ABSTRACT
Salvatore Leaci,
Polemica anti-islamica ed esaltazione del primato papale: aspetti della controversistica
domenicana del pieno e tardo Quattrocento
The paper examines the reaction by Dominican friars to the great Ottoman expansion in
XV century and resulting military and cultural threat posed by Islam. In authors such as
Annio of Viterbo or Juan de Torquemada, the traditional controversial themes of the Dominican
Order are also accompanied by an explicit doctrinal effort to promote the theory of Papal
primacy. From this point of view, the widespread turcofobia that the Dominican treatises tried
to feed was functional to the “mediatic strategy” put in place by the contemporary Papacy in
a deep moral and political crisis. Under this light, urging the whole Christianitas to a greater
anti-turkish and anti-islamic effort actually meant also trying to restore and confirm the Pope’s
universalistic role and his function as spiritual and political guide as well.
By pointing at Muslim “barbarian” as the enemy of the Christian faith and through an
extensive “teaching” action and active propaganda, the Dominicans tried to reassert the role of
the Papacy and emphasize the importance of the “heroic” civilizing mission of the Church of
Rome.
Keywords: Ottoman Expansion (XV cen.), Dominican Order, Anti-Islamic Polemic, Papal Primacy.
Francesco Gaudioso,
Tra Chiesa e Stato. La questione dei testamenti dell’anima nel Regno di Napoli
in età moderna
The essay reconstructs the plot of the conflicts between political and ecclesiastical power
(from the central and peripheral points of view) on the practice of so-called testamenti dell’anima
[wills of the soul] (or ad pias causas) imposed, sometimes abusively, by some bishops of the
Kingdom of Naples. They replaced themselves to the will of those who died suddenly without
having made any testamentary disposition of their property pro anima, in the name of an
“ancient and immemorial” custom (also widespread in France, England and Spain). This practice
boiled down to the threat of excommunication to the living (relations and heirs of the
intestate dead) and of the refusal, with tragic and painful results, of the Christian burial to the
corpses of the dead without a will.
Keywords: Kingdom of Naples, testaments, jurisdictional politics.
Gianni Buganza,
Nel travaglio del quotidiano: Padova e le crisi funzionali della giustizia penale
nel secondo Settecento
The XVIIIth century archive of the Maleficio in Padua is the documentary basis of the
analysys for this study. The A. propose a brief excursus in that system of law and in its crisis,
inside of which is analyzed the problem of the availability and peculato corruption. They are
identified as elements, potential or actual, of a more general structural weakness, made evident
by the large gaps left open by the system. The objective is to identify and understand – in the
actual carrying out of the criminal trial of the late eighteenth century Padua – some of these
ambiguities and distortions in the functioning of the judicial system.
Based on numerous examples from proceedings and documentary sources, the A. draw up
a interpretative category of “protected process” that may help explain internal crises in the
administration criminal Venetian. For example, paying particular attention to the scientific
analysis of the body, where the law meets science, which can be considered an important key
to understanding the development and for a better definition of the judicial practice and the
criminal process.
Keywords: XVIII century, Venetian criminal trial, Judicial System, Maleficio of Padua.
Lorenzo Tacconi,
Affarismo e politica: Carlo Cattaneo e la questione ferroviaria nell’impresa dei Mille
This paper examines the affaire of Neapolitan and Sicilian railways during the crucial phase
of the Spedizione dei Mille in annus mirabilis 1860, when Giuseppe Garibaldi - along with the leading
figures of his entourage including Carlo Cattaneo - was personally involved in the story. In this
situation the construction of more than 2,000 kilometers of railways was at stake for a turnover
of over 650 million of Italian Lira. The Garibaldini entrusted the construction contract to the
bankers of Livorno Pietro Augusto Adami and Adriano Lemmi, without involving the European
high finance linked to the Rothschilds and in contrast with the financial and political projects of
the Count of Cavour. The making of a modern railway network in Southern Italy was one of the
battlefields of political skirmish between Italian democrats and Southern moderates, longa manus
of Turin’s Government. The political conflict was particularly strong characterized by many
scoops in the newspapers and serious allegations from the benches of the Subalpine Parliament.
Keywords: Cattaneo, railways, Sicilia, Rothschild.
Federico Paolini,
La parabola dell’ambientalismo italiano: dalla centralità dell’associazionismo al
successo del localismo NIMBY
After a “golden age” characterized by the predominance of vertical forms of association – in
which the central structure, and its ramification devices, managed by the militants on regular basis,
is flanked by a broad participation of a voluntary nature – from the mid-90s of the 20th Century,
the environmental movement has been characterized by a process of transformation which has seen
the progressive institutionalization of environmental organizations and the emergence of several
protest movements at the local level who have taken an increasingly localist character.
The hegemonization of environmentalism by localist movements appears to have produced
two consequences. The first relates to the progressive deterioration of the democratic game, as
the will of the people expressed through the electoral mechanisms, achieved through representative
assemblies and safeguarded by constitutional guarantees is subject to the will of a small
minority as are Civic Committees. The second concerns the transformation of environmentalism
that in the interpretation of localist movements, ends up with losing its innovative qualities
and its global ability, confining itself to the role of a social actor devoted to the protection of selfish
interests or support uncritically strongly ideologized fundamentalist theories.
Keywords: Environmentalism, Conservationism, Political ecology, Nimbyism, Italy.
Marcella Rizzo,
“La meglio gioventù” e la produzione factual sul ’68: storia, militanza, memorie
At the beginning of the 21st century the number of the movies about the social movements
in the 60s seems to increase together with a new season of demonstrations both in Italy and
abroad. This new democratic vitality reminds to the past, even if there is no real correspondence.
Beginning with the case of the M. T. Giordana’s movie La meglio gioventù – its production
and distribution – and continuing with the factual tv productions, this article briefly recounts
the attention given to the social movements of the 60s and 70s by the state television between
the 80s and the first decade of the 2000s. A certain difficulty of giving to the images of that
period a suitable place in the Rai tv time scheme reveals the relevant role of the present of production
and broadcasting time. Moreover, the narration of those years is often related on the
personal experience of the past protagonists; on one side it recalls the individual and collective
identity of a community and on the other side it shows the will of a wider reflection, which leads
to a national collective memory, that in the principles of the past movement can find that red
thread of civil commitment which goes beyond time and generations.
Keywords: Sixty-eight, civil commitment, demonstration, terrorism, fiction.