are perceived by those who read them. We cannot get inside Giampaolo Pansa's head, so we cannot know whether this man, who used to be a left-winger, had a change of heart at some point and really said to himself: the defeated deserve to be remembered... an injustice has been done in Italy... Whether he realised the effect his books were having, or whether he realised it but cynically carried on because they made him a lot of money. We can no longer say; certainly the books are despicable, not because they may contain inaccuracies [...]. But I would not be at all surprised if these books only reported authentic episodes, because it has always been known in Italy that obviously anything could have happened in the Resistance. These are things that even in the 1950s the fascists, who incidentally were perfectly free in a democracy to publish books in which they recounted these things, so everyone already knew about them even before. [...] So, dramatic episodes? Tragic? Crimes? Crimes committed by partisans with the authorisation of the Allied authorities, who generally told the partisans to “clean up”? Who can say it doesn't matter? Of course, it is always a tragedy, but if we look at the crimes committed by the liberators, then what? The armies that marched up the peninsula committed crimes against the civilian population, against prisoners of war... Ever since they landed in Sicily, and yet the people of Italian cities welcomed them jubilantly, happy that they had arrived. So, the problem is that you can always find individual episodes in any context to put anyone in a good or bad light: what matters is who was on the right side and who was on the wrong side. And I challenge anyone today who turns up their nose at the partisans or has Pansa's books on their bookshelf in plain view to say: 'But would you have preferred the others to win? Would you want to live in a world where Hitler had won? And where the gas chambers would have continued to operate? Really? If you tell me that sincerely, I'm fine with it, okay. But I want to see which readers of Pansa's books would answer yes to that question."

"(About Naples) I think it has such a magnificent tradition of hybridization in its nature that this discussionseems particularly fruitful to me, and also because Naples has always been very lively from a cultural point of view: I am thinking of the Aragonese cultural circle. Rome has hardly ever been a cultural capital, but Naples has. It also has very strong ties with the East, and there is a tradition of philosophical reflection on freedom. It is a capital of thought, and it is no coincidence that a free spirit like Leopardi chose this city. It has traditions that endure alongside extreme avant-garde movements."

"(About Giulio Andreotti) Opposed to general ideas, pragmatic and realistic like few others, with his own streak of “Catholic Giolittism”."

"Mrs Gandhi was moving closer to the West. Even within the non-aligned countries, she was forging ever stronger ties with the world of European democracies. :*In Italy, grief but also fears for the future, “'L'Unità”', 1 November 1984"

"There can be no united Italy without the foundation laid by Garibaldi. The Garibaldi legend is, in reality, the only national thread running through our modern history."

"Solve the mystery of the Mig23 and you will have found the key to discovering the truth about Ustica."

"It will be under the aegis of the invincible Axis, the new Europe of Law, Justice, Freedom and Love. The Europe of the future, which is the goal of that bloc of countries headed by the tripartite pact between Italy, Germany and Japan."

"Yes: the case of Prezzolini was one of the most significant in contemporary culture in our country. Prezzolini embodied a constant critical and sceptical need in a world of culture increasingly tending towards conformism and orthodoxy, or rather conformism and orthodoxies."

"(About Carlo Donat-Cattin) A man who constantly fought to maintain a strong link between institutional structures and the needs of the world of work."

"(About Bettino Ricasoli) Grumpy, reclusive, wild: almost always shut away in his Brolio, from which he rarely descended, and with the calculated slowness of a sovereign. But the only one who exercised undisputed authority over all the other notables of Tuscany: “the only eminent individual known, revered and esteemed in Italy and abroad” (as Celestino Bianchi, his devoted secretary and incomparable collaborator, would say a few years later, even though he would not grant him the intimacy of “tu” in return for his many services). He was also the court of last resort in all doubtful or difficult cases, such as during the days of bloodshed and tension that followed the Aspromonte incident. (I partiti politici nella Firenze capitale, Ch. II, pp. 82-83)"

"Ricasoli embodied the concept of the modern state, which does not tolerate limitations and competition from other powers, which is based on the irreplaceable and pre-eminent values of civil morality, which replaces religious morality with military discipline, which attributes to the authority of the officer the value of priestly authority, which contrasts combatants with missionaries, the armed forces to the regular clergy, and universities to seminaries and convents. (Appendix, 1. Ricasoliana, Ch. I, p. 262)"

"If Mazzini is the prophet of the left, Ricasoli can rightly be considered the prophet of the right: among all the successors of Cavour, among all the politicians who governed the new state in the fifteen years from 1861 to 1876, among all those who appeared “moderate” and in reality carried out the only profound revolution in our history, the Tuscan baron is the only one who inspired his political action with a religious conception of life, the only one who instilled in the acts of power a secret “reformist mysticism”, such as to justify all his audaciousness and allow all his conquests. (Appendix, 1. Ricasoliana, Ch. I, p. 277)."

"Nothing more than messianic socialism, socialism that aims at a golden age, a city of sunshine, perfect justice, nothing more than such socialism repels the Christian conception. Christianity, due to its insurmountable pessimistic prejudice, cannot even conceive of the total salvation and liberation of men on earth, and by virtue of an earthly order. Hell is the punishment for violated charity. Only punishment can achieve justice. Eternal damnation is the great disciplinary force of the world. (I, I; p. 16)"

"Charity and forgiveness: this is the “socialism” of Christ, this is Christian society. In life there is not, there cannot be, absolution (only God will absolve); but there can be, there is, and there will be an amnesty, a daily amnesty. Life is a punishment (this is the meaning of original sin, the deepest interpretation of human pain): but it is a punishment that is pardoned in life and absolved in death. This is the greatest justice. (I, I; p. 17)"

"The purpose of the Church, the sole and supreme repository of revelation, remains in any case to summarise and resolve politics in religion. But the purpose of the State, of any State worthy of the name, is precisely the same, reversed: to resolve religion in politics, God in man. Every State is also a Church; political authority is necessarily moral authority; political history logically takes the form of “sacred history”. Its political ends are also moral and religious: they encompass and reabsorb within themselves all possible morality and religion. (I, I; p. 20)"

"Nothing contrasts more with the Christian conception of hope in the earthly paradise, in the kingdom of freedom and justice. None of the liberal and secularist philosophies escapes the sin of Adam. Every revolution hides the temptation of Eden. On the contrary, the only freedom left to the believer is that of ascending to God to achieve justice. (I, I; p. 21)"

"This is why the Reformation, which frees man from authority on the religious level, creates the conditions for Marxist rebellion, in that it frees men from all fear of higher forces regulating social life and launches them into a conflict without rules and without restraint, aimed at conquering humanly perfect orders. (I, I; p. 27)"

"It is the bourgeoisie that has opposed its morals to those of the Church, its philosophy to that of Catholicism, its politics to that of Christianity, within the framework of an entirely secular and earthly conception of life. The “people”, who represent the antithesis of the bourgeois spirit, the “moral protest” against the law of force, are best qualified to embody the values of Christian ethics, which alone, by devaluing the world, ideally allows for the peaceful coexistence of men on earth. It is no coincidence that “populism” is the socially permanent tendency of the Church: only the people can implement Christian teaching, which is one of renunciation and poverty. (I, I; p. 32)"

"But by abolishing property, the Church would legitimise an overly vivid hope in an overly “just” world. Catholic socialism has an insurmountable limitation: Christian pessimism. The idea of happiness is beyond this perspective. But not that of balance, with the mediation of charity. Christian socialism is ultimately nothing more than this: the search for a social balance that saves charity. (I, I; p. 33)"

"So what? Is not Christian socialism the most powerful explosive charge against bourgeois society, which is based on the idea of confrontation and the reality of luxury, enjoyment, pleasure, vain and superfluous things? When Leo XIII praises the worker, he always takes as his example “the frugal and well-behaved worker”. (I, III; p. 57)"

"The Reformation, through Calvin, had laid the foundations of capitalism, legitimising individual initiative aimed at any goal, sanctifying the effort and daring of the individual even if it aimed at greatness and domination, consecrating gain and success as signs of predestination and divine election. By rejecting the modern State and capitalism, the Papacy rejects the very principle of “struggle” that underpinned both. The new social order, conceived by Catholic socialism, resolves the struggle and dissolves the state itself. It is a challenge to Protestantism. The Church, which has always opposed the Faustian conception of life, the reduction of existence to the category of war, the idea of progress and becoming, the principle of competition, selection and class struggle, and action as the measure of the world, the Church aims to achieve its greatest victory by once again launching and imposing its message of peace, love, brotherhood, and charity. (I, III; p. 59)"

"On a historical level, what is communism if not the last heir of the Reformation, Romanticism and classical German philosophy? By definition, it is the sworn enemy of the Church. Its foundation is the state; its principle is revolution; its method is struggle; its ideal is immanence; its goal is justice. (I, III; p. 64)"

"In the eyes of the Enlightenment thinkers themselves, it was clear that the revolt against authority, the basis of their polemic, could only escape the temptations of anarchism by falling back on the contemplation of an absolute model of justice that would frame human life, giving it meaning and justification. It is the unlimited faith in the “'law”', in the equality of all before the law, that alone legitimises the function of the State and elevates it from the political to the moral plane, rightly making it “part of the heavenly”. The “general will”, the powerful idea that must justify the source of power, will coincide with a law of nature and become the very expression of natural fatality. Thus was born the “mystique of democracy”, which found its point of origin in The Social Contract and its historical conclusion in universal suffrage. Law and freedom became one and the same: absolutism no longer had any reason to exist. (II, I; p. 78)"

"Religious criticism denies mystery; historical criticism destroys legend; literary criticism dissolves creation: it is the era in which secularism reacts to ancient traditions and conventions in the name of “fully explained reason”. Salvation is sought in erudition, which demolishes prophecies and ghosts. The demands of faith are resolved in the thirst for knowledge: the problematic nature of life allows the unity of religion to be overcome. Dogma, the unity consecrated in dogma, is answered with faith in antinomy, with an awareness of multiplicity, with the torment of contradictions that are at the basis of the human spirit and are only resolved on the plane of history. (II, II; p. 91)"

"The cause of authority is sacred to the Church, inasmuch as a ray of God lives in authority. (II, III; p. 102)."

"Adrienne had a very high spirituality with many mystical manifestations (including stigmata). By conversing assiduously with her and noting down her confidences, B. slowly developed his own theological vision."

"My latest book is entitled La Trinità: Mistero d'Amore (The Trinity: Mystery of Love) and has been reprinted for a second edition. Of all the books I have written (more than a hundred), this is the most beautiful and the most original. I also consider it my ‘masterpiece’. The mystery of the Trinity is a mystery of Love, which is realised and expressed in the Three Divine Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the basic idea of the book, the idea that inspired me: total Love; Love, in the strongest sense of the term, is truly everything!"

"While man is clearly a finite being, in self-transcendence he reveals himself to be “'capax infiniti”'. Self-transcendence “together with culture and freedom, is the third characteristic trait that clearly separates man from animals: man constantly surpasses himself ... in everything he does, thinks, says, knows, loves and achieves."

"[Natural law] does not come from outside (and therefore is not heteronomous) but from within (and in this sense is autonomous: it is the law that reason itself gives to man or, better still, it is the law that man himself gives himself through his own reason): it is not the result of arduous and abstruse speculation and its perception is so easy that it appears almost intuitive. :*Quoted in Giuseppe Brienza, “”Who was Battista Mondin, missionary and theologian“”, “'Formiche.net”', 4 February 2015."

"Negative theology and positive theology are almost like the wheels of a bicycle. Just as a bicycle cannot move forward if the two wheels do not turn together, so there can be no valid theology if the negative and positive approaches are not used together. The positive path alone leads to anthropomorphism, idolatry, and blasphemy. The negative path leads to agnosticism and atheism."

"Only with God and in God can man hope to fulfil himself. The study and knowledge of God are the burning embers that (together with worship and prayer) fuel the flame of our hope."

"Parmenides reaches the highest peak: it is the peak of being, the culmination of metaphysics. Parmenides is the first to conquer this marvellous peak, which, after him, all the other great metaphysicians will also attempt to reach. Parmenides is aware of the greatness of his achievement. [...] Parmenides reached this highest peak not through the senses but through reason. (p. 70)"

"Socrates is not a metaphysician in the traditional sense [...] and yet the epithet “metaphysician” rightfully belongs to him, because his study of man goes far beyond the field of science and penetrates the deepest roots of human being and action. (p. 120)"

"Plato is the supreme philosopher, the philosopher par excellence. Undoubtedly, the figure of Aristotle also shines with brilliant splendour. But [...] no other philosopher has influenced the destiny of Western philosophy as much as Plato. His epistemological, metaphysical, ethical, political and aesthetic doctrines, assimilated by Christianity, have become a permanent legacy of medieval and modern culture. The figure of Plato is fundamental, gigantic and multifaceted. In addition to the history of philosophy, it also affects the history of poetry, literature and the Greek language. […] Plato's extraordinary greatness has been recognised throughout the ages. (p. 139)"

"The long and patient exploration of the spiritual world led classical Metaphysics, in its final phase, to the discovery of God: the one God (the One, the Good) of Plotinus, Porphyry and Proclus. (introduction, p. 5)"

"There is a faith that is enriched by the concepts of reason, and there is a reason that is enriched by the gifts of faith. (introduction, p. 6)"

"Christianity is a religion and not a philosophy: an act of salvation (a Heilsgeschichte) and not philosophical speculation. Its goal is not, like philosophy, to provide an exhaustive explanation of reality, but to establish a relationship of communion between man and God. (introduction, p. 7)"

"Christianity reveals many mysteries that are completely inaccessible to reason. Such are the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation, sanctifying grace, the Mystical Body, and the resurrection of the flesh. (introduction, p. 7)"

"It is in Christianity that the spirit becomes self-transparent consciousness, a reality ‘in and of itself’ (to use the language of Hegel), free initiative and absolute freedom. (introduction, p. 9)"

"The concept of person is an acquisition of Christianity. Historically, the word ‘person’ marks the dividing line between pagan and Christian culture. (introduction, p. 9)"

"In both Greek and Latin, up until Tertullian, the meaning given to the term “”person“” (which is the equivalent of the Greek “'prosopon”') was that of ‘mask’ or ‘face’. (introduction, p. 9)"

"Only thanks to the concept of persona – a being endowed with dignity and absolute value – brought by Christianity, which makes all men images of God created directly by Him, do all forms of discrimination based on sex, age, race, language, power, wealth, religion, etc. All men are equally worthy of esteem, respect and love, even their enemies, especially the weakest, the poorest, the most humble and defenceless. (introduction, p. 10)"

"It is from the new truths contained in the great philosophical potential of Christianity that Christian metaphysics derives its main characteristics. It will always be a “'creationist”', “'personalistic”', “'spiritualistic”' and “'agapic”' metaphysics. (introduction, p. 15)"

"The cradle of Christian metaphysics was Alexandria, Egypt. When Christianity was born, this city was the most important cultural centre of the Roman Empire, having taken the place that had previously been held by Athens. (p. 21)"

"At the school of Philo, Christian doctors from Alexandria learned to do philosophy and to develop Christian metaphysics, creating a synthesis between Greek philosophy and the philosophical potential of Christianity. (p. 22)"

"The main merit of the school of Alexandria is that it created theological science, granting Christian citizenship to philosophy and building a solid Christian metaphysics. (p. 23)"

"The God of Clement's Christian metaphysics is endowed with intelligence, will, freedom, power and goodness. (p. 32)"

"Origen embraces the key principle of Christian metaphysics, the theorem of creation. With Clement, he affirms that everything that is not God was drawn from nothing. He is the only principle of all things. (p. 55)"

"Great metaphysical creations always coincide with the golden age of a civilisation. Whereas the disappearance of Metaphysics is one of the most eloquent signs of a civilisation's decline. (prologue, p. 7)"

"The transition from one era to another is never instantaneous. Epochs are historical periods spanning several centuries, and cultural transitions last a few centuries. (p. 9)"

"There are two salient features of Renaissance culture that influence Metaphysics speculation: spiritual unrest and the secularisation of culture. (p. 10)"

"Humanism remains a deeply religious and essentially Christian culture. However, the shift in the cultural epicentre – from God to man – generates a new spirituality marked by tensions and anxieties unknown in the previous era. (p. 10)"

"Another peculiarity of humanistic culture is its partial “'secularisation”', which occurs on three levels: in places, in people and in disciplines. (p. 11)"

"The substance of Nicholas of Cusa“s thought is above all Christian and Platonic. And the term 'substance” is used here in its proper and rigorous sense. In fact, in Cusano's system, Platonism constitutes a substantial element and not simply a formal and expressive one. (p. 18)"

"Philosophy is an inventory of thoughts in the flow of life."

"Poor Nietzsche! He was the only philosopher who had the singular privilege of being held responsible for nothing less than a world war."

"After history has taught us that possession of the Truth often produces fanaticism, and that an individual armed with truth is a potential terrorist, one is led to ask: are relativism and nihilism really the radical evil that we are led to believe? Or do they not also produce an awareness of the relativity of every point of view, and therefore of every religion? And so, do they not convey respect for the point of view of others and, therefore, the fundamental value of tolerance? There is beauty even in relativism and nihilism: they inhibit fanaticism."

"His [Nietzsche's] criticism of the “herd” mentality and morality, his defence of what we might call a “right to excellence”, is an attempt to overcome the sterility of simple prohibition, self-denial and renunciation, which mortify life. Nietzsche wants life to be realised in all its potential. He therefore recommends a “creative” attitude that gives life its fullness, similar to that of the artist who imprints a beautiful form on his work. In this sense, his new morality is a kind of “aesthetics of existence” whose imperative recommends: “Become what you are!” And even if life is not beautiful, it is up to us to try to make it so."

"One of the problems of the current Church is that the production of happiness has slipped out of its hands. But it is not Nietzsche's fault that the power of the Gospels is fading and the condition of Western man is becoming increasingly paganised."

"Profound thoughts in a light-hearted soul, that was Franco. You could see it in his face, because even his features matched: a large, high forehead, a compact face that would break into a slight but sincere smile at the slightest thing, eyes that sparkled behind his glasses. He was like that even at Pigafetta High School in Vicenza, a year ahead of us in '53. We would bump into each other during break time and, amid the flood of nonsense, jokes and silly pranks, he stood out because he was smart. He was the prototype not of a good student, but of a boy who had something extra: I never thought of Franco as a nerd, far from it: he was sociable, witty, and sharp in the unwitting contests of intelligence. You found yourself listening to him naturally: you were silent and he spoke, making Giuseppe Faggin's beautiful lessons even more digestible."

"The right-thinking are irritated by the nonconformist's lack of predictability, even by his occasional failure to show himself as such."

"The Buddha was a proponent of simple, direct teaching aimed at liberation and free of theoretical frills: his intent was purely pragmatic. His distrust of various speculative positions, which could be reduced to mere opinions, is well known. (p. 26)"

"If one wanted to summarise the essence of Buddhism in one sentence, it could only be this: everything that is transient is painful. In fact, after all, suffering (“”dukkha“”) is nothing more than transience. (p. 27)"

"The Doctrine (“”Dhamma“”) allows one to attain a state in which suffering can no longer take root, because one embraces eternity. “”nibbàna“”, liberation, is nothing more than this imperishable state, removed from the becoming of things. (p. 27)"

"After all, “'nibbàna”' is not a concept: this is why attempts to illustrate it through language and logic lend themselves to various misunderstandings. Some Buddhists understand it literally: as a state of “extinction”, comparable to the extinguishing of a flame. Yet the Buddha often criticised proponents of the nihilistic interpretation: “nibbàna” should not be conceived as pure nothingness. [...] It does not designate the abyss of a void, nor a worldly dimension comparable to those that exist: it can simply be said that pain is definitively eliminated there. (pp. 72-73)"

"[The Buddha] advised bhikkhus to be an island (“'dìpa”') or a refuge for themselves. After his passing, their only support or bulwark would be the Dhamma. His legitimate successors would ultimately be only those who had managed to take refuge in the Dhamma, that is, in themselves. (p. 75)"

"The Master wanted to provoke our critical spirit so that, by studying his doctrine, we could probe ourselves. [...] In Great Vehicle Buddhism, the need for such an orientation was recognised. For example, an important passage from a collection of Ch'an, a school of Chinese Buddhism, points to the need to free oneself from attachment to the Dhamma as well. Until one forgets even the Dharma, one still cultivates a sense of self, that is, the illusion of constituting a separate individuality in relation to other creatures. One becomes attached to a vision, an opinion, and is incapable of uniting, in perfect compassion, with all beings. (p. 88)"

"Patañjali, or whoever wrote on his behalf, seems to follow a “Kantian” line of thought: it is necessary to understand that knowledge is attributable to a subject; but this activity is not creative, and must take into account an objectively existing world. (pp. 10-11)"

"In Yoga there is a precise correspondence between theory and practice. This is far from the case with those European philosophers who admired India, such as Schopenhauer, who limited himself to ethical indications, while Yoga goes into the details of a method of the body and mind, of consciousness. (p. 17)"

"Yoga implies objectless subjectivism, calling into question the transpersonal components of being. The self, the centre of an identity that is not only ours, is naked. (p. 44)"

"The entire work is a treatise on perception, on optimal cognitive modes that replace erroneous ones. (p. 55)"

"The comparison between Yasser Arafat and Giuseppe Mazzini does not hold up. Mazzini was opposed to the terrorist plans of certain factions of the Carbonari. In fact, he generally disapproved of the Carbonari and broke with them. This is one of his historical merits. He wanted an association, the “Giovine Italia”, which would call for open political struggle. This also included the use of arms against absolutist and tyrannical governments that did not allow any freedom. But it was an armed struggle aimed at mobilising public opinion, not at physically suppressing opponents."

"They were just idealists. In addition to a political organisation, Arafat administers large financial interests under the banners of petrodollars, sheikhs and, in general, Arab states that are anything but democratic. Israel is much more so."

"Of course, it would be good to evacuate the territories occupied in the 1967 war, with the exception of Jerusalem, which is a special case. But this cannot be expected if an organisation that practises terrorism against Israel and whose aim is the destruction of that state is established in these territories. No one can be asked to commit suicide."

"I am the first to criticise Israeli policy in the West Bank, the settlements, the restrictions on democratic freedoms, everything that is reactionary and repressive. I criticise Israel's very presence in those territories. But I do not demand its suicide."

"Israel is not Austria, which kept Lombardy-Veneto under its heel. It is like the constitutional Austria of 1867, which opened its Parliament to minorities, to the Italians of Trento, Trieste and Pola. No one denies the Palestinians living in the occupied territories the right to irredentism. I fully recognise that. But under that Austria, would Italian irredentists have done well to resort to terrorism? Even in Trieste, many distanced themselves from Oberdan's plan to assassinate the king. His attempt would have had dramatic consequences if it had been carried out."

"Moderation is needed to resolve the Middle East conflict. As things stand today, the PLO is an obstacle to peace. If it does not renounce armed struggle and terrorism, if it does not give Israel security guarantees within agreed borders, it must be excluded from Hussein's negotiations."

"[...] Croce always felt at ease with artists who were fully “sliricati”, totally adhering to a fundamental motif, to a unified state of mind. Artists such as Ludovico Ariosto and Giovanni Verga seemed to have been born especially for him because every page they wrote contained him in his entirety. (p. 43)"

"Croce, for his part, was less Crocean than many of his followers because his temperament and taste were almost never overwhelmed by his theoretical schemes. (p. 46)"

"Years ago, a curious debate took place in England: the poet Eliot wondered how it was possible to admire the work of a poet (in this case Goethe) whose ideas and conception of life were not accepted. The problem was declared insoluble. Yet the problem had already been solved by Marx, an admirer of Greek tragedy, which arose from a social structure and a conception of the world that was certainly not his own. Even Friedrich Nietzsche did not deny the art of Richard Wagner when he declared that Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg was an attack on civilisation, and he did not pose the problem because he recognised that there is no necessary cause-and-effect relationship between aesthetic admiration and ethical consent. In any case, such a problem cannot arise in Italy because Croce has been there. (p. 51)"

"An internationally renowned novelist, Arthur Koestler, whose most popular book earned him a flattering review from Benedetto Croce, recounted in “The Earth's Foam” how Croce's philosophy was our daily topic of conversation even in the concentration camp. (p. 59)"

"Prisons are places conducive to reading philosophical texts. Silvio Spaventa, Croce's uncle, spent his years of life imprisonment well, meditating on the works of Hegel. (p. 61)"

"Often, people find it in their interest not to think, or they lack the energy and intellectual perseverance necessary to think seriously. But if they think, overcoming the practical obstacles that stand in the way of thinking, they can arrive at the truth. (p. 67)"

"If thought is truth, then, if it encountered no obstacles, it would consist in the contemplation of itself. (p. 68)"

"Carlo Antoni noted in his essays on Croce that the struggle over the distinction between activity and between ethical and economic-political practice initially changed, unnoticed by its author, the perspective of the entire edifice. Turning, in “'Filosofia della pratica”', with still only speculative interests, to the consideration of politics, Croce was critical, above all, of humanitarian, Enlightenment, egalitarian democracy. (p. 72)"

"Among the sailors and workers of Kronstadt, who rose up in early 1921 against the party's totalitarian dictatorship, there were many who had fought in the ranks of the Bolsheviks at the beginning of the Soviet revolution. Trotsky, who led the fierce repression of this rebellion, nevertheless succeeded in portraying them as instruments of the counter-revolution. (pp. 104-105)"

"As leader of the victorious Red Army, and as an overwhelming public speaker and brilliant writer, Trotsky, who before joining Bolshevism in 1917 had been an independent left-wing socialist, enjoyed great popularity. However, he lacked the skills for behind-the-scenes manoeuvring, faction-building, intrigue and cunning, which, especially in a dictatorship where open dissent and public political debate are prohibited, counted more than anything else. These were qualities, if they can be called that, which the party's general secretary, Stalin, possessed in abundance. (p. 105)"

"Stalin improvised the economic programme with top-down planning for rapid industrialisation and the forced collectivisation of the countryside, accompanied by the physical liquidation of millions of reluctant peasants. It was a new civil war won by the totalitarian state, which propaganda, as false as it was effective, defined as the immediate realisation of socialism, arousing waves of genuine enthusiasm among the younger generation and, at the same time, using coercive measures of unlimited brutality. (p. 106)"

"Vittorio de Caprariis, Eugenio Montale, Leo Valiani, Benedetto Croce, Edizioni di Comunità, 1963."

"Leo Valiani, Terrore a porte chiuse, in Storia illustrata, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Milano, n. 339, February 1986, pp. 104-112."

"In reality, Croce made a graft. The distinction became dialectical transition, opposition and overcoming. The vital and economic moment, innocent in itself, became, in its collision with other forms, the negative, the ugly, the error, the evil. Humanistic harmony was broken, and the rupture of equilibrium, the internal contrast, became the driving force of becoming and overcoming... But above all, one must ask whether the “graft”, which is always an artificial operation, has really been successful. This is the question that dramatically troubled Benedetto Croce until the very end."

"In his essays on Croce, Carlo Antoni noted that the struggle over the distinction between activity, and between ethical and economic-political practice, initially changed the author's perspective on the entire structure, albeit inadvertently. Turning, in “'Filosofia della pratica”', with still only speculative interests, to the consideration of politics, Croce was critical, above all, of humanitarian, Enlightenment-inspired, egalitarian democracy."

"As if it were Trento in the first decade of the 20th century, just before the war that was to “return” it (!) to Italy, it may seem strange and paradoxical, but I – a Florentine and Tuscan by birth, I believe, from the middle Valdarno area for several generations (people who came from Signa, perhaps as far away as Pescia in Valdinievole) – know this quite well. I know a few things about this city of about thirty thousand inhabitants, which even for those in the region must have seemed like a semi-metropolis, if only because it looked like a city and not a large village. And to some extent, in addition to the beautiful and severe memories of its prince-bishops who had embellished it over the centuries and the Habsburg imprint that had been strong since 1777, when the prerogatives of temporal power had passed to Empress Maria Theresa, was the strong garrison of the imperial army, with 3,000 soldiers who alone made up 10% of the population. Between the Italian population and the Austro-Germans (officers and civil servants, above all, as well as a few innkeepers and tailors who served the garrison), there was a relationship of correct neighbourliness, but also of mutual segregation. It was not that they hated each other, but rather that they ignored each other."

"How can we talk about the system born of the Enlightenment as the best of all possible worlds, when we all know that communism and Nazism are also children of the Enlightenment? We can even say that they are degenerate children, fine: but when we have historical evidence showing us that there are no optimal systems, from what perspective can we continue down this path?"

"It is dignity that forms the basis of authentic and non-abstract equality: a possible and concrete equality, since absolute and perfect equality does not exist and, if it did, it would be horrible."

"It is true that there was already a divide between the north and the south, but it is no less true that the unification of Italy was paradoxically achieved by accentuating this divide. The real industrial take-off of the north took place with money and labour from the south, and this gap has actually widened. The fight against brigandage was something horrible. The royal army, the royal carabinieri and the royal bersaglieri behaved like a colonial army. These things need to be said and taught in schools."

"(About Costanzo Preve) [...] a philosopher of profound, rigorous and severe training, is, on the other hand, a citizen who knows well that civic courage, far from being a virtue, is simply a duty; and that study can never be an alibi for hiding in well-tended inner gardens while, around us, iron and fire are unleashed."

"The truly historical character – also and perhaps even above all from the point of view of civil, social and ethical history: “national identity”, as we would say today – of Camporesi's reading of Artusi is particularly highlighted and, so to speak, summarised in the famous statement by Camporesi that “”'Science in the Kitchen'“ did more for national unification than ”'I Promessi Sposi . Artusi's tastes, in fact, succeeded in creating a code of national identification where Manzoni's stylistic and phonetic features failed."

"The Great Conspiracy, we can be (almost) certain, does not exist; there is no Table (neither round nor of any other geometric shape) around which Unknown Superiors sit. But there are plenty of plans and programmes formulated to serve the particular interests of lobbies and corporations by individuals and groups who count outside and above internal and international legality, however much the mass media try to prevent their existence and activities from becoming known. [...] In other words, one might ask what is the relationship between the actual power held and exercised today by the government of the United States of America and the process of globalisation. But in these terms, the question is poorly posed. The real and fundamental question is another: what are the real forces that support, partly control and partly directly constitute the government of the United States of America? Whose sovereign power does it represent, whose sovereign will does it execute, beyond the legal forms designed to legitimise it? Does it hold “imperial” power? Or is there, behind it, as behind other forces currently “present” in the world, an “invisible empire” that is in fact irresponsible – in the etymological sense of the term: that is, it is not accountable, it does not have to answer for its actions because no one is in a position to call it to account – before its subjects, who do not even know (or, at least, not clearly) that they are such?"

"The new Koranic spring, which we are witnessing in recent years, is a blessing for the world: also, and above all, for the other two Abrahamic faiths. Western modernity has caused a spread of agnosticism and atheism, which has undermined faith in God, but it has not eradicated forms of paganism, which have in fact resurfaced [...]. Believers in the God of Abraham throughout the world cannot but welcome the Muslim renaissance – beyond the political phenomena that accompany it but remain only ambiguously connected to it – as a revival of faith that was unthinkable only a few decades ago. [...] the faithful cannot but look with hope and confidence to every place where Almighty God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, is worshipped and prayed to, and where the covenant He made with Abraham, to which He has remained faithful, is strengthened day by day. The God of Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad."

"In the festival [...] the arcane becomes everyday, the mystery becomes visible. Who said there is no longer any place for myth?"

"We have no scientific reason to argue that one system is better than another, unless we rely on historical determinism or the law of the jungle, whereby the winner is right because he wins."

"When the idea of national unity was chosen in the nineteenth century, the identity of the peninsula, which had always been polycentric, was not respected. Naples never referred to Italy, but to the Mediterranean and Europe. The Neapolitans called themselves “regnicoli” (subjects of the kingdom), never Italians, and they were not."

"I know that mine, here and in this context, is a difficult task. Catholic, traditionalist, a man of order and with a strong sense of state, I could perhaps still call myself “right-wing”. For years I have not considered myself or described myself in this way, but I see that people continue to label me as such. I confess that this annoys me a little, but I let it go. But my commitment to social justice and my staunch Europeanism prevent me from feeling the slightest sympathy for a right wing that has now almost unanimously chosen the most unbridled liberalism and Atlanticism and that often flaunts a hypocritical, instrumental pro-Catholicism, revealing that they consider the Catholic Church to be nothing more than a bulwark of the established order (their “order”) and conformist right-thinking."

"[...] there are things in the media that can be spoken ill of with impunity: the Middle Ages is one of them. And this is done in order to speak ill of Christianity, which everyone feels entitled to spit on."

"Since 1965, I have not joined any political parties, although I feel a strong regret at not being able to identify with any of those available to me on the European scene. For many years now, I have simply defined myself as Catholic, pro-European and socialist. :*Introduction to “'Neofascismo e neoantifascismo”', La Vela, Viareggio, 2018."

"He was a great philologist and had edited the critical edition of Beowulf. In short, he was a remarkable scholar who suddenly wrote a novel: a path made famous in Italy by Umberto Eco, but well rooted in the Romantic and nineteenth-century tradition."

"Tolkien was a member of the Oxford Christians, a Catholic and a conservative. He was part of that rural solidarity movement, linked to the neighbourhood and traditions, which has been important in English politics since the time of Coleridge. The “Shire” in the book is an idealised England, which is ultimately destroyed by rampant industrialisation. Moreover, Tolkien was anything but simple politically: he was conservative, yes, but anti-totalitarian. Letters to Father Christmas is in fact a book against Hitler. If this seems obvious, it is worth remembering that in 1930s England, many Catholics of South African origin - like Tolkien - were pro-Hitler. He, on the other hand, understood very well the demonic, Faustian aspect of Nazism."

"The paradoxical thing is that Tolkien, now a mass phenomenon, was a niche writer: he wrote by hand and did the illustrations for his books himself. Above all, he wrote not only for himself, but also for his colleagues and students at Oxford, for people trained to recognise all the references and quotations. In short, he wrote for an elite, and it is worth bearing this in mind when reading him today."

"I owe my love for the Middle Ages first and foremost to Joan of Arc."

"Why Joan? Why this girl in the 15th century, clad in iron and burned at the stake by order of the Inquisition, then rehabilitated by a subsequent ruling, then canonised [...], later becoming an emblem first of traditionalist Catholics, then of anti-clerical populists, then of the right, then of the left, then of patriotic gatherings, then of feminist movements? Does it make sense to revive, at the turn of the second and third millennia, this young woman born on the borders of France and elevated to a central symbol of the French nation [...]? (p. 3)"

"My Joan is that of a boy who loved parish cinemas and those in the suburbs – the only ones he could afford – between the 1940s and 1950s. For this reason, she will forever have the face of Ingrid Bergman, discovered shortly after 1952 in Fleming's Technicolour blockbuster – admired, moreover, in a cut-up third version – and then seen again, in a completely different interpretation and with a very different intensity, in Roberto Rossellini's 1954 film, which, through the text of Paul Claudel, reinterpreted the allegories of medieval sacred representations. (p. 4)"

"But, between Fleming and Rossellini, I had discovered France [...] during a school trip in 1953 [...]. And that young woman, gilded in gold, high on the great horse of the monument in Place des Pyramides, fascinated me; just as I was moved by the images taken almost entirely from Ingres's swift painting and replicated in a thousand ways [...] in all the churches of France. (p. 4)"

"The Maid of Orléans [...] continues to jealously guard her maidenhood, the intimate and profound core of her vocation. I am left with a deep doubt that I have not understood her: but running after her, retracing old written pages and old paths between the Vosges and Normandy, has perhaps helped me to rediscover a part of myself that I thought was lost or vanished. For this too I must be grateful to her. (p. 6)"

"Even from these and individually from the Tartars of Niuche called Chin, who are more eastern, China is defended by hand ammunition, that is, the famous wall, which is worth discussing here. The head or founder of the imperial Cin family, one of the most ancient, a prince renowned for his prowess in arms and his works of more than royal magnificence, glorious above all others in Chinese history and for various reasons remembered by scholars, whether it was a dream he had or a prediction made by soothsayers (on which writers disagree, and perhaps there was nothing more than a good omen of providence), foresaw that the Tartars, as soon as the opportunity arose, would make every effort to break through the borders and descend to flood and fill China with their nation. Therefore, after consulting with his great heart, he decided not only to close the borders to them in the present but also to build a shelter that would secure them for centuries to come. He determined to arm those northern borders with a wall that would be invincible against both the Tartars and the weather. He did not delay in setting to work."

"It is interspersed with very strong and thick towers, which rise above the wall in beautiful proportion and space and height; and there are perpetually garrisoned soldiers, as many as are needed to defend the many passages of the curtain wall that flank the tower they guard. There are also very strong castles defending the few gates that had to be opened in the wall."

"I have never wanted to fight anyone, neither in open battle nor in a duel. But if ever I did, it would certainly not be with Grammarians; terrible men, like those whose words are not words, but deeds. And may God protect me from ever provoking them; for they are quick to anger, and if they take up their open dictionaries, as if they were Michele Scotto's Scongiuratore, just by opening them, they bring forth, like spirits ready to obey their every command, so many, I do not say nouns and verbs, but nicknames and proverbs, that it would be less dangerous to find oneself in the midst of a swarm of angry hornets than among them."

"[...] the most beautiful part of a discourse is the beauty of the subject: and those who work with their brains know from experience that an ingenious subject wonderfully sharpens the intellect and it seems almost as if the noble subject itself provides thoughts worthy of itself, ambitious to be treated nobly."

"Great mutations must be undertaken with great counsel and proceed slowly in order to proceed safely: otherwise, instead of one good from a wise man, two evils from a fool are encountered, which are to decide without judgement and to repent without remedy."

"There are a hundred thorns for every rose."

"(About the Great Wall of China) All walled with square stones, strong enough to withstand any torment of air and water; and, whether true or plausible, it is nevertheless rumoured among the Chinese that King Cin ordered the execution of the master builders of the work if, where one stone meets and fits together with another, the joints were so loose that a nail could be driven into them: which, even if it is nothing more than an expression of exaggeration, would still have no reason to be feigned, if the squaring and fitting of the marble were not exquisitely executed."

"The two boundless oceans, which descend from opposite sides of Africa and meet at this Cape of Good Hope, collide with each other with such furious force, as you can see here. Alps, I would say, and [Apennines] of waves, driven to break against each other: with which the storm is so strangely disrupted that there is no rule of art for turning the rudder that is sufficient to receive it with a slanted side and dampen the impetus of the furious beating of the waves. Here, then, the sea is as deep as an abyss, and full of terrible monsters, heralds of the approaching storm, when they raise their heads and gasp, and throw a river of water into the air with their great trumpets: sometimes so many together, as I have witnessed, that as far as the eye can see to the last edge of the horizon, everything appears crowded with such hideous creatures. On land, everything is rocks, mountains and cliffs of inaccessible height, cut vertically into the sea, so that the breaking of the waves against their sides causes a formidable crash that terrifies and deafens us. Along them runs a violent south-westerly current, which, when it meets the sea pushed against it and the opposing wind, either rebounds or overcomes them, doubling the fury of the storm and causing the waves to boil and swirl in such violent and rapid circles that each of them, when it pulls down any large ship, is a Charybdis. Finally, this endless ocean, which stretches from here to who knows how far beyond the Antarctic, is an open field for the winds to battle, which, being unbroken and unobstructed, are all the more capable of turning the sea upside down, as they have no obstacle to break their course and their forces. (Part I, Chapter XII, “Capo di Buona Speranza”; 1664, pp. 176-177)"

"I would not want you to falsely imagine that seeing the Antipodes, where I am now taking you, would cost us a journey of at least eleven thousand miles, which is the distance from here to the opposite side of the world. This is quite the opposite of the truth; indeed, the way to never reach them is to go there, and the reason for this is very clear: because there are no Antipodes, except [opposite] feet against feet; nor can they be [opposed] except on the points of the earth's diameter: therefore we must be half a world away. (Part I, Chapter XIX, “'The Antipodes”'; 1664, p. 295)"

"[...] with the finest artistry, not only concealed or hidden, but lost within it, that body (of the Colossus of Rhodes) appeared, like the men of Deucalion from stones, born of himself by divine teaching. And to say nothing of the well-understood proportion of his limbs, all corresponding to the most perfect natural form; and of the softness and sensitivity, without one discordant with the other; and of the lively and spirited attitude with which he posed and stood upright; his face was tempered with such a beautiful and, above all, difficult mixture of air that it was impossible to distinguish which was more dominant in him: the lovable, rightly desired in an effigy of the Sun, or the majestic, equally due to the face of a God. (Part I, Chapter XX, “Rhodes”; 1664, p. 308)"

"[...] this incomparable King of the Mountains, Atlas towering above us. Behold how he rises up, how he rears himself, and how his proud head [raises] and turns towards the ever-feared and ever-hostile Europe, in an act of recognition and spying: and how he spreads his immense back towards that jealous frontier of his Africa, in the act of securing and defending it with his shoulders. However much we see of him, he is neither the whole of Atlas, nor more than that; but only the summit. (from “'L'Atlante,”' p. 79)"

"Here no sail is lowered, here no hand is removed from the oar, here no anchor is yet thrown to drop. Terra Incognita} Just to name it is to understand how much there is to know about it. Here are the shores of this sea, visible to the eye but not yet to the foot of anyone who knows it. If you are not satisfied with just seeing it, and you wish to venture forth to inquire about it, turn towards it and cry out: O you over there, what world is yours? What region? What country? Is it an island in the sea or mainland? Is it cultivated or uncultivated? Is it deserted, solitary, uninhabited or inhabited? And by what multitude of men? And of what language, customs, religion and God? Are there kings, magistrates, people; are there assemblies and cities, or do they live in uncertainty, like the Scythians, wandering and roaming? No one shows up to answer: so the answer is a profound silence, which is nevertheless the true answer to those who have good ears, because only by remaining silent can one say what it is, that is, Terra Incognita. Now, let us believe that this concealment of such a large part of the world is done for the sake of Nature's reputation; otherwise, as the Stoic said about philosophising about this great universe, “Pusilla res mundus est, nisi in illo quod quærat omnis mundus habeat” : thus, once the Earth has been completely discovered, it would cease to appear to us as a world, and we would begin to consider it as nothing much ,so much remains unknown in the North, so much in the South, so much in its parts far from the sea, and so many islands, small worlds in themselves, scattered and lost in the immensity of the ocean, as in the infinite spaces of the void, the worlds seen in their philosophical dreams by Democritus and Epicurus. Thus, one might say that the Earth is so great that for as many centuries as time has recorded in its annals, people have laboured to discover its parts, and yet God knows how many centuries remain for others to discover. (from “'Terra incognita”', pp. 330-331)"

"Here we lack only one [sign] to prove that we are on the barren shore of the much-sung and feared Lake Averno: what others, historians and poets, have written about it is confirmed here by the truth, and our eyes give us full faith in it. Here is the continuous circle of mountains, in whose deepest centre the lake lies, and remains so completely hidden that whether it is winter or summer, dawn or dusk, or the sun rises at midday, it can never be seen, even with a reflection of light, or be seen by it: therefore this unhappy water, in the melancholy brown that it always shows, seems to have the darkness of hell mixed in it to blacken it even more. Behold the thick forests that gather around it, and again blind it, doubling its shadows. Enclosed on all sides, it has nowhere to lead even a thin thread of water out, and move as if alive; but everything stagnates between its banks, everything within itself becomes swampy, and like a corpse of water, it stinks. Of the Cimmerians who have their dwellings nearby, I can only point with my finger and tell you that they live there in their underground caves: whether they are alive or dead, no one knows for sure, because their home is also their tomb. On this other side, it will be easy for you to recognise in that great cleft in the mountain the dark and frightening mouth, or rather chasm, into which anyone who has the courage to enter the bowels of the earth must throw himself, and descend alive, if he can, to the Elysian Fields, or else, and more likely, to Hell. All that is missing is to see some unwary flock of birds flying through the air that hangs over and broods over the lake, entering it and attracting the pestilential vapour that exhales from it, poisoning themselves and falling down, I know not whether stunned or dead. But to linger so long on this unhappy shore, with the stench of sulphur biting our brains and strangling us, would be to pay too high a price for our curiosity. (from “Il lago Averno”, p. 343)"

"There is only one path to the true: straight as a ray of light. Infinite and contrary are those that lead away from it to falsehood. (Book I, Chapter IV; 1659, p. 55)"

"The root, which fears so much that the sky will not see it, the sun will not touch it, the air will not harm it, well aware of what its ministry is, burrows deep underground, and in its tender birth, it pierces, penetrates, branches out, and spreads: and throws out so many trunks, branches, and roots everywhere that it looks like an upside-down, buried tree: and therefore it lives because it is buried, otherwise, if you dig it up, it dies. There it is the first foundation of the [fabrica] it supports, and well suited to it, that is, for the high, deep, for the wide, spread out, for the shocks from the whirlwinds, divided and firm on every side from which the wind blows: like the masts of ships, which are held by the rigging, which, like arms, grasp it from all sides and hold it steady. In addition to this, the root is all together what [in] animals is the mouth, the belly, and the liver. It sucks in food, cooks it, transmutes it into juice, indifferent to receiving the different forms of the different parts that derive from it. (Book I, Chapter VII; 1659, p. 97)"

"Hear: the day might seem too honoured with the works of the hand, of which the night is deprived, if the works of the mind were not given in exchange for those. The day therefore has its labours, the night its thoughts; and appropriate to each, the former has noise, the latter silence. (Book I, Chapter X; 1839, p. 97)"

"But before I bring you the snails, I must do as that wise painter Theon recounted by Aelianus, who did not reveal the image of a soldier in arms exposed to a large crowd eager to see it until a full choir of musicians had played a sonata in a martial style, as if challenging two armies to battle. When he saw that the spectators had conceived a certain martial spirit, he drew back the curtain from the painting and revealed the soldier in such a fierce act of charging the enemy that, as the historian describes him, he seemed to have lightning in his eyes and thunder in his right hand, so terrible was his gaze and formidable his sword, running in a manner and with a bearing befitting one carried away by the impetus of fury. Such was Theone's soldier, for which reason he first disposed the minds of the onlookers with that sonata inviting them to a true spectacle of battle. (Book I, Chapter XI; 1839, p. 101)"

"And has God not shown himself to be supremely admirable in varying in a hundred and more different ways the circling and coiling of a snail within itself? Could anything be more equal, more determined, more simple? And yet, in his hands, it has become capable of such great art. Some turn with volutes, one inside the other, as if they were twisting around a spindle: and as they proceed lengthwise, they become thinner and gradually taper to a point. Others, on the contrary, all return to themselves: and tell me, Archimedes, who wrote so ingeniously about them, who teaches them to draw a line so perfectly that it is not out of proportion in any way? Tell me, architects, who struggle so much to draw volutes with a ruler, and yet never anything but false ones, while, not knowing any better, they compose them from some part of a circle, and they are not circles, even though they are circular: who has instilled the rule in snails? Born masters of an art, of which they are not yet good disciples. (Book I, Chapter XI; 1659, pp. 173-174)"

"[...] working on Grotesque [...] everything is, one might say, a mosaic of disproportionate elements put together, all the more beautiful because the parts are taken from further afield and come together in more foolish forms. The neck of a crane sprouting from the stem of a flower, ending in a [scimia] head, with four snail horns that shoot fire: a peacock's tail blooming on an old man's chin as a beard, and a thick mop of coral hair; another has vine arms, twisted legs, and two little lights shining in the shell of a conch; a nose like a flute, ears like a pair of bat wings, and when he looks at himself in a net, he sees the image of a mammoth behind him: and such fantastical oddities, as painters are wont to imagine. But even in this, he needs wisdom, for just as not every tree can be grafted onto every other tree, so not every part can be well joined to every other part in the grotesque, and it must be whimsy, not nonsense, nor should the wisdom of [judgement] in arranging it be less prominent than the madness of ingenuity in inventing it. (Book I, Chapter XVI; 1659, pp. 284-285)"

"And since we want to know everything, let him take them out and show us his hands and measure them, if by chance they were like those of King Ahasuerus of Persia, that is, of Ahasuerus, husband of Esther, nicknamed Longimanus, because one hand was longer than the other; and understand why he gives sparingly to some, and only when necessary, either the help of grace or the goods we call fortune, while to others he gives abundantly, exceeding and overflowing. (Book II, Chapter III; 1839, pp. 201-202)"

"Regarding the sun Saint Anastasius of Sinai, he held a strange opinion that it was created by God here on earth, then lifted it up and transported it to the fourth heaven, where the virtue that lay low below could spread for the benefit of a few, spread for the benefit of all, and there was like the heart of nature, from whose vital heat it is animated and from whose spirits it has the vigour to move and operate. (Book II, Chapter VII; 1839, p. 240)"

"Bartoli represents the typical mentality of the seventeenth-century man of letters: marvellous mastery of form, absolute lack or deficiency of thought. One would not really say that he came into the world a generation after Galileo and Sarpi."

"The Marino of prose was Daniello Bartoli, a highly skilful and unsurpassed craftsman of periods and phrases, with a style that was both refined and ornate. He travelled to almost every corner of the earth and produced thousands of descriptions and narratives: one never sees that the prohibition of so many new things has refreshed his impressions. A rhetorician and abstract moralist, his head full of mythology and sacred scripture, copious in words and phrases in all fields of knowledge, a brilliant colourist, he believed he could say everything, because he knew how to say everything well. Nature and man were nothing more than stimuli and opportunities for him to draw out all his erudition and vocabulary. He has no other, more serious purpose. Unfamiliar with the European cultural movement and all the struggles of thought, stuck in a second-hand classicism and Catholicism that came to him from school and was not explored by his intelligence, his brain remains as idle as his heart, and his attention is entirely focused on the technical and mechanical aspects of expression. He treats the Italian language, like Greek or Latin, as a dead language, already fixed, and fully possessed by him."

"Those who wish to convince themselves of the immense variety of styles and almost different languages contained within the Italian language should consider the works of Daniello Bartoli."

"Il p. Dan. Bartoli è il Dante della prosa italiana. Il suo stile in ciò che spetta alla lingua è tutto a risalti e rilievi."

"Uomo che fra tutti del suo tempo, e fors'anche di tutti i tempi, fu quello che e per teoria e scienza e per pratica, meglio e piú profondamente e pienamente conobbe la nostra lingua."

"Daniello Bartoli, Dell'uomo di lettere difeso e emendato, Giacinto Marietti, Torino, 1834."

"Daniello Bartoli, Della Geografia trasportata al Morale, Egidio Ghezzi, Roma, 1664."

"Daniello Bartoli, La geografia trasportata al morale, dalla tipografia di Giacinto Marietti, Torino, 1839."

"Daniello Bartoli, La ricreatione del savio, Ignatio de' Lazzeri, Roma, 1659."

"Daniello Bartoli, La ricreazione del savio, Borel e Bompard, Napoli, 1839."

"Daniello Bartoli, L'uomo al punto, 2 voll., a cura di Adolfo Faggi, UTET, Torino, 1930."

"La filosofia sembra che si occupi solo della verità, ma forse dice solo fantasie, e la letteratura sembra che si occupi solo di fantasie, ma forse dice la verità."

"Storia è una parola grossa...non è una bestia che si può addomesticare."

"La smetta di frequentare il passato, cerchi di frequentare il futuro."

"If God exists, if there is a revelation, it cannot be anything other than that of Jesus Christ. Only here is there this moving solidarity with huma condition. You may not believe it, but all this is unparalleled."

"There is indeed something unique about the way in which the memory of the Republic came to be formed, and about the way in which that memory has been and continues to be shaped by the country's official culture. For many decades, for example, it was forbidden to call what happened between 1943 and 1945 by its proper name, i.e., the Italian Civil War. To speak of a civil war was considered factually incorrect, and even more so ideologically suspect. People had to say that what had taken place was the resistance, not a civil war; at that time, only Salò veterans, those nostalgic for the regime, and a few courageous, high-profile journalists or publicists, such as Indro Montanelli, spoke and wrote about a civil war, thereby showing which side they still supported. Things went on like this for a long time. Then, in the early 1990s, as we know, a left-wing historian, Claudio Pavone, wrote a book on the period 1943–45 entitled 'A Civil War'. It is only since then that we have all been able to use this term without difficulty, although, of course, the word 'resistance' has by no means been erased."

"By electing Pope Joseph Ratzinger, the Catholic Church demonstrated, above all, its historical vitality and its proven wisdom as a political body, albeit of a very special kind. Indeed, faced with a difficult succession, its supreme assembly did not resort to compromise or half measures. It decisively cut the Gordian knot, demonstrating what a long-standing and conscious relationship with the dimension of leadership means. And it made a choice. It did not choose a surly conservative or a nosy inquisitor: despite many fears and many prejudices, Joseph Ratzinger is not that. Above all, he is a witness to our epochal drama, a man who is aware that – in the fiery blaze of time – entire historical universes, entire anthropological and cultural worlds that have shaped us for centuries, are in danger of being annihilated and disappearing; and he feels that, far from representing any kind of progress, this only paves the way to nothingness."

"In short, science as such is in no way a guarantee of wisdom or humanity."

"Knowledge – the act of taking in the world and rethinking it within oneself – has been the constant instrument for the multifaceted growth of our communities; then there is our relationship with Antiquity, with our classical and Christian origins, which continues to be for us not only a source of global prestige but also an enduring reason for self-recognition, for a pietas of Remembrance and Preservation that encapsulates a universal aspect of civilisation; and finally, there is Italy's unique vocation for invention and for the harmony of forms, which, starting with the landscape and the myriad aspects of everyday life, has subsequently found expression in an immense artistic legacy: how we would like our Ministers for Education and Culture to remind the country of these things!"

"Knowledge, Past and Beauty are the three great perspectives that have always defined and, in many ways, encompass our entire history. For centuries, these three perspectives have kept this small Mediterranean peninsula at the centre of the world's attention, carrying the name of Italy beyond all borders."

"Reclaiming this past and our own tradition in order to rediscover ourselves: this is the urgent task facing a country that knows and thinks."

"By now, the only thing that seems to keep us together is the desire to share the state budget, to carve up the spoils."

"(About the cinepanettone) I wonder if there are any other countries where, not just any old film, but the film that is expected to be the most watched of the year, is essentially an uninterrupted stream of vulgarity peppered with swear words: like a long obscene message on the wall of a station toilet. But that's clearly how Italy is. This, too, is the real Italy: its culture and its deepest impulses."

"With the Lega ideology, you can be an excellent mayor in Varese, and even in Verona, but you can't govern Italy. [...] With the Lega Nord ideology, at best, you can be in government, but that is something entirely different from governing."

"In reality, the 'Padania' idea is a bluff that, so far, only the foolish timidity of the 'Italian' political forces has failed to 'see', and which Bossi is using for the sole purpose of highlighting his regional commitment and his electoral stronghold. However, in all other respects, it is utterly devoid of substance among the Lega Nord electorate itself."

"However, 'mentioning the word “Islam” on the jacket would immediately have given the reader the impression that the novel is anti-Islam,' objects Sgarbi, whereas in fact it is 'a nuanced interpretation of the relationship with the West'."

"With a warm vocal style, a naturally vibrant energy and a bright but unassuming vivacity, supported by a repertoire of cleverly unconventional songs, Milly relies not so much on physical attractiveness as on the ironic and intriguing nature of her stage presence. And it is the charm of this presence – quite unusual for an Italian showgirl – that wins the hearts of many men, earning her devoted admiration that is ready to turn into burning passion. These are the years when there are persistent rumours of an affair between the singer and the young scion of the House of Savoy, the handsome Prince Umberto, an affair that was brought to an end (again (so the story goes) by direct intervention from the King. There are also many other stories, particularly involving writers and intellectuals, who were most susceptible to the light-hearted and mischievous charm of this petite Piedmontese woman, who seemed to know the art of capturing men's attention so well."