The Politics of Culture in Liberal Italy: From Unification to World War One (Routledge Studies in Modern European History)

With chapters on theatre and opera, architecture and urban planning, the medieval revival and the rediscovery of the Etruscan and Roman past, The Politics of Culture in Liberal Italy analyzes Italians' changing relationship to their new nation state and the monarchy, the conflicts between the peninsula's ancient elites and the rising middle class, and the emergence of new belief systems and of scientific responses to the experience of modernity. Book Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Contents......Page 8 Illustrations......Page 10 Tables......Page 12 Biographical Boxes......Page 14 Abbreviations......Page 16 Acknowledgments......Page 20 Introduction......Page 24 Part I Political and Social Conflict......Page 42 1 Notabili: The Local Persistence of the Old Régime......Page 44 2 The Theatre of Social Change: The Opera Industry and the End of Social Privilege......Page 70 3 Money and Culture......Page 89 Part II Writing the Past......Page 108 4 The Middle Class and the Historicising of the Present......Page 110 5 Medieval Revival......Page 126 6 Etruscans, Romans and Italians......Page 151 Part III The City, the Nation and European Culture......Page 184 7 Urban Space and Civic Culture: Representing City and Nation......Page 186 8 Margherita: Umbertian Italy and its Monarchy......Page 220 9 “Viva Rossini—Morte a Wagner”?: From Campanilismo to the Future......Page 244 10 Conclusions and Epilogue: Modernity, the Political Power of Culture and the Collapse of Liberal Democracy......Page 286 Notes......Page 308 Bibliography......Page 382 Index......Page 428