Project Details
Projekt
History of Italy (1770-1870): The Path to Modernity
Applicant
Professorin Dr. Gabriele B. Clemens
Subject Area
Modern and Contemporary History
Term
from 2018 to 2021
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 403618877
The aim of the project is to write a monograph on Italian history of about 400 pages covering the period 1770-1870 which is needed for university teaching as well as for comparative European and global research. The existing studies are either outdated or focus unilaterally on political and cultural history. The same applies for Italian historiography where the impact of economic and social issues has often been neglected especially after the cultural turn. The majority of the monographic overviews starts with the Napoleonic era. My project however sets in earlier and attempts to apply the concept of Sattelzeit systematically for the first time on Italy where this theory has hardly been employed. If placed into the context of the Italian states before 1789, the innovations of the liberal French legislation in Italy can be understood better. Furthermore, important impetuses of the reform period continued to affect Italian society even after the Congress of Vienna. Therefore, the validity of the term Restauration shall be examined critically regarding the Italian states. The volume will conclude with the conquest of Rome by troops of the young Italian nation-state in September 1870. From this date (forward), the entire Apennine belonged to the Kingdom of Italy. By choosing this chronological approach, a profound understanding of the first years of the new nation-state becomes possible, thereby highlighting the difficulties regarding the implantation of liberal laws and the centralistic administration.The planned monograph will offer an overview of recent historiography for the period 1770-1870. By referring to own interpretations, this concise synthesis including political, cultural, economic and social issues, shall set new priorities. One of these is to revise the existing cultural history studies critically. Various authors claim that Italians have been mobilized for the formation of a nation-state through literature, historiography, opera and painting on a massive scale thereby disproving older theses which state that the nation-state had been a project of the intellectual and ruling elites. They argue hermeneutically by analysing texts of classical high literature presuming their mobilizing effect without even trying to prove their reception. Finally, it seems appropriate to re-examine the overemphasis of the role of the upper middle classes/bourgeoisie which made up only 2-3% of Italy´s population. It is often overlooked that noblemen and commons collaborated in politics, culture and economy.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
International Connection
Italy, United Kingdom
