A Quinta Essência de Agustina Bessa-Luís : la saveur aigre-douce de Macao

In the narrative A Quinta Essência Agustina Bessa-Luís proposes an original reading of the Portuguese postcolonial History, by reinvesting the topics of the intercultural relation and the meeting with the Other. In fact, in the troubled context of April 1974, the character of Jose Carlos Pessanha expatriates towards the East, more precisely towards Macao, one of the last Eastern colonies of the Portuguese colonial Empire. However, the characteristic of this tour of rediscovery of the East is that it makes the destiny of a character in search of himself coincide with the questioning of a country still looking for its own identity. Thus, in this voyage backwards into the Luso-Eastern History, the Author draws the portrait of a Nation-Empire split between the desire of incarnating this “genetic superiority of the Occident” and the fascination for the culture of the Other, symbolizing an “excess of otherness” (B. of Sousa Santos) in the Portuguese identity. Macao, will be the territory of an “entre-deux” and an intercultural circulation, as well as an emblematic ground to the expression of the “ambivalent and hybrid” position (colonizing/colonized) of Portugal in the Occident. As a consequence, the uncomfortable “non-inscription” (J. Gil) and the “nomadism” (Deleuze/Guattari) which characterizes José Carlos Pessanha, would be a reflection of yesterday’s and today’s Lusitanian epopee.

Gli studi italiani sulla regina Cristina di Svezia negli ultimi cinquant'anni

Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-1689)) is probably the most important individual to directly link the cultures of Sweden and Italy, and thus fascinate scholars over the last four centuries. In the last fifty years, research on and interest in this monarch has been particularly intense. This has led to current international scientific debate concerning all the different cultural expressions in which Queen Cristina was particularly involved. However, until now there has been lacking a comprehensive work to illustrate the development of scientific research in Italian on Queen Christina. This article, therefore, without claiming to be exhaustive, aims to fill this gap by identifying the main direction of current research. The article, after briefly introducing previous works (both Italian and Swedish), demonstrates how the first major renaissance of international studies on Queen Cristina took place in Sweden in the early 1960s. Even more important was the subsequent turning point in 1989, when the tercentenary of the death of Queen Christina was celebrated and the Azzolino Collection at the Biblioteca Comunale in Jesi was opened. The article focuses on the studies in Italian during this latter period. To make the exposition more organic and, importantly, more accessible to those readers interested in only one particular aspect of the scientific studies about Queen Christina, the studies in Italian since 1689 are divided into different subject areas.