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Scipio Sighele, The Criminal Crowd And Other Writings A collaborator of noted criminal anthropologist Cesare Lombroso, and a jurist under the guidance of Enrico Ferri, Scipio Sighele is considered a pioneer in the study of collective behavior. In the context of a late 19th century Italy which, like most industrialized European nations before it, begins to experience the disturbing phenomenon of masses, Sighele's 1891 study La folla delinquente [The Criminal Crowd] soon achieves international renown for its insights into the psychological mechanisms of collective associations, the power of social suggestion, and the criminal inclinations of crowds. An inspirer of Gustave LeBon and Gabriel Tarde, and equally recognized by Zola, Nordau, Durkheim and Freud, Sighele was rapidly translated in numerous foreign languages. Surprisingly, however, no English edition exists of his works. This volume in the Da Ponte series makes available Sighele's seminal text to the English-speaking audience for the first time, and highlights less known ramifications of Sighele's thought in the domains of sociology, psychology, law, politics, and literature through selections from subsequent works (La coppia criminale [The Criminal Couple], La delinquenza settaria [The Deliquency of Sects], Letteratura tragica [Tragic Literature], Nella scienza e nell'arte [In Science and in Art], Eva Moderna [Modern Eve]). What emerges is the multifaceted profile of a provocative and original thinker, who, by participating in a truly European intellectual debate, brings to Italy a new outlook on paramount issues like the role of urbanization in the development of criminality, the problematic confines between individual and collective accountability in mass society, the legal and ideological constraints in the education and emancipation of women, the social and institutional challenges to the care and upbringing of children, the responsability of literary representation in the relationship between aesthetic standards and ethical norms.
The Novissimi, Poetry for the Sixties No postwar literature has been as fundamentally and relentlessly experimental as Italian poetry since the mid-1950s. In the forefront of this renewed interest in experimentation were five neo-avant-garde poets called the Novissimi, from the 1961 publication of their anthology of the same name. Their work exploded the aesthetic conventions and tolerances of their contemporaries, fostering wave after wave of innovative poets and fiction writers in Italy and other countries. The five poets of the Novissimi-Nanni Balestrini, Alfredo giuliani, Elio Pagliarani, Antonio Porta, and Edoardo Sanguineti-shared a definite sense of linguistic crisis, demanding of poetry a life within the critical moment. This newly annotated bilingual edition of I Novissimi features both the original 1961, and the 1965 introduction by Alfredo giuliani, as well as his foreword for the first North-American edition of the anthology (Sun and Moon Press, 1995). Included are also the poets' statements on poetics that have accompanied the anthology since its inception. I Novissimi is an invaluable tool in the recontextualization of the critical debate on Poetry that has pervaded Europe in the second half of the XX century. Gasparo Contarini, De magistratibus et republica venetorum. Trans. Lewes Lewekenor as The Commonwealth and Government of Venice. [London: John Windet, 1599] The seldom interrupted outpouring of books on the Republic of Venice has built up an almost comprehensive account of the importance of Venice for the study of western civilization, political thought, commerce and Italian history as well as art history. Missing in this steady torrent of books is a complementary collection of original texts and documents in translation. The publication of Gasparo Contarini's The Commonwealth and Government of Venice helps to fill this gap. Contarini (1483-1542) served Venice and the Catholic church in multiple capacities. His book places in sharp relief the constitutional and institutional dynamics that made the Republic of Venice the longest lived, self-constituted commercial republic. The analysis emphasizes how and why Venice managed to overcome the internal conflict and unrest that marked other Italian city states, including Florence - something that caused envy among the Florentines, including Machiavelli. Contarini's normative and empirical analysis also suggests how self-conscious and proud Venetians provided their own interpretative keys to their system of government and elaborated images of the city's distinctive origins, its particular values and special place in history, its novel constitution and its unique longevity. There is another dimension that makes Contarini's work stand out. As a devout Christian, he viewed the salvation of one's soul as a primary imperative for Christians. Yet he does not argue that the Venetian commonwealth rests on some supernatural or divine will. He does not call up the legend Venice became the ideal republic. Nor, as a patrician from an old Venetian family, he claims that Venetians succeeded where other Italians failed because of their virtues or faith. Contarini attributes the design of the Venetian republic to "wise and prudent ancestors" and mundane political acumen that brings together ideas and practices. The preoccupation in the design and practice of the Venetian constitution was "to establish unto the inhabitants a happy and prosperous felicity" so that they "might live happily and commodiously" on this earth -without, however, supposing that material welfare and well being are dependent on the altruism and benevolence of governors. The constitutional and political basis of Venetian prosperity was well appreciated by people in Europe (Bodin, Rousseau, Milton and many others looked to Venice for what it could teach them) and by specialized historians in more recent time. But this knowledge has almost disappeared from the general view. Anticipating Hamilton and Madison in The Federalist and much of contemporary analysis of constitutional political economy dilemmas, Contarini shows that it is possible to establish effective government in a commercial republic without surrendering to a benevolent Leviathan à la Hobbes. The book remained a primary source of knowledge about Venice since it was first published in 1543. The publication in English in 1599 helped to make it famous beyond the Latin-reading public in Europe. More recently, Eisabeth G. Gleason has written an engaging biography of Contarini entitled Gasparo Contarini: Venice, Rome and Reform (University of California Press, 1993); in his study of Controlling the State: Constitutionalism from Ancient Athens to Today (Harvard University Press, 1999), Scott gordon draws heavily on Contarini to discuss how controlling the state happened in Venice. Contarini's The Commonwealth and Government of Venice is an invaluable tool for connecting modern readers to the richness of the Italian political tradition. Vincenzo Cuoco, The Neapolitan Revolution [saggio storico sulla rivoluzione napoletana] Born in Civita Campomarano, Molise, Vincenzo Cuoco's life (1770-1823) spanned the period of revolution and reaction. He participated in the failed Neapolitan revolution of 1799. Forced into exile, he became the chief historian of the revolution, developing in the process the vocation of political theorist. He sought to understand two social dilemmas: why neapolitan revolutionaries put their faith in an abstract, Jacobin theory of political reform that was contrary to their own political tradition and why a revolution that should have created the happiness of the nation produced, instead, its ruin. In coming to terms with these dilemmas, cuoco showed that it was possible to criticize the political rationalism of revolutionaries without succumbing to either conservative (Burke) or reactionary (de Maistre) arguments. He offered theoretical and political lessons that went beyond the case of Naples and the problems that his generation confronted. His book was soon translated in German and French. With its reformist sympathies and subtle sensitivities to the decisive role played by context, tradition and culture. Cuoco's analysis became a critical source of ideas throughout nineteenth-century Europe. In setting the terms of reference for subsequent discussions of revolution, reform and reaction, Cuoco anticipated Tocqueville's later discussion of the old regime and the revolution in France and lent support to a moderate liberal current of the Risorgimento. Cuoco has continued to be read and admired by people holding quite different political views - from Manzoni to Giovanni Gentile, from Croce to Gramsci. The latter's insistence of the importance of cultural hegemony was in direct response to the difficulty highlighted by Cuoco in imposing a revolution from above. The Neapolitan Revolution remains one of the most influential important texts for understanding what and when "regime changes" succeed or fail, a topic important as ever. |
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