2023 fascicolo II

Le origini del fascismo. Rileggendo Roberto Vivarelli

Memorie

Ugo Berti Arnoaldi, Vivarelli e il suo editore

A former history editor at Il Mulino Publishing House, the author reconstructs the long lasting relationship that tied Vivarelli to his publisher, from 1981 to the very last days of Vivarelli’s life in 2014. Drawing on correspondence and personal recollections, the author traces down the history of publication of half a dozen books (that is, almost all of his works), including the controversial memoir La fine di una stagione and the classic three volumes Storia delle origini del fascismo.

 

Paolo Pombeni, Il sistema politico italiano dall’Unità al 1922

This essay tries to present an overview on the political and constitutional framework of the interaction among various players. Designed on the model of French and partially British constitutionalism, the Italian system was linked to the considerable development of the public spirit and the progressive enlargement promoted by the new electoral laws. This ended in an increasing change of the classical mind linked to the British model for a new more German like model based on the pre-eminence of the executive power with all its connections with the Crown. The emergence of some form of mass party politics put the liberal tradition in crisis, what lead to the turmoil of post war period which under the shock of a P.R. electoral law made it difficult to be managed by the old notables.

 

Andrea Baravelli, Le campagne

The attention shown by Roberto Vivarelli to the rural dimension of the crisis of the liberal system has in fact revolutionised studies on the rise of fascism. In addition to analysing its role with respect to the overall articulation of the Storia delle origini del fascismo, the article aims to compare with the most recent historiography the specific thesis of the inseparability of the link between the radicalisation of the peasant classes, the affirmation of socialist maximalism and the consequent rise of fascist reaction. If the result resizes the original thesis of the lack of nationalisation of the Italian countryside, it confirms Vivarelli’s original intuition of the absolute centrality of rural phenomena with respect to the evolution of the crisis of the liberal state.

 

Christian Satto, La classe dirigente liberale e la monarchia di fronte al fascismo

One of Roberto Vivarelli’s strands of inquiry was certainly the careful analysis of the conduct of the ruling class in the face of the problems of the early postwar period and its attitude toward fascism in an attempt to understand the reasons for the collapse of the liberal state. Vivarelli, in fact, was deeply convinced that fascism had been the consequence of the collapse of the liberal state, not its cause. He, moreover, believed that without a careful study of the context, the reasons for fascism’s victory, which constituted the failure of the liberal season, could not be understood.

 

Simone Neri Serneri, Far tornare i conti. Approssimazioni a Roberto Vivarelli storico e uomo del suo tempo

Active in the second half of the twentieth century and the early 2000s, Roberto Vivarelli devoted most of his studies to the theme of the origins of fascism, from a perspective that united post-war events with the history of united Italy. The essay rereads Vivarelli’s historiographical production considering his original motivations and issues with which his conception of liberalism was confronted as well as the ethical and political bias and assessments Vivarelli matured in the face of the events of his time. The essay highlights the links and mutual conditioning between Vivarelli’s ideal orientations and the evolution of his production, also explaining in this way its strengths, but also its overt aporias, primarily in the interpretation of the origins of fascism.

 

Interventi di Giulia Albanese e di Simona Colarizi

 

Documenti

Paolo Grillo, 1248, la battaglia che cambiò data: manipolazione cronologica e comunicazione imperiale in alcune lettere della cancelleria di Federico II

The letters of Frederick II of Swabia represent a source of great importance for reconstructing the emperor’s ideology and government practice, but their use requires great caution. The paper examines the case of a naval battle fought at the beginning of 1248 on the Po River and won by the emperor’s son, Enzo, proposing the hypothesis that the imperial notaries deliberately modified the chronology of the battle, moving it from the beginning to the end of February, in order to spread the news of a presumed imperial revenge, after the defeat suffered by Fredrick II at Vittoria (Parma) on February 18.

 

Roberto Galbiati, Un manoscritto ritrovato del Chronicon tarvisinum di Andrea Redusi e alcune storie inedite dalla Marca Trevigiana

The manuscript Lat. 373 of the Biblioteca Estense in Modena provides an unknown witnessing of Andrea Redusi’s Chronicon tarvisinum (c. 1420-1430). The manuscript transmits the section of the Chronicon running from the time of Emperor Valentinian to 1369, and it is the only surviving part of the copy of the Chronicon Pietro Ercole Gherardi made for Muratori in 1723-1724. This paper studies the manuscript and publishes some excerpts from it.

 

Francesca Gori, Archivi e potere. La documentazione di Memorial, Premio Nobel per la pace 2022

Since its establishment in 1987 ‘Memorial Russia’ committed itself to retrieve the experience of political repression during the Stalinist era as well as to defend human rights in post-Soviet Russia. It was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace on October 8, 2022. During its thirty-year work the Association collected a huge amount of historical documents now preserved in a library, a Museum and a specialized archive. This article provides a description of their contents and pledges the scholarly community to prevent their dispersion and protect their public use.

 

Recensioni [scarica PDF]

Vera Von Falkenhausen, Studi sull’Italia bizantina, a cura di Marco Di Branco e Luca Farina (Marco Muresu)

Alberto Luongo, La Peste Nera. Contagio, crisi e nuovi equilibri nell’Italia del Trecento (Francesco Borghero)

Jacopo Pessina, L’organizzazione militare della repubblica di Siena, 1524-1555 (Alessandro Lo Bartolo)

Charles S. Ellis – Paola Gibbin, Lord Cowper. Un conte inglese a Firenze (Renato Pasta)

Aurelio Musi, Maria Sofia. L’ultima regina del Sud (Nicoletta Bazzano)

 

Notizie [scarica PDF]

 

Archivio Storico Italiano – ISSN 0391-7770