Ne forenses ad officia admittantur in Provincia: the controversy about the “indigenate” and the officers from Kingdom of Sicily in Provence, by Serena Morelli
The essay deals with the presence of officers sent from Southern Italy to the Provençal area during the Angevin kingdom. Using the unpublished sources, kept in the Marseille’s archives and the rich production of the most recent Angioinist literature, it compares the policies of recruitment of sovereigns, and the position of urban communities, formalized in the deliberations of the city councils and not always favorable to receive foreign officers.
Keywords: Circulation, Medieval citizenships, Angevins, Officers, Southern Italy, Provence.
Ceuta, the Portuguese and Venice in 1415: a tale of secrets, rumours and an epic enterprise, by Francesco Guidi Bruscoli
In the Late Middle Ages Venice was a key centre for the circulation of information. Not surprisingly, an event such as the conquest of Ceuta by the Portuguese in 1415 shows its echoes in contemporary Venetian sources, such as the Diario by Antonio Morosini. It is well known that the Portuguese tried to dissimulate the true objective of their enterprise whilst the large fleet was undergoing its preparation. News transmitted to Venice reflect the different degrees of awareness about the events by the Venetians and by other European powers: initially many hypotheses were made, and only after the conquest everyone learned the truth.
Keywords: Ceuta, Venice, Information, Morosini, Diplomacy.
The career and artistic patronage of a florentine patrician: Giovanni di Agnolo Niccolini (1544-1611), by Andrea Zagli
The personal and family history of Giovanni di Agnolo Niccolini (1544-1611) in many ways recounts the modifications affecting the Florentine patriciate in the second half of the sixteenth century. The aristocratisation of the patriciate, which carried within peculiar mercantile and banking origins, found its first legitimacy in the exercise of public offices, and was connected to longevity and participation of lineages in the leading roles of administration, diplomacy and politics. Furthermore, from the fifteenth century onwards this aristocratic identity began to be stated also by means of cultural and artistic patronage to the point that the patriciate became the culturally leading class in Medicean Florence, as ‘city of art’ that the dominant family, together with the elite, was promoting to legitimate and exalt its power and pre-eminence both within and beyond the city. These features are analysed along the life of Giovanni Niccolini thanks to the extensive historical sources preserved in Niccolini’s family archive. His career fully displayed – before his role as resident ‘ambassador’ to the Holy See (1587-1611) – a well-planned path under the Medici’s rule towards a dimension of the ‘perfect’ Florentine gentleman: rich, with prominent kinships, in the favour of the sovereign, loving art and artistic patronage with a key role in justify the social rise and the historical identity of his lineage.
Keywords: Florentine patriciate, Florence in the second half of XVI cen., Art and power, Family archives.
The industrialists and the State facing the issue of work security: the case of ENPI from its origins to the “reconstitution” in Republican Italy, by Raffaella Biscioni
The essay relating the topic of safety at work during the fascist period and the Republican age, through the case of the ENPI – Ente Nazionale Propaganda Infortuni, founded in 1932. The work of the ENPI was an important part of accident prevention policies in Italy, carrying out work inspection and raising awareness tasks, of advice and anti-accident propaganda to the interested industrialists, through the entire twentieth century (if we consider that it was born directly on the stump of some previous experiences such as the AIPI and the ANPI, which dated back to the years ’90 of the nineteenth century). From its foundation as a private association by industrialists in the beginning of the century, to its close collaboration before and its subsequent absorption by INAIL in the 1970s, has gone through in its activity and organization phases of continuity and discontinuity closely linked not only to the Italian socio-political context but also to the evolution of the issue of workers’ health and social insurance.
Keywords: ENPI, Safety at work, Propaganda, Fascism, Occupational health.
The ambivalent evolution. The diplomacy of Bonn and the PCI from Brandt to Schmidt, by Filippo Triola
The essay analyses the Italian Communist Party from the West German perspective between 1969-1977. The analysed sources are in the historical Archive of the German Foreign Ministry. With Chancellor Willy Brandt began a «strategy of attention» of German diplomacy towards the PCI. This approach facilitated a good knowledge of the dynamics of the Italian communist party. However, for Auswärtiges Amt Berlinguer was the protagonist of an ambivalent evolution. After 1976, the main objective of the Schmidt government was to block the participation of communists in the government of Italy.
Keywords: Italy, Federal Republic of Germany, Italian Communist Party, Cold War, Berlinguer, Brandt.
The United Kingdom to the test of Europe. From the Delors report to the extraordinary summit in Rome (27-28 October 1990), by Eva Garau
In October 1990, a special meeting of the European Council was held in Rome, under the Italian presidency. On paper just an informal stage in the process of European integration, the event turns out to become a crucial turn for the British government, led by Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher’s isolation, due to her refusal to sign any agreement concerning the deadline for the beginning of phase II of the process of European economic and monetary integration, contributes to undermine her authority as leader of the conservative party as well as prime minister, to the extent that she hands in her resignations a few weeks after the meeting. This article assesses the importance of the special Council through the analysis of the British documents recently released. Its aim is that of tracing back the main factors which influenced Thatcher’s reaction to the Delors report first and to the Carli report later, highlighting to what extent the battle fought in Europe played a role in the evolution of British internal affairs as well as in Thatcher’s own faith.
Keywords: Margaret Thatcher, Monetary integration, Delors report, Rome Council of Europe, National sovreignity.
The birth of a new discipline of the past? Public History in Italy, by Serge Noiret
This essay has been published ten years after Ricerche Storiche’s special issue on Media and History coordinated by Francesco Mineccia and Luigi Tomassini (2009) which engaged, for the first time in Italy, with Public History as a field of practices. It discusses the origins and development of public history in Italy. Public history in the Peninsula has its roots in historical institutions born in the 19th century and in the post WW2 first Italian Republic. The concept of a “public use of history” (1993), the important role played by memory issues in post-war society, the birth of public archaeology (2015) before public history, and the emergence of history festivals in the new millennium are all important moments currently shaping the history of the field which are dealt with in this essay. The foundation of the “Italian Association of Public History” (AIPH) in 2016-2017, and the promotion of an Italian Public History Manifesto (2018) together with the creation of Public History masters at universities, are all concrete signs of a vital development of the field in the country.
Keywords: Public History in Italy, AIPH, History Festivals, Public History teaching methodology
