Italy's Past Research Articles

Geographical scattering in Italian inner areas, politics and COVID-19

<abstract> <p>In recent months, the COVID-19 pandemic has been fervently considered from the perspective of various disciplines in the scientific community. Many of the proposed approaches are tied to reflections on the imminent and future effects of the pandemic. This contribution begins with a study of the recent past in Italy, analyzing the hurdles in politics that came to light due to the wave of COVID-19 infections worldwide. Particularly, the research considers the criticality of the geographical scale of reference in Italy's political actions. COVID-19 induced a need for the government to interact with people locally, especially through small municipalities in geographically central, inner areas, is emphasized. The main aim of this research is to attribute to this specific COVID-19 disaster the instrumental role of turning on the lights on the need to intervene in the inner areas of Italy, often very neglected. So the focus of the work is on inner areas and the probable catalysis of the political management dynamics that concern them, as an effect of the COVID's impacts. The pandemic is, therefore, only the contingent phenomenon which, in this case, can perhaps accelerate political interventions in inner areas. To explain the reason for this, we show how the vulnerability of inner areas, already generally risky, has become one of the weak links in the chain of protection from COVID-19 in terms of a geographical scattering phenomenon.</p> </abstract>

Amarcord/Am'l'arcord. Fascism, Memory, and the Visual in Federico Fellini and Renzo Renzi

Abstract This essay reflects on questions of visibility and invisibility in the representation of Fascism through a study of the visual memory of Fascism in Amarcord and the photo-essay “Il Fascismo involontario,” which Renzo Renzi, Bolognese critic and longtime friend of Fellini, wrote in 1975 in direct response to the film. After retracing the roots of Amarcord to Fellini's collaboration with Renzi, the essay maps their contrasting stances toward memory: for Fellini, a delivery from the past; for Renzi, a practice of working-through. The essay explores the optics of Fascism in Amarcord through an analysis of the influence of photography and television on the filmic image and a reflection on the relation between visibility and invisibility in Fellini's cinematic spectacle. These visualities of Amarcord are then discussed in dialogue with the photographs accompanying Renzi's text, thus bringing to the fore the differing status of the trace in the two authors. While in Fellini's film the trace is an embodiment of cinematic pathos, in Renzi's critical reflection with photography, the trace becomes the site of what Roland Barthes defined as the “mad” encounter with the past, the site where Fascism is confronted as the “intractable,” a stubborn point of (in)visibility in Italy's past.

Evolution of STEMI network in Italy.

Italy has been one of the first countries in Europe to perform primary percutaneous coronary intervention (p-PCI) and some regions are still a model for the ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) network organization. However, in Italy, as in other European countries, some regional disparities emerge that are related to geographical, economic, organizing, and structural issues. Although some regions have excellent STEMI networks, others still have to optimize their models allowing to each STEMI patient to receive the best reperfusion treatment. The RETE IMA Web surveys documented that extraordinary advances have been made in the recent past in Italy in development of STEMI networks, in part thanks to the activity of the Stent for Life project. Indeed, the current annual rate of p-PCI/million inhabitants in 2016 is quite compliant with the standards recommended from the European Society of Cardiology.

From Terra matta to Terramatta; and beyond

The film Terramatta; Il Novecento italiano di Vincenzo Rabito analfabeta siciliano was inspired by my commitment to the practice of public history. I describe the ways in which the historical source represented by an ego-document, Vincenzo Rabito's autobiography, both encourages research into under-explored aspects of Italy's past and offers an opportunity to stimulate interest in the knowledge of that past among today's young generation. I identify the two main criteria that guided the selection of the film's narrative themes: first, relevance to the history of Italians between the First World War and the 1970s, not excluding its controversial moments; second, appropriate use of the documentary film materials stored mainly in the Archivio Luce. In signalling the development of a new project of digital history (http://www.archiviodegliiblei.it/) initiated alongside the film, I reflect on my own ambivalent sentiment of belonging rekindled by Rabito's autobiography.

Trends in Company Income Taxation with Special Reference to Merger and Acquisition Transactions

In this article, the author examines the major developments in company taxation in the recent past in Italy, focusing on those affecting merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions. Reference is also made to recent trends regarding anti-avoidance provisions, due to their effects on M&A transactions.

Italy: a reference guide from the Renaissance to the present

The home of popes and the Catholic Church, a place where celebrated artists and influential political thinkers have congregated, and a land of great beauty with a long and fascinating history, Italy is one of Europe's most distinguished countries. Exploring more than 500 years of the country's history, Italy provides readers interested in modern Italy or European history with a greater understanding of Italy's past, from the Renaissance to the present. Concise and comprehensive, this guide presents the milestones in Italy's history in an interesting and readable way. Containing information in a variety of useful formats - including a concise narrative history, a chronology of important events, and an A-to-Z dictionary of key people, events, ideas, and places - Italy is a key reference to a country that is often studied in school and is of high interest to general readers as well. Major areas of coverage include Italy's special relationship with America, Italy's troubled political history, and the contributions made by Italian culture to the world.

Multilingualism in Italy Past and Present by Anna Laura Lepschy , Arturo Tosi (review)

228 Reviews Poetry gets a chapter to itself,but theatre only figuresthrough Theatre of the Absurd in the chapter on experimental writing, and there is no discussion of autobiography except in so far as it features in autobiographical fiction. There is little that is overtly revisionisthere, either in the account of principal trends oftwentieth-century French literature or in the choice of authors fordiscussion. The roll-call of important writers runs from Proust and Gide through to Perec and Tournier, taking in Apollinaire, Bonnefoy, Ponge, Eluard, Sartre, Camus, Robbe-Grillet, Sarraute, Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, Colette, Beauvoir, Duras, and Cixous along the way. Inevitably in a book such as this, there is not enough space forsome authors who might have a claim for inclu? sion, such as Valery, Claudel, Cocteau, Mauriac, Giraudoux, or Malraux. Only one francophone author is discussed (Djebar), and the chapter on recent fiction focuses on three works, Perec's W ou le souvenir d'enfance, Tournier's Le Roi des Aulnes, and Djebar's Les Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement. Throughout, the author high? lights existential, experiential aspects of literature, so that even the most experimental writing is shown to be engaging with important issues as it strains to find new ways to express the traumas of the twentieth century. Literature emerges as a medium in which the possibilities and limits of ideas, identity, and experience can be explored. This is not primarily intended forthe specialist; rather it attempts to demonstrate to a less expert readership that French literature of the twentieth century is not as remote from our day-to-day concerns as it might sometimes appear. The touch is light and the more obscure quirks of critical languages are either avoided or explained. The book has the virtues of elegance, reliability, and accessibility, and it can be recommended with confidence to students who are new to the field. It should become a standard feature on introductory bibliographies for literature of the last century. University of Warwick Colin Davis Multilingualism in Italy Past and Present. Ed. by Anna Laura Lepschy and Arturo Tosi. Oxford: Legenda. 2002. x + 22opp. ?35. ISBN 1-900755-78-5. This interesting collection of articles derives from papers delivered at the Italian Cultural Institute in London on 20 October 2001, on the occasion ofthe Italian Lan? guage Week, under the auspices of the Italian Foreign Ministry and the Accademia della Crusca. Each paper in the volume, edited by Anna Laura Lepschy and Arturo Tosi, offersa stimulating reading on central questions in Italian linguistics, covering subjects from the formation of the language and the role of written and spoken Ita? lian in Italy and abroad, to contemporary issues of dialectology, sociolinguistics, and translation in the context of the European Union. The firstchapter, on 'The Italian of Renaissance Elites in Italy and Europe', by Brian Richardson, looks into the differenttypes of Italian available to members of the elites and to those of lower status in the fifteenthand sixteenth centuries, from both a written and a spoken point of view. The second chapter, by the late Joe Cremona, deals with 'Italian-Based Lingua Francas around the Mediterranean' in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, tackling 'a role of Italian almost wholly ignored by the historians of language, [. . .] that of being the chief diplomatic language between Europeans and Turks in the whole of the vast Ottoman Empire' (p. 26) and Italian's status as 'default language' (p. 27) in French and English consular documents of the time from Tunis and Tripoli. The two subsequent chapters explore the notion of multilingualism: Martin Maiden deals with the 'Definition of Multilingualism in Historical Perspective' (Chap? ter 3) and Mair Parry with 'The Challenges of Multilingualism Today' (Chapter 4). Nigel Vincent's 'Benvenuto Terracini and the Problem of Language Death' (Chap? ter 5) revisits, with original insights, a 1951 article by Terracini, reflectingalso on his MLRy ioo.i, 2005 229 position in the history of the realism versus idealism debate within Italian linguistics (see in particular pp. 67-69). Language-endangerment issues are as pressing as ever fiftyyears after Terracini's analysis: if?according to figures given by David Crystal in his Language Death (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)?we...

Lessons learned from malaria: Italy's past and sub-Sahara's future

No longer a major public health concern in developed countries, malaria kills 1–3 million people annually, mostly children under the age of five in sub-Saharan Africa. In 1998, the WHO launched the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) drive to halve malaria mortality by 2010. This article contrasts the problems confronting RBM with the successful Italian drive to eradicate malaria between the late 19th and mid 20th centuries. The Italians employed education and applied socio-political will; however, ecological and socio-economic conditions in sub-Saharan Africa are more hospitable to the disease. RBM strategies should consider the Italian experience while awaiting a major scientific breakthrough necessary to achieve success.

Book Review: Multilingualism in Italy Past and Present

Book Review: Multilingualism in Italy Past and Present

Cults of sacred memory: Parma and the Verdi centennial celebrations of 1913

Parma's lavish commemoration of the centennial of Verdi's birth took to an extreme the post-Unification trend to memorialize great figures of Italy's past. This essay examines the encyclopedic nature of the commemoration in the context of the local and national political climate. Its reception and display were symptomatic of contemporary changes in the physical sites of politics, sharing features with later, more overtly nationalist exhibitions and suggesting a symbiotic relationship between culture and ideology. The reception history of the monument to Verdi built on this occasion, however, warns against historical generalizations, underlining the contingency of the interactions between art, politics and ideology, and demonstrating that current concerns with nationalism often obscure more than they clarify.

Gender Ideology and Infant Abandonment in Nineteenth-Century Italy

Gender Ideology and Infant Abandonment in Nineteenth-Century Italy Few images of Italian women are more vivid than the devoted mamma, zealously protecting her children. That image is still invoked in Italy today when people lament the decline in family values. Yet it cannot withstand historical scrutiny, as an examination of the massive dimensions of infant abandonment in Italy's past makes clear. Just over a century ago, more than 33,000 Italian newborns were being abandoned every year at foundling homes which were so overrun by unwanted children that they scarcely knew what to do with them. For part of this period, over one third of all babies born in the cities of Milan and Florence were left at foundling homes. Nor was Italy exceptional in this regard, for similar mass abandonment of newborns occurred in France, Russia, Austria, Spain, Portugal, and elsewhere in the nineteenth century.1 Boswell's The Kindness of Strangers has directed attention to the staggering dimensions of infant abandonment in European history.2 Yet his book deals primarily with the centuries before institutionalized means were established in western Europe to deal with abandonment. Foundling homes were built in a number of Italian cities in the fifteenth century, and this system then spread to many other European countries. Abandonment of infants

Preserving the past: An international economic dilemma

1. Prefatory Note A few yean whilst living temporarily in Italy there was considerable controversy about the whys and wherefores of preserving Italy's past, a controversy which has recently erupted once again in connection with the preservation of Venice. I found myself emotionally involved in this controversy in a curious way. While walking in Turin down the Via Lagrange (which commemorates the illustrious inventor of the undetermined multiplier so familiar to economists) I was struck by the poor state of repair of the Palazzo Cavour where the famous Italian statesman had lived which contrasted strangely with the fine memorial on the edge of the Razza Castello commemorating the vinicultural achievements of Signor Carpano, the inventor of vermouth. With some trepidation I wrote a little piece for La Stampa in which I used this contrast in treatment as the text for some observations on the economic problems of preserving the past. I did not want to appear ungrateful for the kindness shown to me by many Italians and was careful to point out that neglect of historic buildings was not a specifically Italian phenomenon. I forecasted that I would have to defend myself, despite my cautious wording in the article, against charges of ignorance and betrayal. My forecast was completely wrong. My views were taken as an exposure of the municipal and governmental authorities' lack of concern for the Italian heritage and the fact that a 'straniero' was the supposed critic seemed if anything to call forth more than the usual amount of vituperation which Italians like to pour upon their bureaucrats. (A senior official in the Ministry of Education had to issue a stout defense of official policy.) I found myself unexpectedly popular. I was invited to the exclusive Whist Club in Turin of which Cavour had been a member. More amusingly, the firm of Carpano wrote to me in some embarrassment for they actually owned the decaying Palazzo Cavour! Would I have lunch with them in order for suitable explanations to be offered to me about their alleged neglect of cultural heritage? But in the end, this 'storm in a teacup' subsided. Nothing was done and no one apparently expected anything to be done, and the Palazzo Cavour, I believe, remains much as it was. The point of the story is that it illustrates the common phenomenon that a