Gianvittorio Signorotto, The Decline of Catholic Europe and the Course towards Modernity

The “grand narrative” which traces the origins of secular society in Western Europe to the Enlightenment accords a decisive role to the second half of the Seventeenth Century, which is seen to have witnessed the marginalization of religious conflict, the crisis of the Counter-Reformation papacy, the full affirmation of princely sovereignty, the emergence of the mechanisms which articulated the notion of a “balance of power”, the birth of the public sphere (and with it public opinion). Such an interpretation makes the assumption that the Peace of Westphalia was a real watershed. The article focuses on the dynamic nature of the central decades of the Seventeenth Century to find the connection between the crisis of Catholic Europe and the course towards modernity described influentially by Paul Hazard as the “crisis of the European conscience”. But the centre of the discourse is represented by the perspectives of the Spanish crown, the papacy and the Empire (faced with the aggressive policies of Louis XIV and the anti-Roman pretensions of Gallicanism) and the continued relevance of religion as a determining factor in decision making. This assumed a new dimension towards the close of the Century, when the papacy renounced its aspirations for political power even as it re-launched itself as a spiritual force. In this context it is possible to identify the continued contribution made by Mediterranean Roman Catholic culture to Western European civilization, underestimated by old and newapproaches of whig evolutionary historiographical current.

Keywords: Catholic Europe; Seventeenth Century; Cultural Self-definitionof Europe.

Antonio Menniti Ippolito and Maria Antonietta Visceglia, Papal Court and Palace: Notes in the Margin of a Document from the Age of Paul V.

An anonymous report discovered in the Bodleian Library in Oxford sheds light on important aspects of the structure and organisation of the Curia under the pontificate of Paul V. It is a precise description of the Pope’s weekly agenda – including comparisons with the choices of other Popes – and reveals significant details on how he presented himself in relation to the Court and the City. It also provides testimony about the very particular preferences the Pope had with regard to personal dwelling space and the unique albeit temporary transformation the Vatican complex underwent, when, for example, Raphael’s Stanze which had  previously served as the apartment of various Popes, were refurbished as antechambers presided by lower ranking members of the Curia. The descriptions contained in the account coincide surprisingly well with a drawing of the Vatican palace by Martino Ferrabosco which is published here not simply as an accompanying illustration, but as an appendix, if not an integral part of the text.

Keywords: Seventeenth Century, Paul V, Papal Palace, Rites.

Simona Feci, The Mattei “of Paganica”: A Roman Family from the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Century

This essay examines the history of the Roman family Mattei, and especially one of its branches, that of the lords of  Paganica, between the Fifteenth and the Seventeenth Century. The study is based on unpublished documents (notarial acts and family correspondences). Although the narration is strictly genealogical and biographic, the history of the Mattei of Paganica is hardly unique; in fact, it is exemplary of the forms in which, over generations, the economic and social primacy of Roman noble families manifested itself, and of the strategies these families employed to maintain and perpetuate their eminent position. This family history also provides an opportunity for a reflection on the reasons for the chronological lags and the non-linearity with which individuals and families follow common trajectories of social change, and on the successes and failures that punctuated the diversification, rise, or crises of noble families.

Keywords: Aristocracy; Family History; Renaissance and Baroque

This article introduces a Slavonic translation of the Confessio Belgica and the Heidelberger Katechismus, dated at the end of the Seventeenth Century. It is a part of a research about the heritage in Russian Empire. The translation is anonymous and is preserved in two codes: the first is keeped in the Helsinki University Library, the other one in the Trinity College Dublin Library. This paper focuses on the version of Heidelberger Katechismus because the slavonic text isn’t an exact translation but a reworking of the original. The author condenses in only 59 questions (and answers) the contents of the whole Katechismus, often rewriting questions and answers. The paternity of this work isn’t clear: some attributes it to a French Huguenot, Jacques Roussel, envoy of the King of Sweden to Moskow in 1630; others to a Polish Calvinist refugee, Ilja Fedorovi? Kopievskij, who worked in Amsterdam as translator in Slavonic language until 1702. These attributions are not convincing and leave aside questions unresolved: first of all that one about the aim of that so refined elaboration. Roberts supposes that the Russian translation was directed to Polish Calvinist congregations or to Russian Old-believers. On the contrary, the author presumes that it was devoted to Peter the Great, who was working about an amendement of Russian Orthodox Church. 

Keywords: Heidelberger Katechismus; Peter the Great; Reformed Heritage in Russia.

The article deals with the Sumptuary laws set in the Kingdom of Naples from the second half of the Sixteenth to the end of the Seventeenth Century. During this long period, Southern Italy was under the Spanish rule until 1707, the Austrian ruled until 1734, and then became an independent State under the Bourbons. Sumptuary law is, like everywhere else, a way of the central authority to impose a social order: in the South of Italy this goal is pursued by formally disciplining social representation of both aristocracy and middle classes; this “egalitarian” approach derives from the political purpose of fighting aristocratic resistance to the establishment of a strong central power. Nonetheless, the aims of Sumptuary law are various, according to the social, economic and political conjuncture. During the Sixteenth Century the religious inspiration of the catholic condemnation of luxury prevails. During the Seventeenth Century the economic and social purpose of limiting waste of human and monetary resources, necessary to the State for military and economic uses, is predominant. The mercantilist aim of reducing the import of luxuries gets more and more important as well. Beyond the formal dictate of Sumptuary laws a social and cultural transformation lays in the idea of luxury and in the boundary between private and the public sphere. The disappearance of Sumptuary law in the Eighteenth Century is considered a consequence of the erosion of a substantial definition of luxury, and of the affirmation of the private sphere as the base of a society where consumption hasn’t the political function of inertly representing a social and political order anymore, but is the expression of the formal freedom of the individual, whose only unwritten law is the fashion.

Keywords: Sumptuary law; Luxury; Kingdom of Naples

The study of nationalist discourses constructed by the Nation-State makes it possible to deconstruct a series of identitary notions and to bring out the primary sources. This perspective sheds a new light both on sources themselves and on national discursive constructions. This paper aims to analyze some works belonging to the pre-national period and to highlight the emergence of a Risorgimental discourse. This kind of literary production is of utmost importance for understanding the discursive dynamics of the reflections about people’s historicity and religious belonging. Through the comparative analysis of Gorski Vijenac [The Mountain Wreath] of the Prince-Vladika of Montenegro Petar Petrovi?-Njegoš and Gorski p?tnik [The Forest Traveler] of the Bulgarian Georgi Sava Rakovski, a return to textual analysis is proposed with the aim to restore a status of autonomy to the cultural production that arose during the Nineteenth Century.

Keywords: Nation; South-Eastern Europe; Textual Analysis

World War One post-war period was characterized by stormy episodes. In particular the turmoil around the railwaymen had a deep effect on moderates’ opinion, which didn’t go unnoticed by the leaders of the new fascist movement. After the massive strike amongst railwaymen on January 1920 thefascist leaders decided to embark on a new political path: they leagued the entrepreneurs against the labour movement. The last liberal governments successfully stemmed the phenomenon of “rebel” railway using a stick and carrot approach that is alternating grants to the labour union and harsh repressive measures. On the eve of the March on Rome the “Rebellism” was fully tamed. Nevertheless the railway phenomenon was still a political issue for the new-born Italian Fascist regime. An energetic intervention on railway policy was necessary to show to public opinion, as well as allies, that fascism was able to restore order and discipline in the railways and to ensure the maximum efficiency in the most important public service. Edoardo Torre was placed in charge of the Railway company and he started a political purge of staff which was a necessary premise to the establishment of a strict discipline amongst rail agents on one hand and the economic recovery of the Railway company on the other. Edoardo Torre, after his experience as Commissioner, found himself entangled in bribe scandals and internal party quarrels. Consequently he was first dismissed from the Railway company and then expelled from the National Fascist Party. The Fascist regime framed the Railway company within the new Ministry of Communications and they used the numerous achievements in the railway sector as mere symbols of their political myth consistently with the regime propaganda.

Keywords: Fascism; Railway; Edoardo Torre

In the late Sixties and the Seventies of the Twentieth Century Italian psychiatry was shook by a strong anti-institutional movement, aiming to abolish asylums. Many psychiatric hospitals, in those years, went through a process of de-institutionalization. One of these asylums was Santa Maria della Pietà in Rome. This essay analyzes the anti-institutional experiences that took place in this hospital and the de-institutionalization process which went through in the Seventies. The essay will focus, in particular, on some themes enucleated through the analysis of 17 interviews made to 15 women who worked as nurses in Santa Maria della Pietà during the Sixties and Seventies. Given the particular role of the nursing personnel in the asylum structure, the analysis of these female nurses’ narratives allows us to approach the anti-institutional movement and the experiences that led to the psychiatric reform from a particular and rather original point of view. Power, hierarchy, gender, knowledge, class: these are some of the issues which emerge from the interviews and that this essay tries to highlight in its analysis of the de-institutionalization process that took place in Santa Maria della Pietà during the Seventies.

Keywords: Twentieth century Italy; Gender; Psychiatry; Anti-institutional Movement.