Memorie
Simon Hasdenteufel, Ἅγιος βασιλεύς μάρχιο. Les multiples visages de Boniface de Montferrat pendant la fondation de l’Empire latin de Constantinople (1204-1207)
This article investigates the political aspects of Marquis Boniface of Montferrat’s (1150-1207) career in Latin Romania after the Fourth Crusade. The aim is first to reassess Venetians’ influence in the imperial election lost by Boniface. Then, this study focuses on the struggle between Boniface and Baldwin I (Latin Emperor of Constantinople) around Thessalonica. Lastly, it examines the Marquis’ political network where his wife, ex-Empress Margaret-Maria of Hungary, had a key role in order to cleverly conciliate both Latins and Greeks’ interests.
Antonio Musarra, Alcune note sulla descrizione dell’Italia politica nel Masālik al-abṣār fī mamālik al-amṣār di al-‘Umarī (1340 ca.)
The article analyses a short text taken from the Masālik al-abṣār fī mamālik al-amṣār, written by Šihāb al-Dīn b. Faḍl Allāh al-‘Umarī (1301-1349) for the chancellery of the Mamluk sultans. Al-‘Umarī obtained part of his information from a Genoese he met in prison: in part, the description of the peninsula mirrors his testimony. More than political relations, he seems interested in the leading Italian realities’ institutional structures and military forces. His interest is predominantly diplomatic, although the military concern is not alien to him. The peculiarity of the text, not yet underlined, lies in the mention of the Italian term ‘comune’, transliterated into Arabic («kumūn»), which the author uses to refer to a type of political order other than the monarchy, typical of the cities of central and northern Italy.
Michele Donno, Le ragioni di palazzo Barberini. Il pensiero politico di Saragat negli anni della formazione (1922-1946)
Close to the liberal ideas of Gobetti and the Marxist reflection of Mondolfo, Saragat joined, in 1922, the unitary Socialist Party of Matteotti and Turati, making the themes of reformist socialism his own from his youth. During Fascism, he went into exile in Austria in 1926. In 1930 he moved to France, where he was the protagonist of the reunification of the PSI and of the anti-fascist unity of action. Back to Italy in 1943, he participated in institutional and governmental activities, accepting the appointment as ambassador to France in 1945. From Paris, he reported to De Gasperi about the meetings with the Soviet ambassador Bogomolov and the fears of the USSR about the possible birth of a European Social Democratic ‘third bloc’. This led to the conviction that the ancient Communist aversion to social democracies would regain strength after the war. The attempts by the PSI to merge with the PCI were opposed by Saragat, starting from the socialist congress of 1946, followed, a few months later, by the splitting of Palazzo Barberini.
Discussioni
Déborah Blocker, Mazarin, l’Italie et la France: nouveaux éclairages et paradigmes historiographiques persistants
This essay discusses three books recently published in French on Cardinal Mazarin, two of which focus on how his Italian origins might have affected his career in France and the ways in which he choose to govern. The paper investigates the historiographical frameworks within which the trajectory of Mazarin is understood in these new publications and it questions the narratives that cast him as a key figure in the development of absolutism and suggest that he worked tirelessly to enable the personnel reign of Louis XIV.
Anna Maria Voci, Firenze, punto di fuga: finalmente uno studio sui tedeschi-fiorentini nell’Ottocento
The essay reviews a newly published book of a Germanist, Rotraut Fischer, on the community of the so-called Deutsch-Florentiner during the nineteenth century. They were a group of German men and women, writers, artists, publicists, scholars, who lived for a long time in Florence in close contact with the intellectual and political élite of that town. They appreciated not only the history and cultural heritage of Florence, but also its bourgeois and lay traditions, the republican memories, the liberal atmosphere. They embodied a fusion of cosmopolitism and nation and played an important role as mediators between Italian and German culture, as bridge builders between the two countries during that time.
Recensioni [scarica PDF]
Gianluca Russo, Governare castigando. Le origini dello Stato territoriale fiorentino (1378-1478) (Lorenzo Tanzini)
Kurt Weissen, Marktstrategien der Kurienbanken. Die Geschäfte der Alberti, Medici und Spinelli in Deutschland (1400-1475) (Lorenz Böninger)
María Viu Fandos, Una gran empresa en el Mediterráneo medieval. La compañía mercantil de Joan Torralba y Juan de Manariello (Barcelona-Zaragoza, 1430-1437) (Sergio Tognetti)
Brian Brege, Tuscany in the Age of Empire (Francesco Guidi Bruscoli)
Pierluigi Allotti – Raffaele Liucci, Il «Corriere della Sera». Biografia di un quotidiano (Alfonso Venturini)
Notizie [scarica PDF]
Archivio Storico Italiano – ISSN 0391-7770