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Dante Alighieri is, undoubtedly, an enduring feature of the cultural memory of generations of Italians. His influence is such that the mere mention of a ‘dark wood’ or ‘life’s journey’ recalls the poet and his most celebrated work, the Divina Commedia. This study, however, seeks to examine the construction of the medieval Florentine poet, exemplified by the above assertion, as a potent symbol of the Italian nation. From the creation of the idea of the Italian nation during the Risorgimento, to the Liberal ruling elite’s efforts after 1861 to legitimise the new Italian nation state, and more importantly to ‘make Italians’, to the rise of a more imperialist conception of nationalism in the early twentieth century and its most extreme expression under the Fascist regime, Dante was made to play a significant role in defining, justifying and glorifying the Italian nation. Such an exploration of the utilisation of Dante in the construction of Italian national identity during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries aids considerably in an understanding of the conceptualisation of the Italian nation, of the issues engendered by the establishment of the Italian nation state, and the evolution of these processes throughout the period in question. The various images of Dante revealed by this investigation of his instrumentalisation in the Italian process of nation-building bear only a fleeting resemblance to what is known of the poet in his medieval reality. Dante was born in 1265 to a family of modest means and standing in Florence, at that time the economic centre of Europe, and one of the most important cities of the Italian peninsula. His writings disclosed, however, that he was little impressed by his city’s prestige and wealth, being instead greatly disturbed by its political discord and instability, of which he became an unfortunate victim. The violent partisan conflict in Florence and the turbulent political condition of the Italian peninsula in the late thirteenth century had a decisive influence on Dante’s life and literary endeavours.

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Entrepreneur, urbaniste, homme politique, éditeur et intellectuel italien, Adriano Olivetti (1901-1960) a proposé une lecture singulière de la modernité et a démontré qu'une voie alternative, complexe et désintéressée vers le bien collectif était praticable. S'appuyant sur des recherches peu connues, sur la consultation de la bibliothèque d'Olivetti et des fonds d'archives auparavant peu exploités, cette biographie intellectuelle reconstruit les parcours qu'Adriano Olivetti a tracé à travers son territoire, sa famille, l'organisation scientifique du travail, l'urbanisme, l'antifascisme, l'activité entrepreneuriale et la politique, permettant ainsi une interprétation globale et fondée historiquement de cet homme et de sa pensée. Adriano Olivetti est né à Ivrée, dans le Canavais. Entre Aoste et Turin, cette petite ville était peu industrialisée au début du XXème siècle, lorsque son père Camillo y a fondé une entreprise de machines à écrire. Etudiant en ingénierie, Adriano soutenait les principes de l'autonomie et du socialisme fédéraliste avant de se concentrer sur l'organisation scientifique du travail observée aux Etats-Unis. Au début des années 30 il a pris la direction de l'entreprise où il a inauguré une gestion rationnelle d'une production désormais de masse. Olivetti a ainsi observé que la modernisation de l'industrie, conçue comme le seul moyen pour généraliser le bien-être, créait de graves problèmes sociaux et urbanistiques. Ainsi, lorsque l'entreprise grandissait et conquérait les marchés internationaux, il a coordonné un plan urbanistique du Val d'Aoste. Antifasciste, il a conspiré avec les Alliés et a contribué à la chute de Mussolini. Pendant son exile en Suisse il a élaboré un plan de réforme des institutions italiennes qui aurait mis au centre de la chose publique les territoires, les «Communautés» qui auraient permis aux citoyens de participer de façon immédiate à la gestion de la vie politique, économique, urbanistique et sociale. Après son retour en Italie, en 1945 Olivetti a décidé de se consacrer à la politique et s'est inscrit au Parti Socialiste. Déçu par la partitocratie, il est rentré à Ivrée et a mis l'entreprise sur une voie où se rencontraient la préoccupation pour le bien-être matériel et spirituel des travailleurs, l'esthétique, la recherche technologique et le succès au niveau global. Entre 1946 et 1948 Olivetti a fondé la revue «Comunità», la maison d'édition Edizioni di Comunità et le Mouvement Comunità, qui dans les années 50 avait administré plusieurs communes du Canaveis et du Sud d'Italie par des pratiques de gestion du territoire inspirées par la rationalité scientifique à la base du dessein d'Olivetti. Un projet qui vers la fin des années 50 a dû se heurter à un insuccès double : celui du Mouvement, qui n'obtenait pas de consensus en dehors du Canaveis, et celui de l'entreprise, où l'alliance de succès et de redistribution des profits gênait les capitalistes italiens qui s'opposaient aux principes socialistes, keynésiens et fordistes d'Olivetti. Qui est mort en 1960, avant de terminer ses projets réformistes. Cette recherche reconstruit le contexte historique-culturel où Adriano Olivetti a développé et appliqué une conception innovante de la gestion de l'entreprise, de la culture et de la société, dont le centre était la personne et sa Communauté. Tout en évitant d'actualiser cet entrepreneur «modèle», cette thèse considère qu'Olivetti peut donner des réponses alternatives à des problématiques de la cohabitation sociale qui en Europe sont encore à l'ordre du jour, par son affirmation de la centralité du travail, de la valeur de la solidarité et de la liberté, par sa tension vers la juste reconnaissance de la personne au-delà des limites socio-économiques et vers des formes politiques qui prennent en compte la complexité sociale tout en permettant sa représentation dans les institutions. / Entrepreneur, urban planner, politician, editor, the Italian intellectual Adriano Olivetti (1901-1960) proposed a novel reading view of modernity and demonstrated that an alternative way, one that was complex and disinterested in the common good, was possible. Relying on previously unexploited research drawn from Olivetti's library and various archives, this intellectual biography reconstructs the life of Adriano Olivetti looking through the lens of the specifics of his territory and his family, the scientific management, urban planning, anti-fascism, entrepreneurial activity and politics, thereby providing a global and historically-based interpretation of the man and his thought. Adriano Olivetti was born in Ivrea, in the Canavese. Situated between Aosta and Turin, this small rural town had little industry when, in the early twentieth century, his father Camillo Olivetti founded a typewriters' factory. Camillo was a socialist of Jewish origin, whose wife was Waldensian, and his son was educated in religious freedom and would become a Catholic. As an engineering student, Adriano Olivetti supported the principles of autonomy and of federalist socialism, before focusing on scientific management which he had observed in the USA. In the early '30s he became the director of the company, where he inaugurated the scientific management of mass production. He subsequently noticed that the modernization of industry, conceived as the only means to generalize the well-being, generated serious social and urban problems. As a result, as the company grew larger and conquered foreign markets, he coordinated an urban plan of the Val d'Aosta. An antifascist, he contributed to the fall of Mussolini by working with the Allies. While exiled in Switzerland, he developed a plan for the reform of Italian institutions which would set the territories at the center of politics, the "Communities" that would allow the citizens to participate more directly in the management of politics, economics, urban and social development. When in 1945 he returned in Italy, Olivetti decided to dedicate himself to politics and joined the Socialist Party and its Center for Socialist Studies. Disappointed by the party system, he returned to Ivrea and introduced a new direction for the company, one which combined a concern for the material and spiritual welfare of workers with aesthetics, technological research and global success. Between 1946 and 1948 Olivetti founded the magazine “Comunità”, the Edizioni di Comunità and the Community Movement, which in the '50s administered several municipalities in Canavese by management practices inspired by scientific rationality which was based on the Olivettian design, a project that in the late '50s collided with a double political failure: of the Movement, which could not achieve consensus out of the Canavese, and that of the company, where the idea of success equated with the redistribution of profits bothered Italian capitalists, who opposed the Socialist, Keynesian and Fordist principles of Olivetti. Olivetti died in 1960, before finishing his reformist projects. This thesis reconstructs the historical and cultural context in which Adriano Olivetti developed and applied his innovative concepts of company management, culture and society, centered on the person and his community. While avoiding to update this "model" entrepreneur, this thesis considers that Olivetti may provide alternative answers to some problems of social cohabitation that in Europe are still current, drawn from his affirmation of the centrality of work , the value of solidarity and freedom, its tension with the proper recognition of the person beyond the socio-economic boundaries, and with political forms that consider social complexity and allow its representation in the institutions.

My dissertation examines the cultural history of the Renaissance Venetian maritime empire. In this project I bring into conversation two historiographical subfields, the intellectual history of Venetian Renaissance humanism and the colonial history of the early modern Mediterranean, which have previously developed separately. In doing so, I examine the relationship between power and knowledge as it unfolded in the early modern Mediterranean. The ways in which Venetian Renaissance intellectual culture was shaped by its imperial engagements - and, conversely, how Venetian approaches to governance were inflected by humanist practices - are the central axes of my dissertation. In the first part of the dissertation, I examine the ways in which writing and textual collecting were used by elite Venetian readers to represent the geopolitical dimensions of their empire. I consider a group of manuscripts and printed books which contain technical, navigational, and cartographic writing and images about Venetian mercantile and imperial activity in the Mediterranean. In the second part, I undertake two case-studies of Venetian patrician governors who were trained in the humanist schools of Venice, before being posted to colonial offices in Dalmatia and the Aegean, respectively. I examine how their education in Venice as humanists influenced their experience and practice of governance in the stato da mar. Their personal texts offer an alternative intellectual history of empire, one which demonstrates the formation of political thought amongst the men actually practicing and experiencing imperial governance. Overall, I aim to build a picture of the ways in which literary culture, the physical world of the stato da mar, and political thought came to be entwined in the Venetian Renaissance; and then to describe how these dense relationships worked for the Venetian administrators who experienced them in the Mediterranean.

Italian artists working in eighteenth-century Britain played a significant role in the country's developing interest in the fine arts. The contributions of artists arriving before mid-century, including Pellegrini, Ricci, and Canaletto, have been noted, but the presence of a larger number of Italians from mid-century is seldom acknowledged. Increasing British wealth and attention to the arts meant more customers for immigrant Italian artists. Bringing with them the skills for which they were renowned throughout Europe, their talents were valued in Britain. Many stayed for prolonged periods, raising families and becoming active members in the artistic community. In a thriving economy, they found opportunities to produce innovative works for a new clientele, devising histories, landscapes, portraits, and prints to entice buyers. The most successful were accomplished networkers, maintaining cordial relationships with British artists and cultivating a variety of patrons. They influenced others through teaching, through formal and informal exchanges with colleagues, and through exhibition of their works that could be studied and emulated.

D.Litt. et Phil. (Historical Studies) / Refer to full text