Keywords: 17th Century Rome, Guide books, Travels, Descriptions of Rome.
Rome in French Seventeenth Century Travel Literature Between 1595 and 1713, some 31 travel and guide books by French travelers were published containing descriptions of Rome. The authors of these books were not scholars but educated men who visited the eternal city as pilgrims, secretaries of high-ranking persons, or just visitors. According to an Italian convention shaped by humanists they distinguished Ancient Rome from Modern Rome, that is, the old pagan town from capital city of Catholic Church. They devoted considerable space to Rome’s artistic and architectural patrimony which they often described by giving lists of measures and providing many illustrations of monuments, paintings or statues. Very interested in arts and history they had also opportunities to meet or observe real Romans, especially prostitutes and Jews. Some Huguenot travelers were discretely ironical about religious relics but whether Catholic or Protestant, the travelers shared a common culture based upon the Latin and humanist tradition, which led them to express admiration in their descriptions of Rome.

Keywords: 18th Century Rome, Papal States, Travel Literature, Alessandro and Pietro Verri, Rome’s Finances.
“The Beautiful Land of the Scipios is in Constant Fear of Hunger”: Criticism of Papal Government in the Letters of Alessandro Verri from 1767 to 1816 This article draws on a conventional representation of )XVIIIth century Rome – the poverty of the population, especially in the Agro Romano, in contrast with the Cardinals’ courts. It looks at the scathing social and economic chronicle found in Alessandro Verri’s correspondence (1741- 1816) with his brother Pietro (from 1767 to 1797) and his sister-in-law Vincenza Melzi (from 1794 to 1816) in which he described the endemic and structural problems of Rome’s finances and agriculture. Verri is best known for abandoning the critical views he had expressed about Rome and Roman history in the essays he wrote in Milan and during the first months of his stay in Rome before going on to praise the Rome of the Arts and Letters, and to celebrate a vision of papal Rome besieged by the French Revolution and the Empire (see Roman Nights). This article aims at highlighting aspects of continuity in the intellectual career of one of the foremost chroniclers of Roman history, from the Ancien Régime to Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods.

Keywords: 19th Century Rome, Monuments and Artworks, Travels, Ancient and Catholic Rome.
Enjoy Rome. Travels and Pleasure in the 19th Century In the XIXth century, the images of Ancient Rome, Rome of the Renaissance and Christian Rome were renewed by accounts of the extraordinary variety of destinations travelers visited to study monuments and artworks, as well as by a policy which, in France, could be readily summed up in the polemical term of “ultramontanisme”. A visit to Rome became both a desire for faith and the desire to enjoy the spectacle of the world, resulting in a kind of tension that characterised modern leisure trips.

Keywords: 19th Century Rome, Heritage of Antiquity, Nationalism, Modernity.
The Nationalization of the Idea of Rome. A Dilemma for Nineteenth Century Patriotism This article examines how Italian nationalists tried to appropriate the idea of Rome which had a universal dimension to it and represented a primacy of the past over the present. These two aspects constituted formidable obstacles to their ambition to transform Italy into a modern nation state. Nineteenth century patriots sought to reshape the idea of Rome by adding new dimensions in space and time linked to concepts of nation and modernity. But this operation proved to be culturally fragile and fuelled anti-Roman ideology which grew at the end of the century. Only later, with the advent of a new imperial nationalism, did the identification of Rome and Italy become an axiom of political discourse, which however was destined to disappear with the fall of the fascist regime.

Keywords: 43th Century Rome, French Journalism, Second World War, Heritage of Antiquity, Political Stabilization
Representations of Rome by French Residents and Travellers after 1945 As the political capital of Italy and religious capital of the Catholic world, Rome was very often the focus of articles and travel reports by French journalists and writers during the fifteen years after the Second World War. This led to multiple views and opinions being expressed about the city and its inhabitants. However, the images of Rome they generated were part of then dominant representational systems and the result of many factors: the heritage of Antiquity (traditional images of the Eternal City) or, more recently, fascism and the legacy of the war, the historical context of the war’s end, the years of political stabilization and economic growth, and finally the position of the observers themselves (travellers or residents) and their own political views. This article looks closely at all these factors, before going on to examine the representations of Rome through two periods (1945-1948; 1948-1960).

Keywords: 16th Century Papal States, Julius II, Military Institutions, Taxation, Roman Nobility.
Della Rovere Pope’s Military Institutions. New Sources Historiography has focused recently on the image of Julius II, bellicose Pope by definition. The military institutions he used for his politico-ecclesiastical purposes, however, are still little known. New sources shed light on Pope Della Rovere’s efforts to equip himself with military institutions that were up to the standards of his time. New taxes for the army were levied; the Dataria itself was involved; Julius II turned to Genoese, Florentine, even German bankers. New officials oversaw the armies in the field and other forces in the State. The high command, entrusted for the first time to a “capitaneus generalis Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae” (the nephew of the Pope, Francesco Maria Della Rovere), was given more power. Even the employment of Swiss soldiers wasn’t a measure directed against Roman nobility, as earlier historians had thought. Like others in Europe, Julius II just wanted to acquire professional and efficient forces.

Keywords: Early Modern Poland-Lithuania, Royal Dignity, Papal Diplomacy, Ceremonial Role.
The Role of Papal Diplomats in the Interregnum’s Parliamentary Practice of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (16th-17th Centuries) Early modern Poland-Lithuania was particularly important for Holy See’s political and the religious projects in that it was seen to constitute a “bulwark of Christianity” and the West’s cultural external boundary. For this reason, the problems of discontinuity of the royal dignity and free elections became important for the papacy. This article illustrates the role of papal diplomacy in the parliamentary practice of Polish-Lithuanian interregnums from 1572 to 1676, in particular during key moments like the Convocation Sejm, the Election Sejm and the coronation ceremony. Its aim is not only to describe the political activity of apostolic nuncios, but also to focus on their ceremonial role. The topic is also closely connected to the question of papal neutrality and the image of a padre comune, ideas that were constantly evolving during the early modern period.

Keywords: Naples, Barcelona, Vienna, Charles VI of Habsburg, War of the Spanish Succession, Provincial Diplomacy, 17th Century.
The “Neapolitan hour” of the 17th Century. Provincial Diplomacy of Naples and the House of Habsburg during the War of the Spanish Succession
The tumultuous beginnings of the 17th century encouraged the rise of ideologies that sought to defend the juridical, political and economic particularism of the Spanish Monarchy’s provinces. Naples, the scene of several violent demonstrations also saw an increase in the number of treatises and pamphlets published arguing for the restoration of a principality that was fully sovereign or autonomous. This paper focuses on the diplomacy practiced by the City and Kingdom of Naples as a special channel between monarch and vassals. The election of ambassadors to be sent to the Habsburg courts (Barcelona and Vienna), the struggle for new privileges and oaths, or the negotiation in the Palace to block the Roman diplomacy are the main aspects that will be examined.

Keywords: Camerun, French Communist Party, African Liberation Movements, Gallo-Centrism, African Marxism.
French Communist Party and the Movement for Indipency of Camerun (1948-1956) The French Communist Party (PCF )’s colonial policy has been the subject of detailed studies and debates between those who hold the view that the PCF expressed a strong solidarity with African liberation movements in the ’50s and the ’60s, and those who argued that communist support for these movements from France was too weak. A number of historians have accused the PCF of “Gallo-centrism” during the Algerian war, and have portrayed the party as being more interested in first solving the question of class conflict in France in the conviction that this would later lead to a resolution of conflict in the colonies. In fact, this political attitude may be identified in the relationship between the French Communist Party and the Union des populations du Cameroun (UPC), a revolutionary and nationalist party of Cameroon, inspired by Marxism. Although the PCF was responsible for the creation of the 856 and other filo-Marxist parties in French Africa, its initially close relationship with the Cameroonian organization grew weaker after the mid-‘50s, when the UPC was outlawed. This essay aims to delve deeper into the topic by examining the PCF archives while attempting to explain the reasons for the misunderstanding that arose between the two parties (PCF and UPC).