Mediating culture in the Italian literary field, 1940s-1950s: an introduction

This introduction lays out the scholarly and methodological context where to situate the contributions to this special issue. By combining a rigorous scrutiny of hitherto untapped archival sources with a re-examined application of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology of culture within the field of periodical studies and publishing history in Italy (1940s-1950s), the studies illuminate the complex ways in which journals, periodical editors, and the connected publishing houses negotiate cultural practice in a literary field increasingly dominated by the polarization of political discourse.

Reflections: 50 Years of Medieval Archaeology, 1957-2007

This volume celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Society for Medieval Archaeology (established in 1957), presenting reflections on the history, development and future prospects of the discipline. The papers are drawn from a series of conferences and workshops that took place in 2007-2008, in addition to a number of contributions that were commissioned especially for the volume. They range from personal commentaries on the history of the Society and the growth of the subject, to historiographical, regional and thematic overviews of major trends in the evolution and current practice of medieval archaeology in Britain. Critical overviews are presented of the archaeology of medieval landscapes, buildings and material culture; new developments in the scientific study of medieval health, diet and materials; and innovations in social approaches to medieval archaeology. A series of papers on southern Europe provide a comparative perspective, featuring overviews on medieval archaeology in Italy, Spain and southeastern Europe.

Impacts of a pesticide on pollinator species richness at different spatial scales

Pesticides are an important potential cause of biodiversity and pollinator decline. Little is known about the impacts of pesticides on wild pollinators in the field. Insect pollinators were sampled in an agricultural system in Italy with the aim of detecting the impacts of pesticide use. The insecticide fenitrothion was over 150 times greater in toxicity than other pesticides used in the area, so sampling was set up around its application. Species richness of wild bees, bumblebees and butterflies were sampled at three spatial scales to assess responses to pesticide application: (i) the ‘field’ scale along pesticide drift gradients; (ii) the ‘landscape’ scale sampling in different crops within the area and (iii) the ‘regional’ scale comparing two river basins with contrasting agricultural intensity. At the field scale, the interaction between the application regime of the insecticide and the point in the season was important for species richness. Wild bee species richness appeared to be unaffected by one insecticide application, but declined after two and three applications. At the landscape scale, the species richness of wild bees declined in vine fields where the insecticide was applied, but did not decline in maize or uncultivated fields. At the regional scale, lower bumblebee and butterfly species richness was found in the more intensively farmed basin with higher pesticide loads. Our results suggest that wild bees are an insect pollinator group at particular risk from pesticide use. Further investigation is needed on how the type, quantity and timing of pesticide application impacts pollinators.

Uncertainty and feasibility studies: an Italian case study

Uncertainty affects all aspects of the property market but one area where the impact of uncertainty is particularly significant is within feasibility analyses. Any development is impacted by differences between market conditions at the conception of the project and the market realities at the time of completion. The feasibility study needs to address the possible outcomes based on an understanding of the current market. This requires the appraiser to forecast the most likely outcome relating to the sale price of the completed development, the construction costs and the timing of both. It also requires the appraiser to understand the impact of finance on the project. All these issues are time sensitive and analysis needs to be undertaken to show the impact of time to the viability of the project. The future is uncertain and a full feasibility analysis should be able to model the upside and downside risk pertaining to a range of possible outcomes. Feasibility studies are extensively used in Italy to determine land value but they tend to be single point analysis based upon a single set of “likely” inputs. In this paper we look at the practical impact of uncertainty in variables using a simulation model (Crystal Ball ©) with an actual case study of an urban redevelopment plan for an Italian Municipality. This allows the appraiser to address the issues of uncertainty involved and thus provide the decision maker with a better understanding of the risk of development. This technique is then refined using a “two-dimensional technique” to distinguish between “uncertainty” and “variability” and thus create a more robust model.

Towards a European tephrochronological framework for Termination 1 and the Early Holocene

The record of deposition of tephras in Europe and the North Atlantic during the period 18.5–8.0 ¹⁴C ka BP (the Last Termination and Early Holocene) is reviewed. Altogether, 34 tephras originating from four main volcanic provinces (Iceland, the Eifel district, the Massif Central and Italy) have been identified so far in geological sequences spanning this time–interval. Most of the records have been based, until very recently, on observations of visible layers of tephras. Here, we report on the potential for extending the areas over which some of the tephras can be traced by the search for layers of micro–tephra, which are not visible to the naked eye, and on the use of geochemical methods to correlate them with known tephra horizons. This approach has greatly extended the area in Northern Europe over which the Vedde Ash can be traced. The same potential exists in southern Europe, which is demonstrated for the first time by the discovery of a distinct layer of micro–tephra of the Neapolitan Yellow Tuff in a site in the Northern Apennines in Italy, far to the north of the occurrences of visible records of this tephra. The paper closes by considering the potential for developing a robust European tephrostratigraphy to underpin the chronology of records of the Last Termination and Early Holocene, thereby promoting a better understanding of the nature, timing and environmental effects of the abrupt climatic changes that characterized this period.

L’AIR nella pratica di una Autorità indipendente: l’esperienza dell’Autorità per l’energia elettrica e il gas di applicazione dell’AIR alla regolazione della qualità del servizio

In the last ten years Regulatory Impact Analysis has become the instrument providing groundwork for evidence-based regulatory decisions in most developed countries. However, to an increase in quantity, it did not correspond an increase in quality. In Italy, Regulatory Impact Analysis has been in place for ten years on paper, but in practice it has not been performed consistently. Of particular interest is the case of independent regulatory authorities, which have been required to apply Regulatory Impact Analysis since 2003. This paper explores how Regulatory Impact Analysis is carried out, by examining in depth how an individual case –on the Regulation for Quality of Service- was executed by the Autorità per l’energia elettrica e il gas. The aim is to provide a picture of the process leading to the final Regulatory Impact Analysis report, rather than just a study of its content. The case illustrates how Regulatory Impact Analysis, when properly employed, can be an important aid to the regulatory decision, not only by assessing ex ante the economic impacts of regulatory proposals in terms of costs, benefits and risks, but also opening the spectrum of policy alternatives and systematically considering stakeholder opinions as part of the decision-making process. This case highlights also several difficulties, analytical and process-related, that emerge in practical applications. Finally, it shows that the experience and expertise built by the regulatory authority over the years had a significant impact on the quality of the analysis.

Il culto dell’Uno dal Risorgimento al fascismo

This article (here in English; the published version is in Italian) explores the political parameters surrounding the development of personality cults of leading figures in Italian history from the time of unification to the present. It focuses on the problems of linking the masses to the state, with particular reference to the weakness of the monarchy and the challenge of rival forces, such as those of the Church. It looks at how attempts were made to 'nationalise' the monarchy and create a cult of Victor Emmanuel II. It examines the construction of the cult of Garibaldi, and its relationship to the state. The article suggests that personality cults, while far from being unique to Italy, were seen as having special relevance in Italy given the weakness of the representative institutions and the sensed fragmentation of political life. The article concludes with an examination of the cult of Mussolini and some reflections on the situation since 1945.

Barbara Torelli Benedetti, Partenia, a pastoral play. A bilingual edition edited with notes and translation

This edition presents for the first time in print what is probably the earliest known secular, 'regular' play by a woman in Italy. As suggested in the introduction to the work, Torelli's play offers a fascinating example of female dramaturgy and creative adaptation of the pastoral genre in the context of late sixteenth-century Parma. Critical textual study is combined with new biographical material on the author and her literary milieu. The edition provides the first detailed palaeographical study of the complex Cremona manuscript of the play, which unusually includes emendations thought to be in the hand of the author herself (besides others). The transcription also describes for the first time in detail a newly discovered second manuscript of the play in Rome. The play-text is presented in the original Italian with a new facing English translation. Also included is the first transcription of the paratextual verse from the Cremona manuscript and the first transcribed collection of the author’s extant verse (both with translation).

Razzisti a parole (per tacer dei fatti)

Based on a wide bibliographic apparatus, and on a discourse-analysis approach, but written in a very accessible way to reach also a non-specialist audience, the pamphlet focuses on misleading and biased representations – through every-day stereotypes, media clichés, political speeches – of migration and migrants in today’s Italy, and is exciting a national debate about the strong relationship between language abuses, political and social misrepresentation, lack of citizenship for migrants and asylum seekers in Italy.

Dare voce agli invisibili: Il teatro di Beppe Rosso

The article – which is co-authored with Irene Zagrebelsky – focuses on the work of the Italian playwright and actor Beppe Rosso, and it is the most detailed critical account on Rosso’s production so far. Based on original material and interviews, it not only analyses Rosso’s widely acclaimed “Trilogy of invisibility” in the light of recent political events in Italy, but it also – in its first two sections – introduces the so called “teatro di narrazione” to Italian scholars in the UK, and in its two last sections opens up new perspectives on the relationship between contemporary theatre, citizenship and political participation.

Le calunnie etniche nella lingua italiana

“Le calunnie etniche nella lingua italiana” (“Ethnic slurs in the Italian language”) is a very long chapter (c. 35.000 words) included in the second volume (pp. 513-587) of the multi-volume La cultura italiana, published by UTET in 2009-2010. (http://cultura.utet.it/cultura/catalogo/details.jsp?id=2076). La cultura italiana is an innovative multidisciplinary 12 volume (8.000 pages) work directed by the internationally acclaimed scientist Luigi Cavalli Sforza (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Luca_Cavalli-Sforza); each volume has been coordinated and edited by a very prominent Italian scholar, and every contribution has been written by academics with national and international reputations. The second volume of La cultura italiana has been coordinated by Professor Gian Luigi Beccaria, and is entirely devoted to language (“Lingue e linguaggi”). “Le calunnie etniche” brings together, for the first time in Italy, methodological issues and case studies on ethnic slurs in Italian and Italian dialects, and it particularly sheds new light on the semantic field of zingaro (gypsy), highlighting both the historical construction of the label, through the analysis of a huge amount of sources, and its social and political implication.

La comunicazione interculturale

The chapter is about Intercultural communication in Italy (seen from both a sociolinguistic and a pragmatic perspective), and it is structured into four different sections: “Key words/concept”, “Theoretical background”, “Good practice” and “Exercises”. Although based on the most recent research on Intercultural communication, it is addressed to both specialists/scholars and non specialists, as it is meant not only to outline new approaches and interpretations, but also to be regarded as a possible resource by civil servants and operators working with migrants. It is included in a book sponsored by the “Forum Internazionale ed Europeo di Ricerche sull’Immigrazione” (International and European Forum on Migration Research), which gathers contributions on policy, housing, education, health, employment and communication, and it has been widely adopted as a text book in Italian universities and by public institutions.

Production around 1960

Film production in Italy 1957-66: a table of costs and receipts to producers for a selection of films; details of ways in which producers have promoted young new authors; comparison with the way formula genres function in the market.

Impegno nero: Italian intellectuals and the African-American struggle

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Italian intellectuals participated in Italy���s reconstruction with an ideological commitment inspired by the African-American struggle for equal rights in the United States. Drawing on the work of many of the leading figures in postwar Italian culture, including Italo Calvino, Giorgio Caproni, Cesare Pavese, and Elio Vittorini, this essay argues that Italian intellectual impegno—defined as the effort to remake Italian culture and to guide Italian social reform—was united with a significant investment in the African-American cause. The author terms this tendency impegno nero and traces its development in the critical reception of African-American writers including W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, and Richard Wright. Postwar impegno nero is then contrasted with the treatment of African-American themes under Fascism, when commentators had likewise condemned American racism, but had paradoxically linked their laments for the plight of African Americans with defenses of the racial policies of the Fascist regime. Indeed, Fascist colonialism and anti-Semitism were both justified through references to what Fascist intellectuals believed to be America’s greater injustices. After 1945, in contrast, Italian intellectuals advocated an international, interdependent campaign for justice, symbolizing national reforms by projecting them onto an emblematic America. In this way, impegno nero revived and revised the celebrated "myth of America" that had developed in Italy between the world wars. Advancing a new, postwar myth, Italian intellectuals adopted the African-American struggle in order to reinforce their own efforts in the ongoing struggle for justice in Italy.