«Ibernia fabulosa»: per una storia delle immagini dell'Irlanda in Italia
The essay traces the history of the relations between Italy and Ireland from the 7 th century AD to the present. The Irish monks and pilgrims of the Dark Ages brought to the peninsula their hagiographic and legendary writings (such as the Purgatorium Sancti Patricii ), which contributed – together with reminiscences from Classical antiquity – to an Italian vision of Ireland as a land of portents and wonders; while after the first Anglo-Norman conquest of the isle the propagandist writings of Gerald of Wales where for centuries the lens through which Ireland was seen in Italy. In the age of the Tudor conquest and Reformation the island slowly lost its fantastic connotations, becoming an asset in the Papal struggle against Anglican England. Later on, in the course of the Italian Risorgimento, the Italian leaders of the movement – such as Mazzini, Cavour, and Cattaneo - generally saw the nationalist movement in Ireland through English eyes, both because of their innate Anglophilia and for reasons of Realpolitik. Only in the 20 th century, during WW1 and its aftermath, did Ireland and its national struggle receive in Italy less jaundiced and more sympathetic glances. In the late 1930s and in WW2 the Fascist regime tried to use Ireland as a lever against England; while in the 1970s and 1980s the reemergence of the Anglo-Irish conflict attracted again the interested attention of some sections of the Italian political scene, as did later the ‘peace process’. But through all this the Italian images of Ireland arising from present political realities kept being intertwined with the much older images of centuries gone by.
The Vatican, the Bishops and Irish Politics 1919-39
List of illustrations Abbreviations Preface Introduction 1. William Walsh and the Anglo-Vatican tradition 2. The Papacy, the Bishops and the Anglo-Irish war, 1919-1921 3. The hierarcht and the treaty 4. The Vatican and the Civil War 5. Cumann na nGaedheal and the quest for legitimacy 6. Cosgrave, de Valera and the Confessional challenge 7. De Valera, Fianna Fail and the catholic church Conclusion Appendices Notes Bibliography Index.
Urban Identities and Catastrophe: Izmir and Salonica at the End of the Ottoman Empire*
Two huge fires dramatically influenced the urban development of Salonica and Izmir, in 1917 and in 1922, respectively. These catastrophes occurred after the Ottoman Empire fell, and Salonica and Izmir had shifted into new national contexts. The fires mainly destroyed the districts that were transformed during the late‐Ottoman period. These districts became the cosmopolitan façades of modern Izmir and Salonica. The post‐fires' tabula rasa provided an opportunity for Greek and Turkish politicians and European planners to change the urban identity of both cities. Moreover, the Lausanne Treaty of 1923 transformed their multicultural societies also. Reconstruction plans had been thought to de‐Ottomanize and remove the previous idea of the towns and their multiplicity, interpreting new cultural and nationalist feeling. Here, I emphasize how modernity was interpreted before and after the fires, and point out contradictions between ideological aspects of planning and how the first urban districts were built during the 1920s.