historians-from-italy

"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."

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

"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'."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

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

"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."

"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!"

"(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."

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

"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."

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

"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)"

"There are a hundred thorns for every rose."

"[...] 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)"

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

"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)"

"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."

"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)"

"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."

"[...] 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."

"(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)"

"[...] 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)"

"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."

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

"[...] 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."

"(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."

"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."

"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?"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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)"

"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)"