This dissertation studies the diplomatic and political communication between Florence, the Byzantine and the Ottoman empires in the fifteenth century (1439-1481). The first chapter is introductory to the thesis and reconstructs the contacts between Florence and Byzantium. The second chapter and the third chapter examine the privileges granted by John VIII to Florence; the chapters present the contents and contextualise the privileges within the humanist environment. The fourth chapter studies the Florentine-Byzantine contacts after the Council (1439-1453), focusing on why Florence abandoned Byzantium. The fifth chapter analyses the beginning of Florentine-Ottoman relations and reconstructs the commercial privileges given by the sultan to Florence. The sixth and seventh chapters investigate Florence’s diplomacy during the Ottoman-Venetian war (1463-1479) and Otranto (1480-1481) until Mehmet II’s death. The thesis is accompanied by three appendices including a number of unpublished documents, a prosopography of the Florentines involved in the Levant, and selected Byzantine charters used for the analysis in chapter two. I aim to demonstrate that the relations between the eastern and the western part of the Mediterranean in the fifteenth century were determined by political and economic considerations rather than faith. These considerations guided Florence’s diplomacy to achieve commercial superiority in Constantinople.

Since the first definition of “italiano neostandard” appeared in the Eighties, more and more often “neostandard” forms, while already present in common speech, feature today in the written media, and even find their space in contemporary grammaticography. Through a corpus-based analysis, this dissertation aims at assessing the vitality of the neostandard as it appears in the written columns of three daily papers during a selected period of time in 2007. In particular, two phenomena are explored: the usage of the clitics ci, ne and lo in function of case marker (marca complementare); and the tendency to reduce the use of the subjunctive in epistemic modality. This contribution proposes the integration of different approaches into one interpretation of mechanism of cliticization as a continuum which goes from facultative usages of case markers to obligatory ones. In the second case the phenomenon of reduction of usage of epistemic subjunctive is described here as a reorganization (ristrutturazione). According to this study, within the category of epistemic subjunctive it is necessary to distinguish particular contexts after which the subjunctive preserves its status from the ones in which tends to be substituted by the indicative or the conditional.

This thesis explores the increasing representation of sexual dissidence on contemporary Italian mainstream television from 1990 to 2012. It argues that TV programming and regulations have been historically influenced by notions of an ideal family audience assumed to be traditionally nuclear, patriarchal, heterosexual and normative. The visual representation of sexuality in the media has been the subject of considerable international debate which has problematised the historical invisibilisation and misrepresentation of sexual dissidents, particularly in film and with an almost exclusive methodological emphasis on Anglophone texts. Less attention has been given to more integrated and empirical approaches to the representation, circulation and reception of dissident sexualities on TV. This study combines historical examinations of sexual portrayals on Italian television with two online ethnographies targeting non-heterosexual and heterosexually-identified respondents, discursively analysing whether and how these samples of viewers have engaged with this increasing TV visibility. The majority of participants seem interested in these portrayals and disagree with restrictive decision-making by networks. Nonetheless, a considerable portion of respondents appears to be problematically influenced not so much by the content of programmes as by perceptions of the views of others. The thesis demonstrates that audience research is an under-explored, yet very productive, field of enquiry in Sexuality Studies. Further research in this direction could have implications for network recommendations, transnational policy-making and new theoretical approaches.

This thesis explores critically two central notions in the work of Ernesto Laclau: populism and hegemony. From analytical and strategic points of view, some incongruities stand out. For example, the conceptual proximity between the two often hinders their respective explanatory and political purchase. Moreover, Laclau's arguments in support of left-wing populism appear not to examine in sufficient depth some important issues, such as the non-necessary but also potentially problematic relationship between populism and democracy and the question of the leader. In this thesis I examine Laclau's work and interpretations of his work before offering a fresh interpretation that will both retain and enhance the distinctiveness and relevance of populism and hegemony for contemporary debates in socialist thought, and emancipatory theory more generally. My argument is grounded on both empirical and theoretical sources, relying on a combination of concept- and case-based interpretive methods. The empirical aspect of the thesis, which consists of an in-depth study of the trajectory of the Italian Communist Party and the Ecuadorian Citizens' Revolution, is used to problematise the conceptualisation of populism and hegemony. From a theoretical point of view, I first conduct a geneaological analysis of the emergence of the two notions in Laclau. I argue that this prompts a kind of ‘return to Antonio Gramsci’, involving the mobilisation of some insights that were overlooked or progressively neglected in the reading that Laclau made of the Italian thinker. The strategic upshot of this is that, while it is paramount to think in both populist and hegemonic terms, the former does not necessarily imply or reduce to the latter, and vice versa. Finally, I put forward the case for an agonistic, radical-democratic and ethical left-wing populism, drawing from the contributions of Chantal Mouffe, Jacques Derrida, William Connolly and Jacques Lacan.

This study is a social history of communists in wartime Rome. It examines a decisive change in Italian communist politics, as the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI) rose from a hounded fraternity of prisoners and exiles to a party of government. Joining with other Resistance forces in the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale (CLN), this ‘new party’ recast itself as a mass, patriotic force, committed to building a new democracy. This study explains how such a party came into being. It argues that a PCI machine could establish itself only by subduing other strands of communist thought and organistion that had emerged independently of exiled Party leaders. This was particularly true in Rome, where dissident communists created the largest single Resistance formation, the Movimento Comunista d’Italia (MCd’I). This movement was the product of the underground that survived across the Mussolini period, expressing a ‘subversive’ politics that took on a popular following through the disintegration of the Fascist regime. Standing outside the CLN alliance and the postwar democratic governments, it reflected the maximalism and eclecticism of a communist milieu that had persisted on the margins of Fascist society. In the Occupation period this dissident movement galvanised a social revolt in the borgate slums, which would also trouble the new authorities even after the Allies’ arrival. Studying the political writing of these dissidents, their autodidact Marxism and the social conditions in which it emerged, this study reconstructs a far-reaching battle to redefine communist politics. Highlighting the erasure of the dissidents’ history in mainstream narration of the Resistance, it argues that the repressed radicalism of this period represented a lasting danger to the postwar PCI and the new Republic.

This thesis examines warfare, social power, and the state in central Italy for the period between 900 and 343 BC.1 The goal of this research is to better understand how warfare fit into the dialogue of social power in Etruria and Rome. This is achieved through the fulfilment of a number of aims. The first is to understand the patterns of warfare present in central Italy, as these can help us better understand the social aspects of conflict in the region. The project assumes that the practice of warfare is important for understanding its role in this dialogue, and thus an analysis of arms, armour, and tactics is also necessary. The second aim is to understand how warfare and politics affected one another. The condottieri paradigm is challenged and the strength of central Italian states asserted. The third aim is to explain the interaction between warfare and economic power, and the interaction between these two aspects of social power. The fourth aim is similar, and analyzes the connections that are visible between warfare and religion. Through these aims, this project creates a clearer picture of warfare in Etruria and Rome from the Iron Age to the Archaic Period. It argues that the exchange and dialogue of social power was not alienated from the state, and that independent warfare would have been of less value than it was probably worth. To this end, the Servian Constitution is re-examined and the idea of an early Roman hoplite phalanx, and single class army, is rejected. The original contribution of this work is in reasserting the position of the state in Tyrrhenian warfare and rejecting the idea that private interest was more powerful.

The common research interest of this thesis’s chapters is the dynamics of policy change in the context of the Italian governmental system. The collection of three published papers each included as a chapter in the core of the thesis is preceded by an introduction explaining the theoretical approach and research strategy. The chapters are consistent in following a middle-range processual theory of the politics of public policy decisions in a country case, an event-centric approach to explaining policy choice and an elite-interviewing approach to data collection. The first two chapters, respectively entitled “Government Innovation Policy in Italy (1993-2002): Understanding the Invention and Persistence of a Public Management Reform” and “Dynamics of Electronic Government Policies: The case of Italy (1992-2003)”, examine the dynamics of public management policy change in Italy over the period of a decade, employing the case of the Policy for Government Innovation and the case of the Electronic-Government Policy. The analysis of these two newly reported cases of enduring public management reform is suited to question the argument set by previous literature; that the country’s legalistic administrative culture inevitably suppresses meaningful reform. In particular, the chapters set forth two significant reservations about this argument, namely that the outcomes of public management reform initiatives are more varied than the current literature shows and the theoretical approach in the established literature attributes exagerate causal influence to the governmental system’s legalistic traditions. The third chapter, entitled “Explaining the Unexpected Success of the Smoking Ban in Italy: Political Strategy and Transition to Practice”, analyzes the episode that unfolds in a domain that addresses a general interest reform, very visible to public opinion, unlike public management reform. The chapter follows the issue beyond the pre-decisional stage, uncovering the dynamics of transition to practice: a phase between the formal passage and the full application of a law. A concluding section compares the three chapters, explores the interactions between analytically significant features of the Italian context and the policy cycle, and distils analytical refinements to the notion of policy entrepreneurship.

Venice has dominated the study of Ottoman-Italian cultural exchange in the Renaissance period, both in publications and, more recently, exhibitions. However, Venice did not have the monopoly in terms of relations with the Ottomans. This thesis looks further afield than Venice and beyond Gentile Bellini’s 1479-81 sojourn in Istanbul, arguably the best-known instance of such intercultural exchange, to reveal the complexity and diversity of Ottoman-Italian contacts and its varied cultural repercussions. This thesis considers the period 1453-1512 covering the reigns of Mehmed II and Bayezid II. It is not a study of cultural exchange through the trade of luxury goods, but instead focuses on the consequences of specific encounters that are mostly diplomatic. These encounters are explored in four case studies: Rimini, Venice, the Papal States and Mantua. Preferring microhistory to large historical generalisations, the scale of investigation in each section is limited to a particular moment of interaction between that region and the Ottoman Empire, and focuses on the individuals involved. Events are considered from both the Italian and Ottoman perspectives in order to reach a more rounded understanding of this complex meeting of cultures. It looks beyond painted and medallic portraits and demonstrates that Ottoman-Italian interaction can be perceived across a range of media. The marks left on Italian visual culture by relations with the Ottomans are revealed to have been as varied as each individual state’s experience. Comparison of each state’s connections with the Ottomans reveals significant differences in their dealings but also highlights certain common aspects such as the role of individuals as channels of exchange, the categories of objects which travelled across Europe and the manner in which cultural and technological exchange were often entwined. By bringing together three other city-states apart from Venice in a single narrative, this thesis provides a more nuanced account of the rich and varied forms of cultural exchange that have long been overshadowed by Bellini’s portrait.

St Nicholas was one of the most popular saints in medieval Italy. His cult attracted the attention of popes, kings and emperors, and his shrine at Bari became an important international pilgrimage destination. This thesis asks how the cult of St Nicholas came to be so widespread and popular in Italy, and why the saint attracted the attention of diverse groups and individuals. This thesis is structured around four chapters. The first demonstrates that through a process of Latinisation the cult of St Nicholas became integrated within Italian literary traditions and within a new spiritual era. Chapter Two reveals that this Latinisation also occurred within the saint’s iconography. Chapters Three and Four are case studies of the cult in Puglia and Venice, locations which claimed possession of the saint’s relics. These case studies show that the general developments that the cult of St Nicholas underwent in Italy, identified in Chapters One and Two, did not apply universally. Instead, the presence of the saint’s relics resulted in a different profile of the saint in Bari and Venice. Through the process of Latinisation, the cult of St Nicholas became updated and remained relevant for its new Italian audience; Chapters Three and Four show alternative ways that the cult of St Nicholas gained widespread popularity. This thesis presents for the first time an iconographical study of St Nicholas in Italian art, which develops existing research of the saint’s Byzantine iconography. Chapter Four presents a profile of the cult of St Nicholas in Venice in the Middle Ages, which is a significant oversight in the literature. The thesis uses a variety of visual and textual sources, in particular fresco and altarpiece representations, archival documents from Venice and Rome (including the Apostolic Visitations), and under-exploited contemporary and antiquarian Venetian sources.

This thesis is concerned with the debate on 'trafficking in persons' as a new form of slavery. It will explore the concept of slavery both historically and in its links with contemporary migration and connected issues of gender, sexuality, and labour exploitation. Within the contemporary debate on 'trafficking', attention has focused in fact predominantly on migrant women and girls involved in sex work and described as 'victims of trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation'. This thesis will explore the meaning of slavery in such debate. For this purpose, a research study will be carried out in three Italian cities, focusing on the ways in which such terms as 'slavery', 'trafficking in persons', and 'sexual slavery' are understood and applied within social protection programmes for victims of trafficking which, under Article 18 of the immigration law, grant a special residence permit and opportunities for such victims to work and stay permanently in Italy. The study is based on interviews with key actors working in social protection programmes such as judges, NGO workers, social workers, psychologists, lawyers, and police officers, on interviews with migrant women working in the sex industry and women using protection programmes, and on the analysis of parliamentary speeches and press articles. It will seek to critically assess the validity of 'new slavery' - as 'trafficking' is usually understood - as an expression to understand problems related to contemporary exploitative labour practices within the context of global poverty, dislocation of capital and labour, and restrictive immigration regimes. It will focus on the gender, 'racial', and sexuality aspects of anti-trafficking policies in Italy and how they get linked to citizenship within the socio-legal process enacted by Article 18 of the Italian immigration law. It will finally ask what kind of citizenship is granted to subjects who have been Otherised as 'slaves' on the basis of their gender and sexuality and who, through a postcolonial process of discipline and social control, are incorporated into the Italian society via their 'domestication' within 'proper' sexual, gender, and labour roles (i.e. as domestic workers in Italian families or as wives).