Early Twentieth-century Italy Research Articles

A Project of Her Own: Emma Carelli's Enactment of Femininity in Early Twentieth-Century Italy

Abstract The story of soprano and opera impresaria Emma Carelli (1877–1928) has often been recounted as the tale of a successful prima donna who rather abruptly turned to opera management in order to assist her husband, Walter Mocchi, in his entrepreneurial ventures. Drawing on a wealth of unpublished primary sources – including Carelli's scrapbooks, critics’ reviews and a set of letters she wrote to the impresario, critic and agent Adolfo Re Riccardi – my article demonstrates that Carelli's choice was entirely self-motivated and the product of her unique set of individual attributes. The significance of Carelli's journey can best be understood by situating the singer and impresaria within her contemporary social landscape and by examining her personal story through the lens of women's history. Such a perspective unveils the strategies that she adopted to enact a stirring ideal of femininity in opposition to the values of the liberal state in early twentieth-century Italy.

En plein air: Light, space and fashion in Filippo de Pisis’s aesthetics

This article addresses the concept of en plein air regarding men’s fashion in early twentieth-century Italy. The act of painting outdoors has been addressed at length in the field of art history as one of the most radical practices of nineteenth-century avantgardes. It focused on the changing appearance of light and weather conditions, as in the case of the renowned French Impressionist painters, who often represented women and their clothing in the natural environment. However, en plein air can also provide an opportunity to reframe men’s fashion in its relationship with the environment. The Italian painter and dandy Filippo de Pisis (1896–56) relied on en plein air to constitute his peculiar vision of ‘pictorial elegance’, connecting painting skills with the experience of wearing clothes in open spaces, for instance, during a stroll in the Mediterranean sunshine. This article analyses de Pisis’s artworks and writings on male elegance and its pictorial qualities, aiming to explore the under-investigated invisibility of men’s fashion in the early twentieth century. By doing so, it challenges the misogyny of the antifashion rhetoric of Modernist aesthetics. The case of de Pisis is particularly interesting in this regard because it provides an illuminating pictorial and textual affective interpretation of the interdependences between men’s bodies, the colours and fabrics of their clothes and the qualities of the open-air environment in which they were experienced. This contribution intends to shed light on the concept of ‘pictorial elegance’ that was for de Pisis a queer, destabilizing and poetic transfiguration of masculinity in the context of European Modernism.

First Communion in Early Twentieth-century Italy: a Rite of Passage within Childhood

In traditionally Catholic countries, First Communion has widely functioned as a key rite of passage. In the modern age, and in particular during the eighteenth century, children were not admitted to the sacrament of the Eucharist until adolescence or even until the age of twenty. The ceremony thus represented a rite of passage that marked the transition to adulthood. A reversal of tradition came in some pastoral experiences of the nineteenth century and was officially established by the decree Quam singulari Christus amore – ordered in 1910 by Pope Pius X – which set the age for receiving Holy Communion at around seven years. First Communion still retained the form of a rite of passage, albeit without the adultist religious language surrounding Confirmation and without the pessimism about childhood that had been inherited from the past. The new educational outlook initiated by Pius X was also confirmed by his successors. Analysis of official Church pronouncements, devotional literature for children, and selected religious images – examined with an interdisciplinary heuristic approach – allows to shed light on a key shift in the Italian Catholic educational imaginary over the first half of the twentieth century, when Communion was seen as a typical childhood experience, in accordance with the changes underway in the upbringing and socialization of children and with the educational theories that valued children’s spontaneity and experience.

«Non eravamo mica in un romanzo»: Women’s Stories as Inspiration and Education

This article looks at the role(s) of girls and women as depicted in some early twentieth-century popular texts and in one more recent text set during those years: Bianca Pitzorno’s Il sogno della macchina da cucire (2018). Pitzorno’s coming-of-age novel explores the power of education, literature and work for an orphan girl, a sartina whose sewing skills allow her a degree of independence, and whose determination to learn, particularly through reading and conversations with other women, allows her to protect herself in a society in which women of her class and background are highly vulnerable. The novel’s engagement with turn-of-the-century popular culture both celebrates and critiques its importance in the lives of women, as the dramatic and melodramatic stories recounted in genre fiction, novels and opera offer the protagonist an escape but also an education. Through the tales – often tragic and cautionary – of Madama Butterfly, Jane Eyre and, above all, Carolina Invernizio’s Giselda (Storia di una sartina, 1892), Pitzorno helps a contemporary audience comprehend the strictures faced by women in earlier times, while also furnishing her young sartina with much greater agency than those antecedents. In reading about this girl’s reading, and about the lives of her friends and employers, we gain new insights into women’s work and leisure in early twentieth-century Italy, and see social expectations and class dynamics brought to life. We also encounter sobering parallels with ongoing issues in today’s society.

What is visual Vaporwave? Vaporwave arts and their history and position in China

By Vaporwave we refer to a digital-born electronic music genre and a trend in visual aesthetics. It emerged in some US-based online communities in the early 2010s, and now its visual expressions are in vogue in Chinese visual media context. In this article, Vaporwave’s aesthetics are discussed through three stages of analysis. In the first part, the paper outlines relevant theories and general features of Vaporwave’s (both visual and musical) aesthetics; next, the paper focuses on Vaporwave's visual characteristics, and, to provide a deeper understanding of its visual aesthetics, I discuss a school of painting derived from early twentieth-century Italy—Metaphysical art. In the second part, the article discusses why and how vaporwave aesthetics are inseparable from some Japanese visual characteristics and how it is represented in China, with particular reference to examples of Japanese comics from the 1980s/early 1990s and one popular Chinese video-focused social media TikTok in recent years. In the third part, the article focuses on illustrating Vaporwave's visual features in the Chinese context in recent years, and several examples are provided.

Rome Award: The ‘modern’ soprano: performing the donna nova in early twentieth-century Italy

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Artistic Philanthropy and Women’s Emancipation in Early Twentieth-Century Italy, in the Life and the Work of Romeyne Robert and Carolina Amari,

Romeyne Robert, married as Ranieri di Sorbello, started an embroidery school in 1904 in Umbria, at the family’s country estate of Pischiello. Her goal was to teach young peasant women to emancipate themselves by learning the craft of embroidery. She was inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement in America and by contemporary programs developed in settlement houses along the East Coast. Their aim was to help the emancipation of immigrant women from Italy by fostering the recovery of artisan skills. At the Sorbello Embroidery School, Romeyne rediscovered the Renaissance technique originally called the punto Umbro, later renamed punto Sorbello. She started the commercial co-operative Arti Decorative Italiane, which aimed to publicize and sell the articles produced both by her school and by other emerging embroidery schools. Romeyne collaborated closely with Carolina Amari, one of the most accomplished textile designers of her time. Carolina Amari was well known in wider circles related to women’s emancipation: she was influential in setting up Industrie Femminili Italiane, in 1904. During her stay in the United States, with the sponsorship of prominent personalities in the Italian American community such as Florence Colgate and Gino Speranza, she set up the Scuola di Industrie Italiane in 1908. A number of pieces from the Sorbello Embroidery School are now held by the Cooper Hewitt Museum, which also holds pieces produced by Arti Decorative Italiane and by Scuola di Industrie Italiane. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, holds an important sampling of embroideries by Carolina and Francesca Amari. Our paper aims to analyze the main patterns developed by the Sorbello Embroidery School and describe the cultural background that underpinned the movement of artistic philanthropy and women’s emancipation in early twentieth-century Italy. It also focuses on the personalities of pioneer entrepreneurs and textile designers such as Romeyne and Carolina Amari.

Artistic Philanthropy and Women’s Emancipation in Early Twentieth-Century Italy, in the Life and the Work of Romeyne Robert and Carolina Amar

Romeyne Robert, married as Ranieri di Sorbello, started an embroidery school in 1904 in Umbria, at the family’s country estate of Pischiello. Her goal was to teach young peasant women to emancipate themselves by learning the craft of embroidery. She was inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement in America and by contemporary programs developed in settlement houses along the East Coast. Their aim was to help the emancipation of immigrant women from Italy by fostering the recovery of artisan skills. At the Sorbello Embroidery School, Romeyne rediscovered the Renaissance technique originally called the punto Umbro, later renamed punto Sorbello. She started the commercial co-operative Arti Decorative Italiane, which aimed to publicize and sell the articles produced both by her school and by other emerging embroidery schools. Romeyne collaborated closely with Carolina Amari, one of the most accomplished textile designers of her time. Carolina Amari was well known in wider circles related to women’s emancipation: she was influential in setting up Industrie Femminili Italiane, in 1904. During her stay in the United States, with the sponsorship of prominent personalities in the Italian American community such as Florence Colgate and Gino Speranza, she set up the Scuola di Industrie Italiane in 1908. A number of pieces from the Sorbello Embroidery School are now held by the Cooper Hewitt Museum, which also holds pieces produced by Arti Decorative Italiane and by Scuola di Industrie Italiane. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, holds an important sampling of embroideries by Carolina and Francesca Amari. Our paper aims to analyze the main patterns developed by the Sorbello Embroidery School and describe the cultural background that underpinned the movement of artistic philanthropy and women’s emancipation in early twentieth-century Italy. It also focuses on the personalities of pioneer entrepreneurs and textile designers such as Romeyne and Carolina Amari.

Dishonourable women? Infanticide and honour in Basilicata, 1880–1914

ABSTRACT In late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Italy, after conceiving an illegitimate child, women sometimes committed infanticide to restore their honour. The Italian Penal Code even included an honour excuse to justify such crimes, which could lead to a mitigated sentence. Using cases of infanticide from the southern Italian region of Basilicata, this article explores use of the honour excuse among women accused of infanticide. While the excuse was invoked in all infanticide cases, the statements and testimony from the proceedings show that saving their honour was not always the primary concern. Honour was tied to many other aspects of daily life, including the family’s reputation in society and its economic position. An examination of these cases shows that in committing infanticide and claiming the honour excuse, the accused women were largely motivated by social and economic consequences of dishonourable actions.

Still Afraid of Legal Pluralism? Encountering Santi Romano

The second edition of Santi Romano’s book, The Legal Order, now appearing in its first English translation (2017), is a pioneer text of legal pluralism. Its interest lies in its extreme radicalism and in the fact that, although it is written by a lawyer, its argument has many important political implications and addresses core conceptual issues in contemporary sociolegal studies of legal pluralism. The social and political context of Romano’s book in early twentieth-century Italy is far from being solely of historical interest. Issues that surrounded his juristic thinking in its time resonate with important political and social issues of today.

Le storie di Conrad. Biografia intellettuale di un romanziere by Richard Ambrosini

Reviewed by: Le storie di Conrad. Biografia intellettuale di un romanziere by Richard Ambrosini Tania Zulli Richard Ambrosini. Le storie di Conrad. Biografia intellettuale di un romanziere. Rome: Carocci, 2019. 339 pp. ISBN: 9788843096435. At a publishing house in Milan called Bottega di Poesia (Poetry Workshop), a group of artists and intellectuals meet in a sophisticated art gallery in via Montenapoleone to discuss the publication of the first Italian translation of Heart of Darkness; these images provide a rather different setting from what one expects when opening a book on Joseph Conrad. We are used to thinking about Conrad’s life and career differently, in the context of cold Eastern cities and political unrest, or in tropical islands and stormy seas. By choosing a different country as the background of Conrad’s intellectual life, Richard Ambrosini’s new book, Le storie di Conrad. Biografia intellettuale di un romanziere (Conrad’s Stories: Intellectual Biography of a Novelist), makes its aim clear from the beginning. The analysis starts by adopting a “consciously Italian critical viewpoint” (13; my translations throughout). The aforementioned setting, in fact, refers to Conrad’s reception in early twentieth-century Italy. A few months before he died in Bishopsbourne, Conrad was being born as a novelist in another country, thanks to that first translation of Heart of Darkness and to a famous essay by Emilio Cecchi who was to launch his name as a great European novelist. Later, interest in Conrad spread out through Italo Calvino and to other critics so that, by the second half of the twentieth-century, Italy was the only country boasting two complete editions of his works, translated and edited by Bompiani (1947–1966) and Mursia (1967–1982) respectively. Such an introduction leads the reader to reflect on a crucial issue: what is Conrad’s position as an intellectual, a writer, and a novelist today? To which [End Page 114] country does the “cosmopolitan,” Anglo-Polish, world-travelling writer belong? These are questions the book answers in a number of ways by presenting different “stories” about Conrad. In fact, we can read a “Story of the origins,” “Stories of the Malay Archipelago,” “Stories of the sea,” and “Stories of love.” Through these narrations, Conrad’s life and career are presented in a fresh, original way, and anyone approaching this volume should be ready to welcome a new critical view of the author, made complex by this innovative inflection. The focus on “an Italian Conrad” is meant as an invitation to consider a wider analytical outlook, namely, it is there to remind us that a reading limited to a one-sided, Anglocentric perspective cannot be considered as a viable hermeneutical path anymore. Looking at an Italian, Polish, French, American Conrad becomes the only way to define—and redefine—his poetics in broader terms. Also, the importance given to the transnational quality of his fiction is presented in the book by linking his works to a great number of other stories, references, and authors. As a transnational novelist, Conrad’s artistic identity is better understood when seen in the light of names such as Proust, Kafka, Dostoevsky, Mann, etc. This transnational orientation is related to the idea of the Conradian text as a site of theoretical elaboration. In this volume, Conrad’s stories become the intellectual biography of a novelist precisely because another story emerges from the analysis of his narratives; one whose author is an original and nonconformist intellectual able to transform his ideal artistic project in fictional practice by inventing different forms, techniques, and narrative structures, and by changing plots, character types, geographical and historical settings (17). Ambrosini’s study is led by one main purpose, that of analysing how Conrad’s novels speak, and not simply focusing on what they speak about. This allows considerations of Conrad himself as an “orchestrator of different viewpoints and temporal shifts” (18). The reader of Le storie di Conrad is accompanied by this idea through the whole corpus of his novels and most of his minor fiction, all of which are analysed by keeping an eye constantly turned to the Author’s Notes—and to A Personal Record—defined as “reading guides.” Conrad was aware that the...

CHALLENGES FACED BY SOUTH AFRICAN INTELLECTUALS: A GRAMSCIAN PERSPECTIVE

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relevance of one of Antonio Gramsci’s ideas, namely, intellectuals, to a different context from that in which his writings were conceived. It has been over seventy years since Gramsci’s death in 1937; perhaps the time is appropriate to question whether the ideas of one of the most ingenious thinkers and theorists of the twentieth century still has currency in the transformed circumstances of the twenty-first century. I aim, in fact, to prove the continuing relevance of Gramsci’s writings to a context other than early twentieth-century Italy by analysing, interpreting and assessing the ways in which his ideas on intellectuals still speak to us in the circumstances of apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa.Gramsci is important to South Africa as conditions in this country are notably similar to those prevailing in Italy in Gramsci’s time. I will show that South African intellectuals, like the Italian intellectuals described by Gramsci, also face numerous challenges. I will examine the views of various commentators on the roles, functions and challenges that South African intellectuals face in a post-apartheid society.

The Great Black Spider on its Knock-Kneed Tripod: Reflections of Cinema in Early Twentieth-Century Italy

The Great Black Spider on its Knock-Kneed Tripod: Reflections of Cinema in Early Twentieth-Century Italy

Ideological Contention: Antonio Gramsci and the Connection Between Race and Social Movement Mobilization in Early Twentieth-Century Italy

This article introduces the concept “ideological contention” into the study of social movements and demonstrates the concept through an analysis of the relationship between race and mobilization in modern national contexts. The analysis links the emergence of scientific racism to the period of large nation state consolidation and the development of liberal political ideologies across Western nations. The paper demonstrates that movement struggles within the context of a national ideological framework impact the organization, process of ideological elaboration, and strategic choices a movement makes. I explore how ideology organizes, coordinates, and mobilizes movement members in political processes through a study of Sardinian worker, peasant, and communist struggles in the context of a modernized and industrialized Italy (1917–1920). I argue that reevaluating the theoretical and empirical relationship between ideology and the frame perspective could strengthen analyses of social movement struggles.

The Great Black Spider on Its Knock-Kneed Tripod. Reflections of Cinema in Early Twentieth-Century Italy

The Great Black Spider on Its Knock-Kneed Tripod. Reflections of Cinema in Early Twentieth-Century Italy

Michael Syrimis, The Great Black Spider on its Knock-kneed Tripod: Reflections of Cinema in Early Twentieth-century Italy

Michael Syrimis, <i>The Great Black Spider on its Knock-kneed Tripod: Reflections of Cinema in Early Twentieth-century Italy</i>

Pagan Rome was Rebuilt in a Play: Roggero Musmeci Ferrari Bravo and the Representation of Rumon

Outside of its national boundaries, studies regarding twentieth-century Italian occultism have been sorely lacking. While the role of occultism and occultists in modern nations such as England, Germany, France and the United States, has been studied in detail, the events and main characters that influenced the esoteric circles in early twentieth-century Italy have been mostly neglected or relegated to very cursory enquiries. It is my intention, in this paper, to focus on the theme of a Pagan new beginning for the newly reunited Italy, first sketching a historical portrayal of the influence the idea of Ancient Rome had on both artists and occultists, then focusing, by utilising recently discovered archival material, on poet and playwright Roggero Musmeci Ferrari Bravo and his tragedy on the birth of Rome, Rumon Sacrae Romae Origines, viewing the play as an attempt to mass-initiate the auience to the alleged palingenetic virtues of Roman traditionalism, in view of a new Italian renaissance.

The Daily Battles of Antonio De Viti De Marco

This paper analyses the economist Antonio de Viti de Marco’s collaboration with the daily press, in relation to his scientific work and in the context of early twentieth century Italy. It brings out De Viti’s proposals for free trade and fiscal policies intended to support the development of the southern regions of Italy, as well as his critical attitude towards the public sector and its decision making processes. It also highlights his political activities and commitment, an important aspect of his achievement, yet all but unknown outside Italy.

Political Ideology and Music :Based on Puccini criticism in early Twentieth-Century Italy

Political Ideology and Music :Based on Puccini criticism in early Twentieth-Century Italy

Nascere diseguali: considerazioni su eugenetica ed ereditarismo in Italia

At the end of the nineteenth century, Francis Galton founded the new science of «eugenics», with the aim of improving the «racial qualities of future generations». His intent was to create a new discipline integrating the themes of biological heredity, natural selection, and social stratification. This survey discusses recent literature on the spread of eugenics in early twentieth-century Italy, showing the peculiarities of Italian practitioners.Keywords: Eugenics; Racism; Italy; Social Stratification; Francis Galton: Corrado GiniParole chiave: eugenetica; razzismo; Italia; stratificazione sociale; Francis Galton; Corrado Gini