Classical culture for a classical country: scholarship and the past in Vincenzo Cuoco
Giovanna Ceserani (Stanford University)
Abstract
What is the place of the classical past and its study in Italy, a classical country whose roots reach back to antiquity, but has existed as an independent nation only since 1860? T his essay (to be published in S. Stephen and P. Vasunia eds., Classics and National Cultures, OUP) explores this question through analysis of a historical novel set in ancient Greek South Italy and written by a founder of Italian Risorgimento. Cuoco’s turn to the past in order to build a modern Italian identity is caught between European Hellenism and alternative ancient pasts of Italy . Moreover, as Cuoco co-opted Italian scholarship to bestow authority on his vision, a new relationship between classical scholars and natio nal past emerged: scholars study , shape and preserve the nation’s antiquity , but become at the same time, to an extent, themselves cultural patrimony.
Guide: When in 273 BC the Romans arrived here and here for the first time they encountered the Greeks, history took a great leap forward. What does this mean? Greek idealism, that is the civilization of music and philosophy, and Roman pragmatism, that is the civilization of law and rationality, perfectly blended and this created a new culture that is without doubt the fundamental basis of our western civilization, of which, we Italians, the greatest people on earth, should be proud heirs. In our blood we have the chromosomes of both the Greeks and the Romans, the greatest peoples who ever walked on this earth. Because of these chromosomes you feel the urge to leave behind the train of rationality at the station of your city, be it Verona, Turin, Milan …
Mimmo: Pescara …
Guide: … yes, why not, Pescara too, and board the ship of fantasy to sail away along the routes of ancient peoples and, once on deck, to uncork the bottle of enthusiasm!
The lines above are the first words spoken in the 2000 movie Pane e Tulipani (Bread and Tulips).
Giovanna Ceserani (Stanford University)
Abstract
What is the place of the classical past and its study in Italy, a classical country whose roots reach back to antiquity, but has existed as an independent nation only since 1860? T his essay (to be published in S. Stephen and P. Vasunia eds., Classics and National Cultures, OUP) explores this question through analysis of a historical novel set in ancient Greek South Italy and written by a founder of Italian Risorgimento. Cuoco’s turn to the past in order to build a modern Italian identity is caught between European Hellenism and alternative ancient pasts of Italy . Moreover, as Cuoco co-opted Italian scholarship to bestow authority on his vision, a new relationship between classical scholars and natio nal past emerged: scholars study , shape and preserve the nation’s antiquity , but become at the same time, to an extent, themselves cultural patrimony.
Guide: When in 273 BC the Romans arrived here and here for the first time they encountered the Greeks, history took a great leap forward. What does this mean? Greek idealism, that is the civilization of music and philosophy, and Roman pragmatism, that is the civilization of law and rationality, perfectly blended and this created a new culture that is without doubt the fundamental basis of our western civilization, of which, we Italians, the greatest people on earth, should be proud heirs. In our blood we have the chromosomes of both the Greeks and the Romans, the greatest peoples who ever walked on this earth. Because of these chromosomes you feel the urge to leave behind the train of rationality at the station of your city, be it Verona, Turin, Milan …
Mimmo: Pescara …
Guide: … yes, why not, Pescara too, and board the ship of fantasy to sail away along the routes of ancient peoples and, once on deck, to uncork the bottle of enthusiasm!
The lines above are the first words spoken in the 2000 movie Pane e Tulipani (Bread and Tulips).
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