This article analyses how political and cultural European elites crafted new historical narratives to construct identities during the process of defining the nation-state in the 19th century. It ...looks specifically at the cases of Spain and Italy, two Mediterranean countries that have common characteristics with regards to the process of crafting their national identities: the use of historical objects and events. The ruling party's ability to control the past led to the creation of new narratives that would favour their aspirations at the time. These were transmitted through a new tool: history museums. It was not only works of art that were exhibited in these museums; what had previously been considered trivial was also put on display. The familiarity and everyday nature of such objects was used to arouse patriotic feelings in visitors. National wars of independence and their attendant disasters were central themes depicted within deliberate political discourses.
Three case studies show how museums were used to mythologise the most recent historical events at the time in order to generate nationalist sentiment. In the provincial museums of Girona and Badajoz, Spain, space was set aside in exhibitions to pay homage to local heroes of the War of Independence. In Turin, Italy, the Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento dedicated a museum to the cult of King Victor Emmanuel II, the Father of the Italian Fatherland. This museum was conceived as a great temple of italianità in which to remember the suffering and wars that had made Italy a new and united country.
The studies of Vincenzo Padula (25 March 1819-8 January 1893) of Calabria's peasantry (their language, customs, mores, and living conditions) predate Giuseppe Pitrè's by a decade and were considered ...a model for literary verismo by Benedetto Croce. I introduce an anglophone audience to this secondary but important author through a discussion of Il Bruzio, a semi-weekly periodical he wrote almost single-handedly and published in Cosenza (1864-1865). In Il Bruzio Padula demonstrates a singular ability to provide a panoramic view of society, adopting the perspective of the working classes, and to probe deeply into the wounds - economic and social, large and small - that afflicted his region. His goal in criticising the religious, political, and administrative policies of the government of the New Italy was to spark reforms aimed at creating a broad consensus among all social and economic classes that would serve as a bulwark against Bourbon revanchism.
The thourough analysis of historical sources from the beginning of the year 1859 shows that the famous acrostic VIVA VERDI was not only widely known in Italy but also throughout Europe. However, it ...was not associated with any political activities of the composer Giuseppe Verdi. The reason is that Verdi’s operas already during the revolutionary months of 1848 were not understood as political ‘Risorgimento’ operas. The causes for political demonstrations during performances of Verdi’s operas were either coincidentally or provoked by political circumstances which were independent of the operas. Verdi’s operas were, in any case, not the causes of spontaneous patriotic emotions.
The thorough analysis of historical sources from the beginning of the year 1859 shows that the famous acrostic VIVA VERDI was not only widely known in Italy but also throughout Europe. However, it ...was not associated with any political activities of the composer Giuseppe Verdi. The reason is that Verdi’s operas already during the revolutionary months of 1848 were not understood as political ‘Risorgimento’ operas. The causes for political demonstrations during performances of Verdi’s operas were either coincidentally or provoked by political circumstances which were independent of the operas. Verdi’s operas were, in any case, not the causes of spontaneous patriotic emotions.
This chapter contains section titled:
The Ghost of Tarquinius, 133
The Allied Question, 132‐124
The Great Reformer, 123‐121
The Confidence Gap, 121‐105
The Savior of Italy, 104‐98
The Unification of ...Italy, 97‐89
The March on Rome, 88
The First Civil War, 87‐82
Sulla the Fortunate, 82‐78
The Last, Best Hope? 78‐70
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